Abductions spotlight Koreans’ missionary zeal

Since 23 South Korean Christian aid workers were kidnapped by Taliban insurgents more than two weeks ago in Afghanistan, members of nearly 1,000 Korean churches in Southern California have been in prayer.

From Thursday evening through Friday this week, many who had been praying for the hostages and their families came to Koreatown to express their sorrow and remember the Rev. Bae Hyung-kyu 42, and Shim Sung-min, 29 of Saemmul Community Church, who were slain by their captors.

As is customary, portraits of the deceased, framed by rows of chrysanthemums, were placed on a table inside the Korean American Federation of Los Angeles headquarters on Western Avenue.

Solemn Korean Americans -- some old enough to be parents and grandparents of the victims -- bowed their heads in prayer, then placed a long-stemmed white chrysanthemum on the makeshift altar in front of the portraits.

The participation of non-Christian leaders, such as Venerable Jin-Sun Nam, of Dae Gak Sa Buddhist temple on Crenshaw Boulevard, was notable at a memorial service Thursday.

Nam gave a brief eulogy, speaking so softly he was barely audible. Then he repeatedly struck a gong and chanted for several minutes.

Lana Choi, chairwoman of the Korean American Chamber of Commerce, said she hoped the loss of the “two precious lives” would not be in vain and their sacrifices “will bear the fruit of hope and faith” in Afghanistan. “May God’s comfort and peace be with their families and know that Koreans in Los Angeles are with them in their sorrow,” she said.

On Friday, the federation, representing the nation’s largest Korean American community, released a letter addressed to President Bush, urging him “to release the three Taliban terrorists under U.S. custody” and “to exercise your influence” with the Afghan government “in releasing Taliban prisoners in its custody.”

The abduction of the missionaries has focused a spotlight on Korean missionary efforts -- among the most energetic in the world -- and the style of that missionary work.

South Korea is the most Christian nation in East Asia, with believers constituting about 30% of the population. In the United States, 80% of people of Korean ancestry say they are affiliated with a Christian church.

One aspect of Korean Christianity that has figured prominently in the current discussion is the zeal for mission work. Experts say South Korea sends more missionaries overseas than other any country except the United States.

In a telephone interview, Simon Park, a Korean American missionary based in Daejon, South Korea, said the growth of Christianity in that nation has spawned many powerful mega churches that have led the “export drive” of Korean Christianity to new markets, many of them in Islamic countries.

“This export strategy became a growth path for local congregations and a sign that they have ‘arrived,’ ” he said.

The growth is often associated with missions without regard to “indigenous Christian churches in the mission field,” said Park, who has worked throughout Africa and South Asia in the last decade.

Theologian Chai-sik Chung, a professor of social ethics at Boston University, said competition is stiff among mammoth churches in South Korea.

“The harder, the farther, the more dangerous the place [of mission destination], the more evidence that you are doing well,” he said, noting that South Korean missionaries work in about 170 countries.

The Taliban militants abducted 18 women and five men as they traveled in Ghazni province July 19. The militants are demanding the release of Taliban prisoners in exchange for the captives, the largest group of foreign hostages taken prisoner in Afghanistan since the American-led invasion in 2001.

A group of grief-stricken second-generation Korean Americans had also planned an event Thursday to show support for the captives and learn about Afghanistan, but it was canceled at the last minute. The scheduled speaker, an official from the Consulate of Afghanistan, had canceled, citing an out-of-town trip, and organizers were unable to find a substitute speaker.

The hostage crisis has been a major preoccupation of people of Korean ancestry on both sides of the Pacific. It has unleashed not only anger, frustration and a sense of helplessness, but also reflection and much soul-searching about how Korean churches do missionary work.

Many South Koreans have been critical of Saemmul Church and its mission team for taking undue risks in a dangerous region.

This week, the Rev. Park Eun-jo, head pastor of the church, publicly apologized in Seoul and sought “forgiveness from the Korean people.” He also has said the church was withdrawing its remaining volunteers from Afghanistan. His letter to South Koreans was read in Korean and English at the memorial service in Los Angeles.

Simon Park said the case has also brought to the surface a “strong undercurrent of negative attitude toward the Christians from the non-Christian population [in Korea]...bordering on overt hatred.”

Chung said cultural factors also must be taken into account.

“Korean Christianity is a product of a mixed bag of [native] shamanistic culture and Confucianism, he said. “Shamanistic culture [still] appears in the form of Pentecostalism and Evangelicalism,” he said.

The superimposition of Christianity over the backdrop of shamanism and Confucianism gives Korean Christianity a unique flavor, experts say.

Shamanistic traits are found in the highly emotional and passionate aspects of Korean Protestants who take Christ’s command “to go and make disciples of all nations” in Matthew’s Gospel to some of the most dangerous places in the world.

The Confucian aspect of Korean Christianity manifests itself in hierarchy and male superiority.

For example, in Korean Presbyterian churches only men are ordained as elders. Women leaders are given a title unique to South Korea: kwon-sa.

The title is used exclusively for women leaders, even though the term does not exist in the Bible.

That, in part, explains why a typical Korean Evangelical minister’s style of preaching is “very dogmatic, high bearing and leaves no room for people in the pew to question his message,” Chung said.

The Rev. Sunny Kang , pastor of South Bay Presbyterian Church in Torrance and a veteran of numerous mission trips, said his reaction to the kidnappings was mixed.

“I really applaud their faith and their trust in God” to go where others have feared to go, he said, noting that faith, after all, is leaping beyond what we know and see in complete trust in God. But at the same time, Kang added, it appears that they did not listen to those who warned them.

“As a pastor, I would use more caution,” he said.

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connie.kang@latimes.com