rob117

Not sure if this or non-Abrahamic is the right forum.

I've been curious about this lately; the entire point of this message is based on my personal observation, so it could very well be wrong statistically. The area where I live has a relatively large Asian population, both recent immigrants and people whose families have been here here for several generations, and most of the Asians (particularly Koreans) and Asian-Americans I know are Christian. Given that Christianity is a minority religion in China, Korea, and Japan, does anyone think the fact that the US population is primarily Christian influences the demographics of immigration into the country from primarily non-Christian cultures? Or is it possible that the conversion happened over generations in some families due to assimilation? I suspect a little of both.

Chris Weimer

I dated a Korean girl (and a member of this board still, though she doesn't come around here no more) for a few years. The whole community is really tight-knit. What happens is that when they come over here, they're integrate into the already Korean community, and they all convert. The family that stays in Korea doesn't convert. I was lucky to have gotten to her and her sister before they brainwashed them.

cognac

From the CIA world fact book: South Korea

Religions:
Christian 26.3% (Protestant 19.7%, Roman Catholic 6.6%),
Buddhist 23.2%,
other or unknown 1.3%,
none 49.3%
(1995 census)

gstafleu

As a sweeping generalization, people from Asia are less individualistic and more collectivistic than people from the West. So I think they would tend to join existing social structures, including churches, just in order to "belong." Add to this that Asian religions in general are less exclusivist ("only my god is true") and more syncretic ("God is one but the sage knows he has many names" in case of monotheism; polytheism which starts out with many gods is less exclusive for that very reason), and you'll see that there is no big problem for them to join some other religion.

Gerard Stafleu

Toto

My observation in LA is that many of the current immigrants use the churches as mutual aid societies. Koreans in particular flock to Christian Churches. The Japanese who migrated to the US a few generations ago are still Buddhists, and have well established Buddhist Temples.

This seems to involve more sociology of religion. It might do better in GRD than in BCH.

Styrofoamdeity

It is very difficult to speak of Asians as a block, especially recent immigrants. Korea is presently going through a wave of conversions to Protestantism, particularly among residents of major cities such as Seoul. Since such people are more educated and mobile, they are far more likely to emigrate. This process is now being mirrored in China on a smaller scale in places like Shanghai. Recent Chinese arrivals will very likely be Protestant.

Philippinos are strongly Catholic, and recent arrivals to the USA will likely be Catholic.

Nevertheless, as for true "Asian-Americans"- people who have been in the United States for a generation or two- rates of belief are very likely LOWER than for white Americans. It is simply a question of education. Since rates of disbelief rise with education, and Asian Americans are more likely to be college educated or to have a Master's degree or higher, rates of belief or lower.

The idea that Asians are "comformist" so believe Christianity to me looks like a stereotype.

Chris Weimer

I was going by first hand information. :huh:

Corona688

Anecdote ahoy.

A christian, chinese lady I used to know told me she moved to canada from china because, among other reasons, christians weren't particularly welcome there.

xunzian

Korea is actually a very interesting case. Confucianism was adopted there in a *major* way, to the point where the indigenous religion was pretty much relegated to a very minor role. Also, the Emperor who introduced many of the Confucian reforms to Korea did so to separate his dynasty from the previous, Buddhist one, so Buddhism was officially discouraged.

In conjunction with that state-ideology, they repressed the thought of Yangming, a Chinese Confucian whose version of the tradition (xinxue, for those interested) was much closer to Buddhism (to the point where some people refer to it as 'wildcat Buddhism'). That left basic Song Confucianism (the Zheng-Zhu school, also known as Daoxue), which places a really heavy emphasis on the metaphysical concept of Heaven. Also the thinker T'oegye (who is featured on the 1000 Won note, and is a major shaper of Korean Confucianism) introduced/made canonical a series of ideas that made Confucianism even more compatible with Christianity (transcendency of principle (li), suggesting that man's physical endowment is separate from our true nature, our true nature is good but our endowment is evil, ect).

Missionaries had a field day with this. Especially since Confucianism is more of a philosophy than a religion, so there was a wave of conversions amongst the literati. This was also probably done for similar reasons to why German princes converted to Protestantism -- it helped separate Korea from China even more and further legitimize that distinction, but I haven't actually studied the history of it. Anyway, Christianity trickled down from there.

And that is why Korea is so surprisingly Christian.

The Japanese and Chinese Christian families probably converted at port cities due to trading and exposure. Also (at least classically), due to ownership -- if the master of the house is Christian, than it follows that all the servants are going to be Christian. People in those situations, whose families have had dealings with Europeans for generations, are pre-disposed towards being Europhiles, or at least wanting to send their children to Europe for an education. Invariably some stay.

Potoooooooo

I know some christians in the USA are licking their chops in anticipation of the conversion of most of China to christianity. Do you think this could reailisticaly happen?