Diversity in the American Church: A Case Focus on the Korean Immigrant Church

Global Tides Volume 17 Article 6 April 2023 Diversity in the American Church: A Case Focus on the Korean Immigrant Church Claire Lee Pepperdine University, Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/globaltides Part of the Political Science Commons, and the Sociology Commons Recommended Citation Lee, Claire (2023) "Diversity in the American Church: A Case Focus on the Korean Immigrant Church," Global Tides: Vol. 17, Article 6. Available at: https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/globaltides/vol17/iss1/6 This Social Sciences is brought to you for free and open access by the Seaver College at Pepperdine Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Global Tides by an authorized editor of Pepperdine Digital Commons. For more information, please contact . Diversity in the American Church: A Case Focus on the Korean Immigrant Church Cover Page Footnote Acknowledgement: Thank you to my mom and dad for teaching me that the most important character is love. Thank you to my sister for always inspiring me. Thank you, Dr. Soper, for giving me the permission to write this paper and for being an intellectual role model. Thank you to Grace Ministries International for being a safe place for my first-generation parents and my second-generation self to encounter the love of God and receive the gift of the gospel in America. Thank you to Tapestry for teaching me what a Jesusloving community looks like. Thank you to Pepperdine for allowing me to live well and learn so much. Thank you to Nathan Rim for editing this paper and for being an encouraging friend. Thank you to 4ChristMission for allowing me to understand the joy of sharing the gospel. Thank you God for loving me so deeply and for giving me the opportunity to write and share this paper. This social sciences is available in Global Tides: https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/globaltides/vol17/iss1/6 Lee: The Korean Immigrant Church in America Diversity in the American Church: A Case Study on the Korean Immigrant Church Introduction: Ethnic Enclaves in American Churches Why do ethnically segregated churches exist in America if the Christian Gospel is equally meant to be shared with people from all backgrounds? A quintessential theme that one can extract from the Christian Gospel (particularly in the New Testament scriptures) is the belief that ethnic backgrounds should not stand as a social barrier under the unity of the New Testament gospel. Hence, many Christian traditions emphasize the exegesis of Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Yet, in many North American churches, there still seems to be some form of ethnic segregation, whether intentional or not. Moreover, it appears that each ethnic faction is marked by some set of theological or cultural features that distinguish it from other factions. From a sociological perspective, the Black Church upholds distinct cultural trademarks like a powerful gospel choir and social justice advocacy (Weekes, 2005). Native Churches pray and commune within their tribal reservations. Korean American Christians host gatherings with Korean food, hymns, and early morning prayer. Each community has a unique cultural flair in the way they practice particular teachings in the Bible. While America has slowly progressed away from segregation on the institutional and social level, ethnic enclaves–particularly within the Christian religion–remain. This paper aims not to critique such ethnically homogeneous Christian communities; rather, it aims to explore the socio-political history, function, and future direction of ethnically homogeneous Christian communities in America. I specifically analyze the origins of the ties between the Korean immigrant population and Protestant Christianity, the importance of the Korean Immigrant Church (KIC), and demographic changes of the KIC in the 21st Century. The Unique Knot Between Korean Americans and Protestant Christianity 61%–a dominating majority–of Korean Americans living in the United States identify as Protestant Christians (Connor 2014). The Korean American demographic comprises firstgeneration immigrants (people born in Korea who immigrated to America) as well as secondgeneration, third-generation, and following generations (people born and raised by each preceding generation in America). Given that most Korean American adults were immigrants from South Korea when this poll was conducted, one would expect the majority of South Korean natives also to be Protestant Christian. However, a low 19.7% of natives in South Korea identify as Protestant Christian (CIA 2021). So, if Korea’s indigenous religious demographic does not provide a clear correlation or context for the overwhelming association between Korean Americans and Christianity, then what does? Perhaps the answer to this question can be better found in the historical context of Korean immigrants rather than Korean natives. Understanding this connection will enable a better comprehension of the origin and current state of the KIC. Furthermore, the reactionary changes analyzed in the KIC may apply to the broader diversity of Asian American churches in America (discussed in the second to last section) due to the similar immigration trends and treatment of Asian Americans on both legal and social levels. Initial Threads Between Korean Americans and Protestant Christianity Horace Allen was the first American missionary to enter the Korean peninsula in 1884. Published by Pepperdine Digital Commons, 2023 1 Global Tides, Vol. 17 [2023], Art. 6 Other early American missionaries such as Horace Grant Underwood and Mary Scranton established missionary schools and hospitals–now Yonsei University and Ewha University–in Korea to share the Christian gospel through such institutions. With these efforts, the Christian faith spread rapidly across the peninsula, with many converting to the faith (though many Koreans continued to practice indigenous religions such as Confucianism and Buddhism). A century later, when the first wave of Korean immigrants arrived in the U.S. starting in the early 1900s, many were recruited through Christian social institutions to become plantation workers in Hawaii. More than half of the first Korean plantation-laborer immigrants in 1903 were recruited directly from the Naeri Methodist Church in Korea by U.S. diplomat and Presbyterian missionary Horace Allen (Chung n.d.). The tie between Christianity and Korean culture also manifested in political developments. For example, during the Japanese rule over Korea between 1910-1945, the “Western influence” of Christian theology empowered virtues of equality and liberty. These encompassing theological values served as a moral and political impetus for many Korean natives to push back against Japanese authority during the Korean Independence Movement (Deede 2010). Due to high lev (...truncated)