RELIGION / JOHN DART : Korean-American Church May Split

Disputes: Several Southland congregations may leave the Christian Reformed Church to protest openness toward women, homosexuals.

At least seven Korean-American churches in Southern California, including one in the San Fernando Valley, are thinking about pulling out of the Christian Reformed Church to protest that denomination’s move toward ordaining women and a perceived increase in tolerance toward homosexuals.

Leading the defections is the Rev. John E. Kim, the influential pastor of the 1,400-member Los Angeles Korean Christian Reformed Church, the second-largest congregation in the 311,000-member denomination based in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Kim, whose $11-million church is in the El Sereno section of Los Angeles, is in Kenya. But an assistant pastor, the Rev. Young J. Kim, confirmed reports within the denomination that about 30 Korean church leaders who met at the El Sereno church Aug. 2 called for a new denomination to be formed Oct. 18 in Los Angeles.

Although the Christian Reformed Church is considered a theologically conservative body within the spectrum of U.S. Protestantism, the denomination’s synod, or convention, voted this summer to end its ban on women ministers, subject to a second vote at its June, 1994, synod.

Assistant pastor Kim said that the long-simmering women’s ordination issue and a perceived “open attitude toward homosexuality” were the primary causes of dissatisfaction by Korean-heritage pastors in the denomination.

“The Korean pastors are concerned that the denomination is disloyal to the word of God, which doesn’t allow women in the ministry or homosexual behavior,” he said.

The prospect of losing subsidies from the denomination may keep some Korean congregations from defecting.

“For many years, the Christian Reformed Church has helped many small Korean churches with financial and moral support, but I think doctrine is more important than financial help,” said the assistant pastor.

John Choi, the denomination’s Korean ministries coordinator based in Los Angeles, said Friday that he believes that the great majority of unhappy pastors will wait to see whether the Christian Reformed Church does approve women’s ordination next year.

Top denomination officials were flying to Los Angeles this weekend to talk to Korean pastors and meet with them Aug. 31 in Bellflower, Choi said. The denomination has more than 25 Korean congregations in Southern California.

Choi conceded that John E. Kim’s Los Angeles church was definitely leaving, and that the Valley Christian Reformed Church in Arleta, led by the Rev. Jae Yon Kim, “is leaning” toward pulling out. The Valley pastor did not respond Friday to requests for an interview.

The 775-member Valley congregation has rented space at Calvary Lutheran Church in Arleta for about five years. Looking toward building its own church, the Korean congregation bought a 50-acre lot in Chatsworth at the southeast corner of Topanga Canyon Boulevard and the Simi Valley Freeway, but the city and state have an interest in buying at least part of that land, Choi said.

Choi said the charge that the denomination has an open attitude toward homosexuality goes too far.

“We have some sympathy or openness to those people who are homosexual, just as we would to an alcoholic or someone with a physical or mental disability, but our church does not allow homosexuals to preach or lead a church,” Choi said.

One pastor taking a wait-and-see approach on defecting is the Rev. Kenneth Cho, pastor of Hacienda Immanuel Christian Reformed Church in Rowland Heights. He was elected in April as the president of the Korean Council of Christian Reformed Churches in North America, which has 47 affiliated churches.

“I will stay in the denomination for a while to fight the changes,” Cho said. “It is not easy to pull out. The (Christian Reformed) home mission board has supported us financially.”

Cho said he will go to the Oct. 18 conference as an observer, but he added that he is very close to John E. Kim, who is heading the move toward a new denomination, tentatively called the Korean Reformed Presbyterian Church.

About 20 other Korean congregations around the country, some Presbyterian and many independent, are also expected to attend the October gathering. Included among those 20 is a large church in Glendale and one in Antelope Valley, Cho said. He declined to identify them.

John E. Kim, 59, who studied at Temple University in Philadelphia and taught at a Presbyterian seminary in South Korea before returning to the United States in the mid-1970s, is seen as a patriarchal figure among many Korean clergy, said Malcolm McBryde, associate editor of The Banner, the denomination’s magazine.

Ten years ago, Kim served a term as president of the interdenominational Council of Korean Churches in Southern California.

His church, which in 1990 dedicated a new sanctuary seating 1,440 people, began with three members in 1976. Original plans for the new building in El Sereno and its landscaped 22 acres, which include a prominent stepped waterfall, called for a drive-in section for some worshipers to listen to the service in their cars, an option pioneered by the Rev. Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove. That feature has not yet been instituted.