Reflecting on disaster

The three most recent posts on Jason Goroncy's blog relate to the devastating second Christchurch earthquake.

One offers two poems/reflections by Walter Brueggemann, the second is called, Christchurch: a pastoral reflection, and the third is reprint of a theological reflection by Frank Rees on his own experience of disaster called God of the Tsunami.

Rees is Principal and Professor of Systematic Theology at Whitley College in Melbourne, and this paper was first presented at a conference in South Korea.

Koreans in NZ

Stuart Vogel gives us some updated information on Koreans in New Zealand.  
 
70% of Koreans in New Zealand identify as Christians, while roughly another 20% claim to follow no religion. Buddhists number only about 5%. One Christian newspaper estimates that 35-40% of all Koreans are "active Christians" who regularly attend worship services, mostly at one of New Zealand's 100 Korean churches. Another recent study has shown that around 90 per cent of the study's participants attended Church regularly.

A weekly Christian newspaper published in the Korean language claims to have a circulation of 3,500 and discusses religious issues as well as issues of common interest to immigrants, such as migration law and property ownership. 20 years ago we had no Korean congregations within the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa-New Zealand.  Now we have 11 such congregations or groups.  We have Korean ministers graduating from our theological training and serving in a wide variety of positions. We have numerous congregations and ministers wanting to join the PCANZ. We welcome the interest without any hesitation.

Research has shown that Korean Christian churches provide much needed opportunities for support, fellowship and business networking as well as information and general assistance. This includes conversational English classes. One participant in the study said: "I had help from the Korean church in New Zealand. They gave me information about the business. It was hard to get the right information except through the local Korean church. As an immigrant with limited English language, I felt isolated and was not able to get proper information to start up the business."

And some other more general information: 

Almost 70% of New Zealand’s Koreans live in the Auckland area (2001 stats).
16% are in Christchurch with the rest scattered throughout the country, mostly in the larger towns and cities.
The majority of Korean immigrants have tertiary qualifications and are in their thirties and forties, meeting the immigration criteria.
Some chain migration has occurred as arrivals send home favourable reports to friends and relations – including elderly parents – who then came to join them.
Upon arrival most Korean families have sufficient funds to buy homes in relatively affluent suburbs like Auckland’s North Shore which.
By 2001, in North Shore City, Korean was the second most common language after English (4.1% in the 2006 Census).

Koreans attend a variety of NZ churches: the Korean Christian Churches in NZ site  lists Full Gospel, Catholic, Baptist, Methodist and various Pentecostal groups. 

Daniel Chung

It takes quite a few paragraphs of the Stuff.co.nz story to find this out, but Daniel Chung, who hands out food every Sunday in Latimer Square, Christchurch, , is a Christian. 13 years ago he came to NZ from South Korea, and has worked as a taxi driver for a good deal of that time, not being able to get work here in his field of chemical engineering.

He doesn't make a lot of money, but still spends between $100 and $300 a week on providing food for homeless people in the area. "It is a struggle financially to keep doing it. If possible, if God permitted me, I would do this to the end of my days. It's an eternal job I will do until I leave this world."

His desire to help people came from his mother, who was a pastor in Pusan, South Korea, where he was born. She dedicated her life to helping people with leprosy, and that had a big impact on him, he said.

After feeding the people, he and his family head off to a church service. Seems to me they may have already 'done' church before they leave.

Transmitting faith

The early church had to reject culturally irrelevant traditions in order to transmit the faith across cultures.

Some of us are keenly aware of the tensions that arise while transmitting the faith. A Korean congregation must decide how to reach the second and third generation who mostly speak English. A denomination that baptizes infants is faced with Hispanic congregations who embrace believer’s baptism. A mostly White suburban church wonders how to respond to new minority residents who’ve been displaced from the city by gentrification. Paul’s rejection of cultural monopoly seems downright impractical in these situations. Wouldn’t it be simpler for new converts, new immigrants, and new generations to adapt to our established traditions?

So asks David Swanson in a post entitled Urban Exile: Whose History?