More on Asian Christianity...

Can the Western press understand what vibrant Christianity looks like? The abduction and killing of South Korean missionaries by the Taliban has spurred many to explore the growth of the faith there.

To understand the phenomenon of Korean evangelism, he says, you need to go to where it all began. It is 4:30 on a frigid Monday morning in Seoul, but the parking lot is full and the church filled to its 9000-person capacity. In a city that also worships the work ethic, this is how tens of thousands of Koreans begin their work week. At the Onnuri church, it's a two-hour prayer service. Onnuri calls itself an evangelical Presbyterian church. It began 20 years ago and has seen massive growth.

Rev. Yongjo Ha of Onnuri Presbyterian Church explains more about mission:

When we were hopeless, the Western missionaries came, and they introduced us to the hope in Jesus Christ, so we have a very holy obligation to share this hope in Jesus Christ with those people who are still in their misery.

Read more in this week's Religion & Ethics News Weekly Report from PBS. Hat tip: Titus One Nine.

Korean students pursue God and education at Yale Divinity School

An interesting profile of Korean divinity school students at YDS. Looks like Chris Tomlin really is popular everywhere.

The congregation continues to sway to and fro through four more songs accompanied by a five-person band. Here, at 9:30 a.m. on a Sunday, in a pew at the back of the New Haven Korean Church in Hamden, Conn., worships a cluster of Korean-American students enrolled at the Yale Divinity School (YDS). Yeon Soo Lee, DIV ’09, a boyish, bespectacled YDS student in his late twenties, has freshly arrived from Seoul. Lee is going to teach Sunday school after services today, and I am going to observe. He didn’t tell me it would be conducted entirely in Korean—a language that nearly everyone in this church understands, but that I do not.

The several Korean Christian churches sprinkled throughout New Haven serve primarily Presbyterian and Methodist worshippers. Ethnic churches may seem like a curious oddity, but in fact are part of a growing trend among Korean immigrants. Although Christianity arrived in Korea barely 100 years ago, the religion boasts unusually devoted followers. Like Lee, they leave behind families, friends, and promising careers in Korea to pursue theological studies 8,000 miles away in a quiet nook of Connecticut, on a grassy hill tucked behind several University science buildings in New Haven.

Read more here.