Caught Between Two Cultures

Second generation Canadians find the immigrant church they grew up in to be an institution that is out of touch, irrelevant and intolerant. “Second generations are overall yearning to connect more deeply in faith and spirituality—they are looking for genuineness—something more than the ‘Kumbaya, everything is okay’ mentality,” explains Nam Soon Song.

Song, director of the Asian-Canadian Centre for Theology and Ministry out of Knox College, Toronto, sees this trend in the students at the college, as well as Asian-Canadian churches around Toronto.

She sees the negative image of the church institution as the result of a number of factors including the poor connection between second generation kids and their first generation parents, and the difficulties of living within the expectations of two 
cultures—a challenge the first generation may not have dealt with.

“In the Asian culture, family is very important,” says Song. “Many kids want to please their parents. Usually parents have the most influence on their kid’s faith. But perhaps parents need to see that the hard thing for the second generation is balancing how to be a part of the Canadian culture and still value things that their Asian culture requires.”

The Asian-Canadian Centre held a seminar in September on “Religious Attitude and Commitment of 1.5 and Second Generation Asian-Canadian Protestant Young Adults.” The seminar saw that one third of the students involved in the survey left church after high school, having little time after which to involve themselves in religious life.

Religious life for second-generation young adults is a life they see as lacking in connectedness, diversity and inclusion of anyone other than the typical “church” person.

Joshua Chung is an 18-year-old young adult at St. Timothy’s Korean, Toronto. As a lifelong churchgoer, he tends to see his devoted attendance as a means to satisfy his parents.

“I want to believe that church is a personal choice but I see it more as a reason to keep my parents happy,” says Chung. “For me the idea of God and Jesus Christ is very metaphorical and not very tangible and physical. I guess it is this society that changes how people see things; everyone’s a skeptic.”

Chung does not see the church as a desirable place for himself or his peers, seeming to display no sort of connection to reality. He believes that the core factor that makes a church desirable is its community—the people within it.

“What I see is many of the teens are actually coming to church more for the community and social aspect. A lot of my friends don’t even pay attention to the message the pastor is giving. Many teens my age are slowly drifting away from the church and mostly because the church isn’t seen as something that is ‘cool.’ In an age where the mind is as open as it can be, religion is being frowned upon for its closed-mindedness.”

Rev. In Kee Kim, senior minister at St. Timothy’s, is aware of voices like Chung’s, and also senses the pull from the young adults’ parents.

“The young adults see the PCC as white and outdated,” says Kim. “To them, the PCC culture has its own mentality. They seem to only come to church because of their parents, not because of any personal desire.”

Originally founded as an immigrant church serving Koreans, St. Timothy’s is now yearning to find a balanced relationship between first and second generations.

Kim speculates that the attitudes of second generations heavily reflect the church’s tendency to offer little room for doubt and questioning. He believes churches need to create more room for young adults to grapple with the “big Christian truths.” For a generation that values individual spirituality, organized religion typically seems to only bring unnecessary oppression.

“Christianity isn’t effectively reaching out to modern people because our answer is always ‘this is what the Bible says.’ It quickly becomes black and white; it does not allow people to question and look at things differently.

“We need to look at what they need,” continues Kim. “The second generation wants meaningful conversation. They have a desire to explore the truth on their own and they’re searching for that. We often give them the final product rather than walking with them through it. In this pursuit, we have buried the teachings of Jesus. He came to teach us what life is; his teachings are for all who are searching, not just Christians. The church does not need an answer, but a direction.”

The church can no longer hide the issues of the world away from these young adults at such a critical time. It is this “hear no evil, speak no evil” mentality that Nam Soon Song sees as a factor in putting young adults at an arm’s length—a system with roots in church youth groups.

“Churches aren’t allowing their youth to grapple with real issues, or get involved in the ministries of the church or outreach,” she says. “This is the age when youth need to find more meaning in church. It should not be a place to let them have ‘Christian fun,’ but a time that should be used to prepare and sharpen. Youth groups need to stop treating their youth like children.”

Immigrant churches may benefit from a reform if this is the case. In his article “Constructing a Local Theology for the Second Generation Korean Ministry,” author Rev. Minho Song of YoungNak Presbyterian, Toronto, (affiliated with Korean Presbyterian Church Abroad, not the Presbyterian Church in Canada) addresses the need for ministry redevelopment in Korean churches.

“The present Korean church life is, somehow, no longer in tune with these young people, culturally and ideologically,” he says. “Some pastors predict that at this rate of exodus the majority of the second generation Koreans will be unchurched in a few years, making them one of the most unreached peoples in our very neighbourhoods of North American cities.”

Minho Song specifies reasons for the exodus as “too much emphasis on Korean ethnicity, the pull and power of postmodern culture, mass media and secular education, limitations on a sense of belonging, unclear vision of the church and church issues such as splitting and frequent changes in pastoral staff.”

In response to these challenges, he points to three central ideologies that might assist immigrant churches in effectively and sustainably ministering to the young adult generation: The immigrant church must be ready to disciple younger members to take ownership of their faith, become ready to treat second generation attendees as contributing members of church life, and become willing to break free of ministry to solely ethnic groups.

“The church which looks forward to the contribution of the second generation must be built upon the strength of radical discipleship to Jesus, and not upon personal ties with the previous generation or ethnicity,” says Song. “The second generation Koreans who hear the gospel need churches to be nurtured in. Unless the immigrant churches allow them more opportunities to assume leadership in the church, the church will force this group of people to become marginalized and ultimately unreached. And, churches bent on maintaining and protecting their own ethnicity will not earn the hearts of their succeeding generations.”

When second generation young adults are given the space to grow at their own pace, they are able to thrive in a church family that not only encourages personal growth and discipleship, but also allows for genuineness, transparency and a recognition of the voice of a generation that has been drowned out by tradition and structure.