| As the number of Korean immigrants increased after the passing of the 1965 Immigration Act, this dissertation is a study of the emerging Korean-language church and the challenges that they faced. Becoming the first Korean American to be elected bishop in the United Methodist Church in 1992, Hae-Jong Kim was the pivotal figure in the Korean faith community. The Korean-language church became a social and religious battleground for people uneasy about how far to assimilate into American society without losing their identity. Kim, who grew up under colonial rule in Korea and survived the Korean War, became a leader in the Korean faith community who was willing to address and bridge the social and religious tensions in the church. In doing so, he would confront the assumption that Koreans must adapt to an English-only environment.;Although opponents argued that ethnic churches hindered the assimilation of immigrants, Kim argued the opposite: ethnic churches facilitated their assimilation by offering a host of social and educational services that helped their transition into mainstream America. As differences emerged between the Korean-language and majority churches, the bi-cultural and bi-lingual Kim became a "bridge-builder" and bridged over racial, cultural, religious, and linguistic differences.;In defense of the Korean-language church, Kim used the Translatability perspective to explain the theological mission of the church. The Translatability perspective provided the basis for the principle of translation to be the primary expression by which God operated. The Christian message therefore needs to be re-translated to different generations and cultures in order to make the Christian witness relevant and understandable to ever-changing trends. To Korean and other ethnic immigrant communities that lived in a dual cultural context, Kim wrote that the Christian message "must be translated into the language and thought forms of the various groups.";The indigenous language, in turn, became the locus for the transmission of the Christian faith. When the Christian witness was translated to a specific language, the effect was the indigenization of the Christian message to the particular audience and culture. As Kim noted, "Language is culture." The process of translation empowered the recipient culture to be the "final appropriation" of the message. |
