Yoked

Most evangelicals agree that, as a general principle, Christians shouldn’t marry non-Christians. But are there circumstances when this should be flexible?

There’s a weird phenomenon going on in the church in Korea right now. Giwoong went to some young adult gathering and noticed that 80% of them were female. His cousin says that’s generally true of the Korean Christian young adult population. 80% female. Why? Who knows.

One consequence of that is that it’s really hard for single Christian women to meet single Christian men. So then, what’s theologically correct here? Just say that 60% of young adult women should not get married? Encourage missionary dating? What?

There’s other weird stuff happening here too. This is all second-hand, so I might be totally wrong about this. But in America, a lot of immigrant churches have gone through struggles where the next generation doesn’t jive with the authoritarian, paternalistic style of the original immigrant church. The more authoritarian the style, the stronger the generational conflict. (I long ago abandoned the belief that immigrant churches and their English ministries can stay together long-term.) Well apparently the same conflict is playing out in Korea as well. But it seems like (again, maybe completely wrong) instead of leaving and starting their own churches like the younger Asian immigrant generations have done in the U.S, the younger generation in Korea is just abandoning the church. Especially the men.

I’ve also abandoned hope of Korea ever becoming unified. The younger generation doesn’t even want it. They feel no sense of connection to North Korea at all, and think unification would be an undue burden on their economy. It’s not just that North Korea doesn’t want to come together; young South Koreans don’t want them. And I suppose if there’s no sense of familial binding, there’s no real reason why they should unify.