Every weekend, Save Korea worship services are held primarily in major cities. Large crowds gather in Seoul’s Yeouido, Busan, Daegu, and Gwangju to worship, chanting opposition to President Yoon Suk-yeol’s impeachment and demanding his release. I participated in real-time via the YouTube channel and joined in through comments, witnessing the rallies steadily grow in scale. Seeing citizens resisting anti-state forces together, transcending left and right with fairness and common sense, warmed my heart and made me regret not being able to be there in person. Since last year’s Enlightenment Decree, Christian conservative right-wing citizens, once a minority, have been gathering steadily. Seeing especially the 2030 generation awaken and raise their voices alongside adults made me, a 40-something like Mr. Jeon Han-gil, one of the main speakers, feel ashamed.

Among the 40s and 50s generation, who can be considered the mainstream force of this era, left-leaning individuals are easily found around us. I, too, didn’t realize I once held such values myself. And I came to understand that the biggest reason was that I held both biblical values and materialistic values. The words of Genesis tell a beautiful story of creation, yet I believed in science based on evolution theory. While the spiritual growth of my children was important, I also felt they shouldn’t be disturbed by weekend cram school studies—this contradictory mindset was precisely my own. I mistakenly believed that separating church and state meant avoiding left or right leanings, so I withheld judgment on the presidential impeachment trial. While I firmly believed freedom of religion and freedom of expression for gospel outreach must be protected, I unconditionally supported a democratic, progressive party that pushed for anti-discrimination laws and blocked revisions to the espionage law, thinking this was necessary to prevent dictatorship. I failed to recognize that they were the very ones persecuting freedom and suppressing expression.

After contacting an old acquaintance recently to ask how they were doing, I learned they had been removed from a key position due to a company reorganization and demoted to a marginal role. Yet they were venting their anger in the wrong places, furious at the president and first lady who declared martial law and their lies, and equally angry at the far-right citizens supporting such a president. He also lamented the economic damage caused by the president’s martial law, which had driven up the exchange rate and increased the burden of tuition for his child studying abroad in the US. So I explained that his perspective might be a narrow one formed within the confines of a corporate organization. Just as one must separate Trump from Trumpism, I told him he should separate President Yoon Suk-yeol from his policies. I shared that becoming a delivery driver myself, transitioning from an office worker to a self-employed individual, made me realize the importance of government policies and gradually shifted my perspective on society and the economy.

I admitted that, like many salaried workers in the past, their perspective on government policies or events tends to be very superficial. They develop a repetitive memory loss-like thought pattern where everything gets ‘reset’ when payday comes. Furthermore, the primary reason the dollar-won exchange rate rises is that as the gap between the US benchmark interest rate and the Korean benchmark interest rate widens, dollars flow out of South Korea, causing the exchange rate to climb. Moreover, many people with leftist values tend to have a distorted sense of elitism, believing themselves to be righteous or correct. They criticize the government’s failed real estate policies while aspiring to become building owners in Gangnam, or they claim the college admissions system is flawed and send their children to study in the US, becoming so-called ‘Gangnam leftists’. Yet, they want to enjoy the benefits of liberal democracy while avoiding the responsibilities and obligations that come with it, effectively undermining our society.

When the president first declared martial law, many were confused, while opposition figures rejoiced, believing they could finally push through the impeachment they had steadily pursued since the inauguration. When the president was illegally arrested through the Special Prosecutor’s Office and imprisoned in Seoul Detention Center, accused of insurrection based on false testimony from a few incited key witnesses and absurd evidence, it seemed the president’s fate was sealed. However, the tide began to turn as the younger generation, the 2030s, gradually began to realize the true nature of the anti-state forces that had long controlled the National Assembly, the Constitutional Court, and the National Election Commission, and that they were systematically following a script. What started small, the gathering of patriotic citizens, unexpectedly spread nationwide as the Save Korea Christian worship movement. Ultimately, the President was released from Seoul Detention Center and returned to the presidential residence just 41 days after being indicted and detained on January 26th. While many citizens were moved and welcomed him back, hearing that he had read the Bible extensively in detention, my acquaintance likely grew even angrier witnessing this.

His anger likely stemmed from his unwillingness to relinquish his conviction that he was right. And underlying that might be the unconscious fear that admitting I was wrong could mean I might not be forgiven. But I wanted to tell him that Jesus had already forgiven all our sins. I wanted to share the truth that only becomes visible through self-reflection—acknowledging I too can be wrong—and profound humility, realizing I am not the center of the world. Only after going through that process, seeing my own objective self, and enduring the painful repentance of admitting I was a sinner, can one obtain the peace and true freedom God gives. And meditating on the grace in Matthew 18, where the servant who owed ten thousand talents had his debt forgiven by the king, and the consequences when he refused to forgive another servant who owed him a hundred denarii, I rose at 4:30 a.m. today to write this blog and pray for him.