I
mentioned all this at our weekly Bible study, and one of the Chinese ladies
said: “Oh, that’s very good luck.” She quickly added: “If you’re
superstitious.”
I
wrote
two weeks ago of conflicts that members of our Bible study group – all
Asian except me – sometimes experience between their religious practice and
the customs of their home countries.
This led
the wise Welshman, Richard
Hall, to
comment: “I
suspect that some teasing apart of what is ‘religious’ and what is ‘culture’
might be helpful”.
Exactly.
I often
think that one of the reasons for the explosion in Christianity in post-war
South Korea has been due to the Korean church’s appropriation of local
culture.
When I
visited David Yonggi Cho’s Full Gospel
Church in Seoul – the biggest church in the world with around 750,000
members – an elder pointed to a large Korean magpie that had built its nest
on top of the high church gateway. “That’s very good luck,” he told me.
In South
Korea, it is common to
seek out shamans for guidance about sickness, money, jobs and many other
concerns. And in particular, for help in finding a husband or wife.
I
attended three Full Gospel Church services, and after lengthy prayers at
each, Dr Cho announced that particular people in the congregation had just
been healed of various ailments. He has explained in one of his books how he
teaches women to visualize exactly the sort of husband they want, in order
to be successful.
Buddhism
teaches the
Four Noble Truths and the
Eightfold
Path. Dr Cho’s church teaches the
Fivefold Gospel
and the Threefold
Blessing.
There
have been suggestions that Dr Cho is a
Pentecostal Shaman. But I wonder, how much of our own Christian practice
is shaped by the culture around us?
November 3rd, 2003
