by Andrew Kim
A majority of Korean-Americans identify themselves as Christian. If they attend church on a weekly basis, one would assume that they did so because of their faith. But faith is not the sole reason that Korean-Americans spend their Sundays in God’s house. Upon their arrival in America, many Koreans speak very little English. One of the few escapes from this strange new world in which they are submerged is the church. Church becomes a place not only for prayer but a haven where Koreans can feel comfortable, surrounded by people who resemble them.
About 40% of Korean-American Christians became Christian after their arrival in United States. The church became an important place for social gathering. It makes us wonder how many of these “conversions” are real. Do they see themselves as Christians because they began to identify with a new social group? Or did they truly see the light through the preaching of the gospel and having their hearts changed by God?
This purpose of the immigrant church – as a comfortable home away from home – has certainly increased church membership, but it may also have hurt the church. As Korean-Americans assimilate into American society, Korean churches have begun to emulate some of the bad habits of majority white American churches. Too many churches in America have been teaching a watered-down version of the gospel in order to appeal to a wide audience. I wonder if this gospel preached today has any relationship to the actual word of God. Youth pastors focus on entertaining the service attendees. They want to hold the attention of their listeners, make them laugh, and give them a good time. Pastors try to make their sermons memorable. But are they actually preaching God’s word? Although the sermons may be entertaining, many pastors’ concerns lie in keeping the adults, especially parents, coming back. The church needs tithes and offerings of loyal families.
In my opinion, the problem with many self-proclaimed Christians in the Korean-American community is that they do not know God. Not in the least bit. These people know something about God, but they do not intimately know him. They know that He created the world in seven days, that he descended into the world incarnate, that Jesus Christ his only Son died on the cross to forgive us of our sins. They know the story of Noah and the ark and how God flooded the world. They know that God spoke to Abraham and Moses and many others. But do they know why Jesus Christ died on the cross? Do they know why the only man of flesh and blood ever to have led a sinless life was crucified and died for the hundreds of generations into the future?
They would probably respond, “Jesus died to forgive us our sins.” But will they go beyond this well-known answer and ask, “But why, really? Why did God have to sacrifice His only Son to forgive our sins? Why not just forgive us?”
One answer is, “Because He loves us. He did it out of love for us.” True. But this is not quite the whole answer.
It says in Proverbs 17:15, “He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous, both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord.” Had he simply justified and forgiven our sins, he would have been sinning against Himself.
In Old Testament times, people would sacrifice animals to appease the wrath of God. In order to appease His own wrath, God needed to sacrifice His only Son, Jesus Christ. Romans 3:23-25 states, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate his righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed.”
Thus, the response, “He loves us so much that He wanted to die on the cross to forgive us for the overwhelmingly countless number of times we have sinned against Him every day of our lives,” is not quite right. The little-known truth is that if Jesus Christ had not died on the cross, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven, we would not be the wretched, sinful creatures that we are now. We would not be here at all; we would have been already struck down by the wrath of God.
The sad reality is that many Korean-American Christians, and many in the majority of white churches as well, are oblivious to their ignorance. It is not that we are content with knowing nothing about God. The issue is that we think we do know God. We listen to sermons once or twice a week, and that is the limit of our learning. We bring our Bibles to church so we can follow along with the readings and participate in Bible study. But nobody seems to read the Bible outside of church anymore. We are too busy to sit down and spend our oh-so-valuable time immersed in the Bible and engaged in a conversation with God. Some have designated a regular “quiet time” session to remind them to pick up the Bible and read. These people are trying to close the gap in their relationships with God. But the terrible truth is that those who do not schedule a quiet time are probably not reading the Bible at all.
Christianity in the Korean-American community seems to have lost its purpose. The church is meant to be a house of worship. It should be a place where believers gather to praise God’s name in fellowship. If it loses its God-centeredness and becomes solely a place for social gathering, then the church is no longer the church. Churchgoers wear a mask in church and remember not to curse, lust, lie, hate, stress about money, inundate themselves in alcohol, or poison themselves with drugs. But as soon as they step outside of church, that Sunday mask disappears. Such people have not seen the Light. Darkness and Light cannot coexist. A true Christian must stand out from the world, not fade into it.
As the saying goes, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” A true believer is a disciple of Christ on the outside and on the inside. “Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water” (James 3:11-12). Without the inner transformation that comes from intimate personal knowledge of God, the form of Christianity practiced in the Korean-American immigrant community – and in any other community – is just bringing people together to see new faces and have a jolly good time.
Source of photo: www.christianphotos.net
Tags: Race and Ethnicity
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Andrew,
Thanks for contributing this article. I admire your courage to speak up and stand on your convictions. Some readers may disagree with what you have written, but I hope they realize that this article reflects your personal experience.
I was intrigued by your distinction between “real” conversion — coming into personal gospel faith and having one’s heart changed by God — and coming to church for the social aspects. Until recently, I would have completely agreed with you. But I am beginning to see that these two experiences are often closely linked and impossible to separate. The church is the actual Body of Christ in the world. When people begin to experience God on a personal level, it is often because they recognize the image of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit in people around them. The restoration of one’s personal relationship with God is a spiritual reality that is difficult to see. Visible evidence of real conversion comes in various ways, but one of them is restoration of meaningful relationships with other Christians.
But I guess your point is that adopting a new circle of Christian friends will often happen apart from inner spiritual transformation. In that, I fully agree. But if that happens, it is not necessarily a bad thing, because it might just be one step along the way to real conversion. God uses these relationships for his divine purpose.
Thanks again for submitting this piece. We hope you keep writing.
Joe
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I agree that relationships with other Christians can often help a person see the truth. The true problem with the Korean-American churches I’ve been to, however, is that the Christians were lacking. The pastors gave empty sermons and yet the members continue to come to church. If one is not learning anything about God by attending church, then the only other reason for attending is to socialize. Moreover, it’s not even the possibility that people just don’t realize that they aren’t learning anything. People have told me that they think the sermons are “shallow.” And yet, they continue to faithfully attend that church service every week. So many Korean-Americans I know choose to stick with a Godless church that all their friends attend over a God-centered church at which they do not know anyone.
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Hi, Andrew, I read your article with a great interest. Thank you for your valuable contribution. Let me share my opinions with you. It seems like you’ve been in a “Korean-American” church where you felt like the church is just a place for social gathering and the pastors and other church members are lacking. And you concluded that Korean-American community seems to have lost its purpose. If I get to my point, I think what you experienced in your church is also a universal aspect you’ll see in other churches, too. I haven’t been in all the churches on earth, so my judgment might be very limited. I’ve been attending more than 10 different churches including pure Korean churches (in Korea) and UBF churches (in Korea and America) through my life-time. And I have to admit that there was no church where pastor delivers a perfectly God-centered message all the time and church members are holy and flawless. Before I say that, I, myself, have tons of flaws and shortcomings, and I made many mistakes before God. I think the purpose of church is not to have a pastor who doesn’t deliver “shallow or “pleasing” message or have a good body of Christian members in general that study the bible regularly outside church. As you said, a church is a place for worshipping God and at the same time, as a body of Christ, a church is a place for experiencing God’s love, and I believe that this kind of love can not just be obtained by just having pastor with god-centered message, and church members who engage in frequent bible study and spiritual activity. Rather, I think experiencing this kind of love is possible when Holy Spirit convicts each one of member and the love of God smears into them. Yes, we should let Holy Spirit govern our heart, first, and this can not be quantified or measured by the things we see from what people are actually doing. I believe we, as Christians, are all growing in some degree once God called us even though inner process is not visible. Still in the process of growing, people including myself, make mistakes daily. They fall into sins and they hurt other people. Or they just seem to do the worldly things. However, that doesn’t mean that they’re not converted Christians. As you know, Abraham was a flawed man, who made many mistakes and doubted God promise many times but God is faithful, and helped Abraham to grow throughout his time-time. Ok, I rambled a lot, lastly I will just quote, Ephesians 5:1,2 “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children, and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
I do believe that God really wants us to learn the love of God and love one another in a church and when that happens, he will help us to grow no matter how we’re flawed from holy standpoint. I hope that you and I, and we all grow in his love together.
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I’ve been reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer to my youngest son lately. I was tickled and delighted to get to the chapters where Tom is in Sunday School, followed closely by his pinch bug episode in the church service. Since we often have such distractions in our house-church (our two dogs and two cats often attend), I have often had the steam let out of my sermons by such episodes.
But I am delighted to report that my children do not usually fall asleep or allow distractions to completely get out of hand. They have even reported to me that they enjoy my messages and learned something from them. And when we recently visited a local church, they quickly found that the sermons there were lackluster in comparison with mine. This does my heart a little good, though I am sorry for that pastor and his (very large) congregation. I think Mark Twain would agree with you, the Korean-American experience isn’t too different from his… rather a waste of time.
Still, I agree with some other comments, that even mere socialization, without any spiritual awareness or growth, can be good for a soul. Eventually we look deeper and begin to see that some of those around us have something we lack. When that dawning takes place, it shouldn’t be the occasion to start looking down on those who are still merely coming out of habit, but a time to start praying for them and seeking to help one person, one friend.
Even Jesus’ own disciples followed him largely for human reasons. They “had in mind the things of men, not the things of God.” But the Lord bore with them until they finally understood that his Kingdom was not a political movement, for example, and that he really was going to actually be crucified and die for their sins. Even after the resurrection, they still had doubts. Were they all that spiritual? Perhaps Thomas was still about the level of Tom Sawyer.
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