Ethnic Churches Research Articles

Kerkwees in die <i>saeculum</i> vandag, Deel 2: ‘n Nuwe narratief (ook vir die Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk van Afrika)

Being church in the saeculum today, Part 2: A new narrative (also for the Netherdutch Reformed Church. A previous article illlustrated that the root of the tension between unity and plurality in the church can be found in an epistemology charcaterised by binary opposisions. This article describes this epistemology and, from the perspective of narrative theological epistemology, discusses the struggles and pitfalls reflected in the narrative of the Netherdutch Reformed Church of Africa which identifies itself as an ‘ethnic church’ (volkskerk). The article argues that such a self-identification functions as a metanarrative that is in conflict with the church’s grand narrative, that of the Triune God. The re-telling of the grand narrative of the Trinity as the metaphor for unity through plurality will sustain the re-telling of the church’s narrative in the changing context of a secular society.

The last racially separated church in the Dutch Reformed family of churches: Constituting the Synod of the Evangelical Reformed Church in Africa

The author describes the history and circumstances around the founding of the lastracially separated “daughter” church of the white Dutch Reformed Church (DRC),the Evangelical Reformed Church in Africa (ERCA) in Namibia in 1975. He places thisin the context of racial and ethnic church formation by the DRC subsequent to thepublication of the Tomlinson Report. The DRC in Namibia needed a black partnerchurch in the north of Namibia in order to counter the alliance between Swapoand the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ovambo-Kavango. ERCA was miniscule insize in comparison to the Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches in the northern“homelands” of Namibia, which was one reason why indigenous elders as well assome missionaries considered it unwise to institute a separate church at that time.The objections were overruled by the “mother” church (the DRC) that held theupper hand since it funded mission work in the northern “homelands”. The authorconcludes with some critical comments about this episode of DRC mission history.

Faith-Based Hiv Care and Prevention in Chinese Immigrant Communities: Rhetoric or Reality?

Ethnic churches attended by first generation Chinese immigrants are uniquely positioned to address emerging HIV prevention and care needs within the Chinese community at-large. Efforts to develop faith-based HIV programs necessitate identifying how HIV intersects with the sinicization of Christianity within Chinese churches. This paper will review the process of contextualizing HIV within theological and cultural frameworks that are meaningful for ethnic Chinese church leaders and members. The authors specifically propose two points of integration between public health and ecclesial functions: (1) HIV stigma-mitigation initiatives as informed by Christo-centric teachings of compassion and justice, and (2) HIV prevention and care reframed as social responsibility and informed by the Christian tradition of evangelism. Systems and practices that hinder and promote the involvement of Chinese churches in HIV prevention, care, and stigma-reduction will be discussed.

The role of ethnic religious community institutions in the intergenerational transmission of Korean among immigrant students in Montreal

This paper explores the influence of Korean ethnic churches on the maintenance of heritage language (HL) and culture among Korean-Canadian students. The ethnographic and qualitative study on which it is based involved participant observation over a 4-month period, group discussions, interviews, and a questionnaire. Participants were 15 immigrant students aged 13–19, who live in Montreal and attend a Korean ethnic church. Results indicate that these churches play an important role in the maintenance of the HL and cultural identity. It is argued that immigrant students would benefit from being more aware of the linguistic and cultural maintenance role that these churches play and of the importance of taking advantage of the institutional resources they provide: the opportunity to interact with other Koreans, to use the language and improve their proficiency, and to become immersed in the Korean cultural environment.

Colorful Initiatives

While North America's ethnic churches have been documented in many publications, ethnic mission has received little attention. This vibrant phenomenon deserves attention. Three conceptual constructs that will frame the discussion are liminality, cultural identity, and power. Several case studies will illustrate the theme.

Religious Institutions and Ethnic Entrepreneurship: The Korean Ethnic Church as a Small Business Incubator

Ethnic entrepreneurship is one of the key factors of community economic development. This article explores how religious institutions enhance ethnic entrepreneurship through social capital in the Los Angeles Korean community, which has high self-employment rates and active participation among its Christian congregations. The role of religious institutions is rarely discussed in terms of entrepreneurship. The article finds that religion-based social capital has greatly benefited the small business development of this ethnic community. Korean ethnic congregations have acted as small business incubators through social networking and capital accumulation. In addition, the article asserts that contemporary community development should reemphasize social capital, religious institutions, and entrepreneurship.

Die eenheid van die kerk in gedrang

The unity of the church in jeopardy This article examines the possible influence that a church’s understanding of ecclesiology could have on its approach to homosexual people, with special reference to the Netherdutch Reformed Church of Africa (NRCA). By referring to recent debates in the NRCA concerning the prominence the Church awards to the tenet of an ‘ethnic church’ (‘volkskerk’) in its ecclesiology, it is argued that the Church’s understanding of the confession of the one, holy, apostolic and catholic church is not reflected in the NRCA’s own ecclesiology and that this has direct implications for the Church’s understanding and accommodation of homosexual people. It is concluded that if the Church maintains an inclusive character as it is meant in the Creeds, the Church has to design and incorporate models of being church that adhere to this character and the abovementioned confession.

Religious Reestablishment in Post-Communist Polities

After the collapse of the atheistic Soviet Union and Communist party-dominated countries in Central and Eastern Europe, many analysts predicted that as new governments ushered in laws guaranteeing religious freedom, a new religious pluralism would result. Public opinion surveys conducted during the first years of postsocialism confirmed that throughout Eastern Europe and the Soviet successor states, there was a resurgence in belief in God and life after death, as well as reports of increased levels of church attendance, particularly among the younger generations. Two decades after the collapse, however, post-communist countries have not become bastions of religious diversity or practice, and religious relations mirror those of a century past, when traditional ethnic churches dominated the landscape. How can we explain what appears to be religious reestablishment across the postcommunist countries? What developments have contributed to stalled progress in the realm of religious freedom? When the communist parties that controlled the Eastern bloc countries fell along with the Soviet Union and new “democratic” movements embarked on the mission of writing new constitutions and establishing representative institutions, many countries adopted legislation that significantly liberalized the field of religious freedom. Initially, this liberalization allowed for traditional

TRACING TRANS-PACIFIC CONTINUITY IN THE FAITH OF SECOND-GENERATION KOREAN CHRISTIANS IN THE U.S.A.

This paper aims at tracing trans-pacific historical continuity, as it is demonstrated in the faith of second-generation Korean Christians. Second-generation Korean Christians are the children of Korean immigrants who went to the U.S.A., following the liberalization of the immigration laws in 1965 that removed the national origins quota system and ended the exclusion of Asians from immigration. About eighty percent of them are Protestants or Catholics, which corresponds with the Protestant or Catholic percentage of first generation Koreans. Spending their childhood and adolescence in Korean ethnic churches, second-generation Koreans acquire the evangelical religiosity of their parents which originated from Korea. Furthermore, being born or raised in the U.S.A., they also obtain American evangelical religiosity. Exploring the aforementioned socio-religious reality, this article claims that Korean Christianity, Korean ethnic churches and American evangelical Christianity are not very different from one another, and that, in fact, they are almost identical. While second-generation Korean Christians are socialized into the conservative Christianity of Korean ethnic churches brought from Korea, they identify with and are influenced by American evangelical Christianity. Thus, the faith of second-generation Koreans shows the trans-pacific continuity between Korea and America.

“Are you a real Christian?” Stereotypes, distrust and distinction strategies between “new” and “old” Protestants in Catalonia1

The arrival of a high number of followers of the Protestant faith due to the increase in immigration flows has shaped the configuration, expectations for future growth and the public role of the Protestant community in Catalonia. However, the adaptation process between “new” and “old” Protestants has not been free of controversies. In this article, I deal with the analysis of the conflictive relationship between African Pentecostal Churches and the Catalan Protestant establishment. In order to do so, I explore the main transformations of the Catalan Protestant field (the phenomenon of reverse mission and above all the creation of ethnic churches) in recent times. The article is based on the fieldwork carried out among Protestant Churches in Catalonia between the years 2002 and 2006 and on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in an African church in Barcelona in 2004.

Language Used by Korean and Korean American Children to Describe Emotional Reactions to Illness and Hospitalization

Most children experience emotional distress during hospitalization. However, existing instruments for assessing emotional status in hospitalized children have limitations. To address this, the authors determine the language that Korean and Korean American children use to describe emotions that may relate to illness and hospitalization. Using a descriptive exploratory design, projective method, and card sort, the study is conducted in six Korean ethnic churches in the Midwest metropolitan area of United States and uses a convenience sample consisting of 94 children, ages 7 to 12 years. Fifteen English emotion words and 13 Korean emotion words are chosen by at least 50% of the Korean-American and Korean children, and children's emotional responses are expressed differently in Korean and English. Health care providers should be cautious about direct translation, because cultural nuances can convey different meanings in another language. In preparation for the rapid growth of minority children in the United States, health care providers should understand cultural perspectives related to minority children's experiences of health and illness and provide linguistically and culturally appropriate care.

Severe Underrepresentation of Women in Church Leadership in the Korean Immigrant Community in the United States

Women are severely underrepresented in leadership roles and positions in Korean immigrant churches in the United States. Largely based on ethnographic research or casual observations, researchers have pointed to one or another of the following as a central factor in this underrepresentation: (1) the influence of Korean Confucian patriarchal traditions, (2) the conservative theological position of Korean churches, and (3) the practical need of Korean male immigrants to create high‐status positions through ethnic churches. Although these three factors are intertwined and even reinforcing in the empirical world, this article intends to illustrate them empirically and pull them into a more analytic scheme. In particular, this article analyzes: (1) denominational affiliations of churches in South Korea and their official positions on female ordination to ministers and elders; (2) denominational affiliations of Korean immigrant churches in New York and their positions on women ordination; and (3) the proportion of women head pastors in churches in Korea and that of women head pastors in Korean immigrant churches in New York

Comparing Catholic and Evangelical Integration Efforts

The rallying cries of a multiethnic, multiracial, and multicultural church movement echo through diocesan offices and evangelical megachurches, traversing the largest families that make up Christian America: Roman Catholic, evangelical, and mainline Protestant.' Two social factors are certainly behind the current push to integrate churches: first, the dramatic increase in immigration to the United States post-1965; and second, the increasing acceptance of integration on the part of white Americans. The confluence of dramatic demographic changes and long-fought for attitudinal changes has produced both an opportunity for the formation of churches and a formidable challenge for those who would prefer to continue the American tradition of the ethnic church (including the white American ethnic church). Religious leaders from divergent theological and ecclesiastic traditions are responding to the changing demographics and attitudes toward diversity in the United States in remarkably similar ways. Specifically, they are seeking to overcome the long-standing racial, ethnic, and cultural divisions among their members and create multiracial, multiethnic, and multicultural Given this shared goal, it is tempting to imagine the emergence of a national Christian movement toward, what I will call for reasons I explain below, integrated churches. But no such unified movement exists across Christian families. Instead, there are three independent movements pushing for institutional change across the country with almost no contact among them. The purpose of this essay is to bring those leading the charge toward churches within two of these families, the Roman Catholic and evangelical, into contact theoretically for the purpose of comparison on the related questions of why and how. Although there are ample quantitative studies on membership and attendance, we have surprisingly little qualitative comparison between these groups. This may be because the gaping differences in polity give the impression that one is comparing apples to oranges. The hierarchical structure of the global Catholic Church and the geographically defined parish are worlds apart from the congregational polity and voluntary membership of the evangelical tradition. When we look, however, at the ways in which Catholic and evangelical church leaders talk about the need to create unity across cultural and racial lines, they sound remarkably similar. Neither group cites the sociological reasons mentioned above-demographic and attitudinal shifts-as the primary impetus for change. Both Catholic and evangelical church leaders justify their institutional revisioning by invoking biblical mandates for unity and inclusion. Nonetheless, digging beneath the language of unity there are important differences in precisely which theological principles are used to justify turning away from the ethnic church model. To make matters even more complicated, within the evangelical and Catholic worlds of dis course exist ongoing debates about the costs and benefits of churches and the appropriate means of forming them. As Catholics and evangelicals proceed to create churches, the trajectory of institutional change and subsequent outcomes are shaped by their polity and the ology, as well as their unique histories of managing intergroup relations. At the intersection of

Die dimensies “eenheid” en “katolisiteit” in die ekklesiologie van die Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk sedert Ottawa 1982

The dimensions “unity” and “catholicity” in the ecclesiology of the Netherdutch Reformed Church since Ottawa 1982
 
 This article examines the current ecclesiology of the Netherdutch Reformed Church of Africa (NHKA) with reference to the extent to which the church understands unity and catholicity as biblical indicatives and imperatives. The article argues that the church’s understanding of unity and catholicity is prejudiced and influenced by the prominence the church awards to the tenet of an ethnic “peoples church” (“volkskerk”). This has lead to the NHKA’s ecumenical isolation. It is hence argued that the abolition of the church’s “ethnic church theology” will result in the abolition of its ecumenical isolation and will enable the NHKA to confess anew with the “church of all ages”, the “one, holy, apostolic and catholic Church”.

The Church as the Community of the Shared Story

AbstractWithin this article, three ecumenical documents that discuss reconciliation and healing memories and that were published in the twenty first century are analyzed. The focus is on the way they deal with the past link between church and ethnicity, and how this has contributed to the inability of actual national or ethnic churches to be an expression of the one, catholic church of the ancient creeds. The result of the analysis is disappointing. The texts avoid dealing with this issue.

Difference in Needs for Physical Activity Among Healthy Women, Women with Physical Limitations and Korean Immigrant Women

The purpose of this study was to explore the difference in needs for physical activity among healthy women, women with physical limitations, and Korean immigrant women in the U.S., and a significant association between needs for physical activity and other sociodemographic and contextual variables. Healthy Korean women (n = 53), women with physical limitations (n = 51), and Korean immigrant women in the U.S. (n = 54) were recruited using a convenience sampling method. The settings included cultural centers in Seoul, S University Hospital in Seoul, Korea, and Korean ethnic churches in California. Data on sociodemographic characteristics and needs for physical activity were collected using questionnaires. Group difference in needs for physical activity and difference in needs for physical activity according to sociodemographic and contextual variables were determined. There were significant differences in 11 needs for physical activity among the three groups (p < .05). The needs for physical activity were significantly different (p < .05) according to the categories of needs; affiliation, accomplishment and autonomy needs among the three groups. The needs for physical activity were significantly different (p < .05) according to sociodemographic and contextual variables. Three groups of women had different needs for physical activity, and their needs for physical activity were influenced by multiple factors reflecting their daily lives in immigration transition and health/illness transition.

Norwegian Ecclesiastical Affiliation in Three Countries: a Challenge to Earlier Historiography

AbstractHistorians like Oscar Handlin and Timothy L. Smith asserted that international migration, especially that of Europeans to North America, was a process which reinforced traditional religious loyalties. In harmony with this supposed verity, a venerable postulate in the tradition of Scandinavian-American scholarship was that most Norwegian immigrants in the New World (the overwhelming majority of whom had been at least nominal members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Norway) clung to their birthright religious legacy and affiliated with Lutheran churches after crossing the Atlantic (although for many decades it has been acknowledged that by contrast, vast numbers of their Swedish-American and Danish-American counterparts did not join analogous ethnic Lutheran churches). In the present article, however, it is demonstrated that anticlericalism and alienation from organised religious life were widespread in nineteenth-century Norway, where nonconformist Christian denominations were also proliferating. Furthermore, in accordance with these historical trends, the majority of Norwegian immigrants in the United States of America and Southern Africa did not affiliate with Lutheran churches. Significant minorities joined Baptist, Methodist, and other non-Lutheran religious fellowships, but the majority did not become formally affiliated with either Norwegian or pan-Scandinavian churches.

Transnacionalinis identitetas ir paveldas: lietuviškumas diasporoje

Manipuliavimas bet kuriuo ir bet kurio paveldo – ypač tautinio – aspektu vyksta ne tik ir ne tiek tautinės valstybės viduje, bet nė kiek nemažiau ir už jos ribų. Emigrantus, pabėgėlius, deportuotuosius ir kitus persikėlusius ar perkeltuosius sieja ne tik socialinė atmintis apie „namų šalį“, bet ir transplantuoti, reprodukuojami bei sumeistraujami tautiniai paveldai. Šio rašinio tikslas – nubrėžti kai kurių socialinių strategijų, socialinių tinklų, įvaizdžių ir diskursų kontūrus, bendrais bruožais aptarti su konkrečiu etniškumu/nacionalumu sukibusio tapatumo kultūrines praktikas, kitaip sakant lietuviškumą – kaip savitą lietuviškos kultūros ir paveldo formą; t. y. kaip „lietuviškumą“ įsivaizdavo ir įsivaizduoja, konstravo ir tebekonstruoja bei/ar siekia užginčyti skirtingos Amerikos lietuvių bangos ir kartos. Remiuosi 2000–2002 m. JAV Vidurio Vakarų valstijose atliktų antropologinių lauko tyrimų duomenimis. Didžiausias dėmesys skirtas Rytų ir Pietų Ilinojaus (įskaitant Westville, Collinsville, West-Frankfort ir Herrin) bei Misurio (St. Louis miesto rytinės dalies) valstijų buvusių angliakasių bendruomenių likučiams bei lietuvių gyvenamiesiems rajonams Èikagoje (įskaitant Brighten Park ir Marquette Park).

Church and culture: A religio-theological perspective

The ethnic church (“volkskerk”) is central to the ecclesiology and Church Order of the Reformed Church in Africa (Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk). This article questions notions of culture, ethnicity, ethnic people (“volk”) and ethnic identity as backdrop for answering the question on the responsibility of the church towards cultural and ethnic identity. It is conceded that civil religion remains an insidious threat to the church, as is also civil ideology. Lastly, it is contended that the main responsibility of the church towards culture, ethnic people, ethnic and social identity is one of apostolic prophetic presence and outreach.

Examining the Types of Social Support and the Actual Sources of Support in Older Chinese and Korean Immigrants

This study explored social support domains and actual sources of support for older Chinese and Korean immigrants and compared them to the traditional domains based on mainly White, middle class populations. Fifty-two older Cantonese and Korean speaking immigrants participated in one of eight focus groups. We identified four similar domains: tangible, information/advice, emotional support, and companionship. We also identified needing language support which is relevant for non-English speaking minority populations. Participants discussed not needing emotional support. These Chinese and Korean immigrants had a small number of actual sources of support, relying mainly on adult children for help with personal situations (e.g., carrying heavy groceries, communicating with physicians) and friends for general information/advice (e.g., learning how to speak English, applying for citizenship) and companionship. Immigrant Asians are caught between two different traditions; one that is strongly kinship oriented where needs and desires are subordinated to the interests of the family and one that values independence and celebrates individuality. Despite their reticence in asking for help outside the family, elders are seeking help from other sources, such as ethnic churches and the government.