Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times

by Soong-Chan Rah

Andrew Park’s perspective on the theological concept of han arising from the Korean context provides insight into the experience of Jerusalem in Lamentations. Park defines sin as “the wrongdoing of people toward God and their neighbors. Han is the pain experienced by the victimized neighbors. Sin is the unjust act of the oppressors; han the passive experience of their victims.”12 Korean theologian Young-Hak Hyun further defines han as “a sense of unresolved resentment against injustice suffered, . . . a feeling of acute pain of sorrow in one’s guts and bowels.”13 Park’s distinction between sin and han points to the seeming incongruity of the depiction of Jerusalem as simultaneously the sinful adulterer and the victim of sexual assault. The language of sin as used by Western Christianity does not provide the necessary nuance to understand how a victim of sin experiences sin. “Traditional theology has emphasized one-sidedly the sin of all people, while ignoring the pain of the victim. Its doctrine of sin must be complemented by dealing with the suffering of the victim.”14 The shame experienced by Jerusalem cannot be addressed with the same methodology used to address individual guilt.