Educational Experience

I just had a really fascinating interaction with some Korean Christians. Yesterday a nice young woman and a friend stopped by my apartment and asked if I wanted to take a survey today when they could bring English versions. I agreed and it occurred to me that this was very likely a religious survey but I wanted to be engaging and I agreed. I don't know if I was running very late or if they came early but as I was brushing my teeth, half-dressed, the young lady arrived with her brother.

Apparently it is a Korean tradition to bring something whenever you are a guest in someone's house and so they brought me clementines, which is very generous. I hate it when I feel an obligation to someone and the best way to meet it seems to be to convert, though. They were very polite and I practiced spelling her brother's name because it is very simple in Korean script.

We all knelt on the floor (traditional seating style, women sit on their legs/knees, men get to sit "indian style"*). I took a five question survey which asked me, among other things, to identify which quote I would like to learn more about. There was a quote from the Bible that I didn't recognize so I listed that, which set off an hour long lesson about their interpretation of the Bible. The Bible she carried with her was specifically an instructional, conversion-oriented version so it was not a complete Bible containing all the texts of all the books. Instead, there was a Korean column of text and an English one with just the key chapters that provided the logic and emphasis that they want to express in spreading the word.

It really was fascinating. They talked about Passover and related the original passing over to the modern practice of taking communion. As most of you know the Passover celebrated in Judaism is derived from the plagues of Egypt in Exodus wherein those that sacrificed a lamb to God and painted its blood on their house were spared the plague of having their firstborn killed. This Church of God emphasizes that Christ is the lamb of God and you eat of his flesh and drink of his blood in a parallel act of being passed over for retribution when you die or when we are in End Times. They only give you communion when you are baptised into the church and then once every year in the first month, on the second week of the solar or lunar calendar. I am guessing lunar (and therefore it comports with the Jewish Passover, right?) but there was a slight language barrier.

One of the ways that the Church of God here seems more in tune with Asian cultures is the conceptualization of a heavenly family. They explain that there is a parallel system of sorts in heaven with a father/mother/sibling dynamic and Jerusalem is the home (heaven). I immediately was reminded of Confucianism and its focus on the importance family and wonder if the two are connected.

I was invited to be baptised. I hate turning sincere people down but I tried to be polite and explain that I was baptised in my Baptist grandmother's church already but this sprouted a whole new explanation of how many people are baptised. To sum up she very politely and in mixed English/Korean explained that most churches hand out baptisms like free candy and that you must be able to accept the Holy Spirit consciously, which is actually how the Baptists approach baptism as well. I didn't feel it would be fair to mention that I had, in fact, also been baptised at another protestant church and thusly had covered my bases. My first baptism was without my consent as I was an infant, the second I undertook in an effort to please my grandmother.

*My friend Alisha and I were invited into a Buddhist temple in Japan and I sat indian style and was told I sat like a man.