Cheyenne Korean - August 24

Today I made contact with Pastor Yoon Kak Cho of Cheyenne's Korean Presbyterian Church, and we met for a while at their building. Pastor Cho was born in Seoul, came to Canada as  an adult, and then to the US, where he has been a pastor in Portalnd Oregon, and now  Cheyenne. The Presbyterian Church has had a long, enduring, and strong missionary connection with Korea, and many American Koreans are Presbyterian. There is, perhaps, a similarity between Calvinism and Korean culture. 

The Cheyenne congregation is small - about 40 people maximum, he says, at a picnic. Winter services are smaller! Pastor Cho estimates that the total Korean population of Cheyenne is about 100, many of whom are women who are wives of American Air Force veterans. (Warren Air Force Base is in Cheyenne.) 

Pastor Cho said that the National Council of Korean Presbyterian Churches recently issued a statement saying that although the PCUSA has recently approved permitting the ordination of gay people and also permitting same sex marriage, the Council has unanimously stated that the Korean Churches will not do either one. Since the PCUSA ruling was permissive rather than prescriptive, the churches have that right. Pastor Cho said that, without such a statement, which was broadcast to the entire Korean-American community through its newspapers, the Korean churches would most likely withdraw from the PCUSA denomination. Koreans, he said, are more conservative, and he perceives no willingness in their churches to accept or embrace this change, either in his congregation or in the Korean churches as a whole. If they are allowed to exempt themselves from this permissive ruling, they can stay as loyal members of  the PCUSA. Other than that ruling, he says, we are Presbyterians.