The precarious future of the second generation of Korean American Christians came in for scrutiny at the second annual conference of the Korean Diaspora Institute (KDI), which was held in early June at Sandy Cove Ministries in Maryland. KDI is a non-profit organization founded by mostly Methodist Korean American ministers. The conference, which RW attended, dealt with the topics of the Korean American diaspora, the future of the second-generation Korean American church, which is reported to be part of a “silent exodus” from congregations, and the preservation of Korean culture by the Korean American church. The conference began with a presentation by Kwon Su Kyung, a visiting professor from Koryo seminary in Korea, who spoke about the Bible’s description of the diaspora of God’s people as a blessing and how that applied to Korean Americans. He said that the Korean American church had to do its best to share God’s blessing with all members of the American community rather than merely seeking to achieve worldly success in the United States, putting forth an interpretation of diaspora in the Bible that disputed many Korean Americans’ concerns.
Yang Sung Il, head pastor of Arizona Cross church, argued that the decline of the second-generation Christian membership was due to the lack of church leaders and the diminishing role of the Korean immigrant church for second-generation Korean Americans. However, given the popularity of Korean pop culture (like the dance-pop band, BTS, movies, TV dramas) and well-known corporate brand names like Samsung, Kia, and Hyundai, he said that second-generation Korean Americans have gained more confidence in being Korean American and that this new ethnic pride may make them more interested in the Korean church. Other second-generation Korean American pastors shared his concern and analysis and pledged to create a growing spiritual community in America. They proposed building an English ministry (EM) network to accommodate the shortage of EM ministers.
Meanwhile, Min Pyong Gap, a Queens College (NY) sociologist, spoke about differences in how second-generation Korean Protestants and Indian Hindu immigrants were able to preserve ethnic culture. He argued that the domestic religious practices of Hinduism enabled the preservation of Indian culture better than the practices of Korean Protestants, who could find nothing in common between Korean culture and their faiths. Min added that the undemocratic organization and management of the first-generation Korean immigrant church had influenced the “silent exodus” of second-generation Korean Americans. Several participants questioned the caste system’s negative culture, which still plays a vital role in the public (Hindu Temple) and private spheres (dating websites) of Indian immigrants in America. —By K.T. Chun, a New Jersey-based sociologist and researcher
Source: Christian Reformed Church.
