Since 1965 the Korean American population has grown to over one
million people. These Korean Americans, including immigrants and
their offspring, have founded thousands of Christian congregations
and scores of Buddhist temples in the United States. In fact, their
religious presence is perhaps the most distinctive contribution
of Korean Americans to multicultural diversity in the United States.
Korean Americans and Their Religions takes the first sustained
look at this new component of the American religious mosaic.
The fifteen chapters focus on cultural, racial, gender, and generational
factors and are noteworthy for the attention they give to both Christian
and Buddhist traditions and to both first- and second-generation
experiences. The editors and contributors represent the fields of
sociology, psychology, theology, and religious ministry and themselves
embody the diversities underlying the Korean American religious
experience: they are Korean immigrants who are leaders in their
fields and second-generation Korean Americans beginning their careers
as well as leaders of both Christian and Buddhist communities. Among
them are sympathetically analytical outside observers.
Korean Americans and Their Religions is a welcome addition
to the emerging literature in the sociology of "new immigrant" religious
communities, and it provides the fullest portrait yet of the Korean
religious experience in America.