A subcommittee that was assigned by the heresy committee of the Christian Council of Korea (CCK) to investigate whether Dr David J. Jang is heretical or not concluded its investigation and reported their results in the general meeting of the committee on December 21st 2009, clearing him of suspicion. This news was reported by Christian Today Korean Edition (CTKR) on 23rd and a Japanese translation was also published in the same day by the Japan Edition.
Four people, including Pastor S K Choi of General Assembly of Presbyterian Churches (TongHap) and Pastor H T Park of General Assembly of Presbyterian Churches (HapSin), have been opposed to CTKR for a long time. They raised the issue about Dr. Jang and lobbied CCK to form the subcommittee, which was made up of 7 people in Heresy committee to look into the issue. The subcommittee included Pastor Han Myung Guk, former chairman of the CCK heresy committee and one of the vice presidents of Baptist World Alliance. The subcommittee also included Rev. Chun Yill Park, former Executive Secretary of CCK. They are all experts on the study of heresy.
In the general meeting, following the concluding report from subcommittee, Pastor Go Chang-gon, the chairman of the heresy committee, asked attendants if it was OK to conclude the investigation. Pastor Choi and Pastor Park then insisted to continue the investigation at that time. The heresy committee agreed with doing additional investigating.
However, the subcommittee acknowledged that the issue has already resolved. The 7 members of the subcommittee have been researching for 2 months about the issue raised by the Choi party. In the general meeting, they explained that they did enough document research, interview, and summoning of witnesses to recount events in disagreement between both side.
In the last meeting of the subcommittee, held on December 11st, attendees included Dr. Jang and Pastor Cho Tae-young, Executive Secretary of General Assembly of Presbyterian Churches (Hapdong-Bokum) – the denomination in which Dr. Jang was appointed former chairman. On the other side, attendees of Choi party included Pastor Choi, Pastor Park, Pastor Jin Yongsic, Pastor Choi Byoung-gyu, and Mr. Lee Dong-jun, who was summoned as a witness.
Attendees from both sides spent more than five hours in total testifying, explaining and answering the questions about this issue . After that, members of the subcommittee debated for about two hours before voting. In the end, five subcommittee members out of six voted to have Dr. Jang “Cleared of Suspicion,” and the meeting concluded.
Pastor Go Chang-gon, the chairman of the heresy committee, shared his recognition that Dr. Jang is cleared of suspicion with CTKR and explained that the additional study “does not mean that study result has problem, but it is just respecting the request of those who want to study more.”
“It is just study and is not re-investigation,” he said.
Pastor Go warned against distortion, which is expected to be done by some media, and said, ”The agreement with the additional study does not defeat the conclusion of the subcommittee.”
