Maybe I was always a... destined to leave the
church. I always had a hard time accepting even
the most basic of Christian doctrines. Some of
the most vivid memories I have of my childhood
involve intense, not always polite discussions
with my dad on confusing claims of Jesus' divine
nature or the logical incoherence of the Trinity
and the questionable authority of the Bible.
When did I have these discussions? I mean, it
started probably in late elementary school. And
my arguments only became more refined against
Christian doctrine since then. I don't think
it helped that I fell in love with philosophy.
If anything, it just equipped me with insight
into the depths of the problems. with arguing
both for and against God's existence, let alone
anything else that the church wanted to claim
about the Bible's authority or Jesus' divinity
or just anything else. But to focus on these
arguments really missed the real reason I left
the church and why I shed any desire to remain
in. any Christian community or to call myself
a Christian. See, to better understand my journey,
we need to travel all the way back to the day
I was born. Because, you know, as a pastor's
kid, I grew up in the church. I didn't just go
to church on Sunday for a few hours. No, my whole
life revolved around the church and the church
community. I was at church on Wednesday evenings
for midweek service. I was at church most Saturdays
where, you know, if there wasn't some sort of
church event, I was then accompanying my dad
for preparations that he was making for the next
day. You know, when I was old enough, my parents
would drag me to morning prayers like every weekday.
It's like this weird Korean. church thing that
to go at like five in the morning to church and
pray and have a mini service right um you know
my dad would hold like family you know family
what is it bible study on the days and we didn't
have any other thing that was going on at church
i mean eventually they just kind of gave up on
some of these things but mostly it was because
i just kept on insisting i didn't want to do
it Mainly because the time commitment was kind
of getting ridiculous, I thought. I've also mentioned
that I would spend time with other pastors' families
regularly. I mean, since I didn't really have
many relatives in the U .S., these pastors, my
dad's friends, really, and their kids, they became
my relatives. We just knew each other. Even if
I didn't get along or weren't friends with the
other kids. We all heard stories about each other
through our parents, right? Man, the summers
were taken up by Bible study, VBS, various other
things that were going on through the church.
My dad would also regularly drag me to these
pastor's meetings because I guess denominations
have their own little gatherings where they talk
about church stuff, I guess. And that happened
every few weeks. I'm pretty sure he dragged me
there just because he didn't want to leave me
at home by myself. But, you know, I would just
attend so many church -centered things, right?
So my life, my entire family's life, really,
was centered on the church. And though I didn't
always like that reality, one thing was always
true. Church, in a way, was home. And when we
moved to Colton, it was... actually our home
in a way, right? The church actually purchased
the sanctuary, but also the home next to it to
serve as a home for the pastor, right? So my
family lived in the home next to the sanctuary.
On those nights when I was feeling especially
depressed or lost in life, often in a state of...
tears or you know just wanting to end my life
because just things were just so hard I would
steal the keys to the sanctuary I would just
sneak in there and I would lay down on the pew
looking up at the large cross in front of me
and I would just fall asleep I would just fall
asleep there and I'm not sure why I I don't know
why I felt so comfortable and add peace there,
but that's what it brought me. It brought me
peace. Later in college, I continued to attend
church. I mean, once I got to college, I mean,
there was definitely nothing forcing me to go.
My parents weren't going to have any say in whether
I went to church or not, you know. I didn't have
to go. I had... You know, it was nice to sleep
in. I mean, I was a college student, right? So,
you know, Saturdays often meant late nights.
And then so Sunday, it was hard getting up in
the morning. But I continued to attend church.
You got to understand that at this point, I didn't
really believe in the existence of God, any God,
right? To be accurate, I was probably what you
would describe as agnostic, right? I didn't know
one way or the other. But I was definitely not
convinced that the existence of God and let alone
a Christian one, right? I was definitely against
most of the teachings of the church, at least
the teachings I've encountered in my own life
and exposure to this, which is honestly mostly
fairly socially conservative. At least my dad's
circle of friends, they tended to be very doctrinal.
They seemed to be obsessed with the authority
of the Bible and specific interpretations, honestly,
of them. denomination was against women serving
as lead pastors, which disgusted me. The sexism
in the church was appalling. I mean, not just
in theory, but also in practice, like the unfairness
and the discrimination. I remember even when
I was young, none of this made sense. And then
I became more angry about it as I started encountering
people who were directly affected by it. The
churches that I often attended kind of not necessarily
like explicitly, but left a responsibility on
the poor and homeless to take care of their own
situation as if they were somehow responsible
for their own plight. And so, you know, and I
can't lie. There was the tinge of like, well,
not a tinge, a lot of racism in a lot of these
Korean churches that I attended. It's particularly
directed at blacks and Latinos, but honestly,
it was a lot of bias against like darker skinned
Asians too, right? I couldn't understand how
they could just throw the compassionate examples
of Jesus out the door so easily. And of course,
I had exposure to all the politics and corruption
happening behind the scenes in the church, right?
So I told you like my... Dad took me to all these
meetings. I think parents need to understand
that their kids probably understand a lot more
than, you know, and are aware of a lot more than
they think they are, right? So, like, you know,
my dad would take me and my brother to these
meetings and we were just left outside to play.
But we could hear things through the doors and
the walls. Like, it's not as if they were particularly,
you know, quiet at certain times. And also, like,
it's not as if the walls weren't particularly
thin. you could hear what they're talking about.
And, you know, I'm a kid, so I don't understand
everything clearly, but from what I could gather,
at least I knew that some pastors really did
not like each other. I think it also helped that
my mom was a gossip, so she would just spill
the beans. I don't know if she did it intentionally
or not, but she just spilled the beans on all
this drama that was happening. Or, like, you
know, I just learned about, like, high -ranking
church members, like elders, stealing money from
the church or other shady activities. I do know
that there were issues with pastors vying for
power within the denomination, and they were
willing to say all kinds of nasty things about
each other in order to secure it. I was exposed
to all this. So all this to say, I had good reason
to not attend church. but I still chose to attend
church. And it wasn't out of habit. It was a
conscious choice. I decided to do it. It was
actually the one I attended while I was in college
was this church that was north of UCLA. It was
one of my dad's friend's church. I have this
sneaky suspicion that the parents wanted the
kids to get married to one another because I
always felt like my... Maybe not so much my parents,
but my dad's friend. They pushed their daughters.
They treated me in a way where I felt very uncomfortable
as if they were trying to set me up for something,
right? With one of their daughters. Well, that's
all speculation, but I wouldn't be surprised
if there's some truth there. I would want to
go for an interview at some point to find out
what really happened. But the church had this
youth pastor who was, you know, willing to actually
pick me up every Sunday. Sometimes there were
other students at UCLA that they would pick up,
ones that, you know, that grew up in their church.
But he was willing to, you know, it's a decent
drive. It's in the valley. So it was like a good
like 20 plus minutes. Luckily on Sundays there
weren't really traffic. So he would pick me up
and then drop me back off on campus. You know,
I think one of the reasons I kept on going was
in part because of him, right? He loved to engage
me, even though he knew my positions on all these
things and how I often poked and prodded, like
everything from the Bible and the church to like
a lot of the practices or doctors. Like I just,
we just went at it with one another, right? And
I'm pretty sure he enjoyed these talks. He definitely
did not shy away from it. Um, and I think there
was something about the fact that he was willing
to engage me that meant a lot to me. Um, at times
I would get frustrated for sure. Right. Um, because,
you know, sometimes like, I mean, I'll be honest
with you, completely irrational responses, like
just drive me up the wall and just makes me go
absolutely nuts. Right. I mean, I'm a lot better
about it now, but the fact that even the tirade
Tuesdays exists tells you that I tend to sometimes.
be um pretty uh vocal in my responses to things
that i just don't think make any sense or things
i disagree with um but i remember like especially
this one conversation we had about uh the importance
of caring for the environment i was trying to
come up with arguments that i thought would be
convincing for him right so i was like you know,
maybe the pragmatics of it, right? That there's
a necessity in the long term for human survival
that we need to start taking action now. This
was back in like early 2000, 2001 or something
like that, right? Or maybe like thinking, ooh,
maybe I can take a biblical approach, right,
and explain how it's kind of like a mandate of
God to care for God's creation. This is part
of human responsibility in the way that we treat
animals and treat, you know, like trees and rivers.
all these other things, right? And I think when
he would just completely dismiss it and try to
argue that it was just merely some political
issue and it's not grounded in reality, he just
denied the science of climate change altogether.
I think that's when I just went nuts because
I was like, you're just going to ignore all of
the studies that have... been accumulating over
until then you know are you going to ignore all
the people who are experts in this field like
it's just it just sounded ridiculous his approach
i thought it was completely unreasonable and
i was just like would get so frustrated because
it felt like reason didn't work with him right
um another time i think we were arguing about
the trinity and uh how it just made absolutely
no sense and he was trying to give an explanation
But his explanation made absolutely no sense
at all. It was the worst kind of explanation.
I was, like, getting frustrated. He was like,
you're not making any sense at all, like, reasons.
And it felt like I was hitting my head against
a brick wall. I remember one time he tried to,
like, sun me and say, like, you know, something
along the lines of, like, oh, yeah, you know,
like, it's one of those things where, like, once
you have faith and you're in it, then it all
just kind of, like, makes a lot of sense and
you could accept it, right? And I was like...
No, that's the worst way to reason. That's not
how to have a conversation with somebody and
have a reasoned discussion back and forth, right?
But even though some of these moments were really
frustrating, they paled in comparison to the
fact that I really appreciated that he was willing
to have a conversation with me, right? He was
willing to take that time out. of his day, of
his energy, to actually come all the way over
to pick me up and to engage in these conversations.
So I came to look forward to our drives to and
from church. Still, you know, the truth was that
I think I had a sense. I just felt like a kind
of outsider at church. You know, it was kind
of weird because, you know, I share with you
that, you know, when I was a kid, I would go
to the sanctuary. That was a place of comfort.
It was a place of peace. It was a place where,
you know, outside, regardless of all the politics,
not as if I didn't know all the negative things
about church, I just felt at home. But I regularly
felt like an outsider at church. And that feeling
just kind of has been with me for just the longest
time. I was someone who, for many reasons that
I already laid out, probably should not have
been attending church in the first place, yet
I insisted on going. I mean, I didn't know exactly
why then, but... It's fairly clear to me now
that there was a couple of things that I really
was looking for, right? And one was that because
church felt like home, I wanted to belong there.
I wanted to be accepted and embraced like family.
But I just didn't always feel that way because...
Well, you know, my beliefs about the church or
the doctrine or the institution or church history,
right? Like these things all led me to have a
lot of disagreements with pretty much anybody
at church. I became like the seed of discord,
maybe. Additionally, I think there's something
else I wanted in going to church. And that's
really that I wanted the church to change. I
mean, the reality is that I was aware of the
history of Christianity at a fairly early age.
My parents, I don't think they realized, they
used to leave me in the library in the summers
because they couldn't afford child care. So what
they did was they just dropped me off at the
public library. at some point when I was old
enough, and then they would just leave me there
for, like, eight hours, and then they'll come
pick me up at the end. Like, it's almost like
the library became my babysitter. I remember
my brother and I would just go through and just
read through as many books as we can as a way
to keep ourselves entertained. I mean, I'm talking
back in the days when they didn't have computers
there. So it wasn't like I could play games.
There was no cell phone. You know, the public
library was far enough away that I couldn't,
like, walk home, right? I spent a lot of time
reading, and one of the things that I ended up
reading quite a bit of was a lot of biographies
and books on history, encyclopedias I ended up
reading quite a bit. I just read because there
was nothing else to do there, not because I particularly
enjoyed it. Eventually, I enjoyed some kinds
of reading, but even then, sometimes I needed
a break from it, so I just read whatever was
available, and I was exposed. I knew the history
of Christianity, you know, going back to the
days of the way that Christians persecuted other
religions, were persecuted in return, but also
did the persecuting. But I was also particularly
aware, because I read a lot of works on U .S.
history specifically, the role of the church,
both good and bad, when it came to things like
civil rights movement or the abolitionist movement
or, you know. It just, let's be honest, it just
wasn't always pretty. And that's kind of putting
it mildly, right? The church was often the one
enacting harm and justice and injustice. They
were often siding with the oppressor, justifying
things like slavery or Jim Crow laws. And I've
already mentioned how my dad's church, like they
discriminated against women, which actually still
happens in many churches today. The church rarely
seems to be at the forefront of bringing about
justice. If it does, it's usually in the United
States anyways, it was like black churches, right?
Or, you know, it would be churches that did not
have the oppressive power in that church, right?
But generally, they were always against things
like, you know, women's rights. helping out immigrants,
people of color, or even the LGBTQ community,
right? These are all things that they've kind
of fought against, at least in the U .S., at
least. This is kind of the history of the church
collectively. I mean, I can go on, but maybe
because the church felt like home, I didn't want
to just abandon it and leave it in the state
that it was at. I wanted it to be better. I wanted...
for it to reflect what I was really committed
to, what my dad, in all his Bible studies and
all my arguments with him, kind of instilled
in me, which was the search for truth and justice.
I still remember the Bible studies I've had with
him. I get into arguments with him about all
this stuff, but... At the end of the day, the
lessons that he really wanted me to take away
from it, I mean, you could see it in his selection
of Bible passages, but he would often read from
Proverbs and Philippians and Ephesians, and he
would read specifically these things telling
me that it's important to gain wisdom, right?
It's not so much the exact details of the what
and when and how. What was more important is
gaining this wisdom and discernment to allow
you to apply it to living out a life that is
aligned with the search for and the bringing
about of truth and justice, right? So for these
reasons, I didn't want to leave the church, even
if I found myself frustrated with it. In fact,
I even ended up going to Boston University for
their theology program. I ended up going, I mean,
who does this, right? I ended up getting a master's
degree, not for any intellectual pursuit, not
in the pursuit of a job. It was just deeply personal.
I just felt so out of sync with the church and
the church community as a whole and what they
were doing in the world, you know, that I just
wanted to find something. something to make sense
of this kind of disconnect that I was experiencing.
And I spent time, energy, and some money to go
ahead and pursue a full -on master's degree just
so I could just dedicate specific years of my
life to this search. And for a while, I felt
hopeful at Boston University. You know, it was
a program where, yeah, I personally was on the
more, I guess the degree itself was much more
on the intellectual side, but I was taking classes
with future ministers, pastors from all over
the world, right? From different denominations.
And though they didn't always agree on everything,
they didn't always see eye to eye, I was just
happy to find that there were... at least some
people who saw some of the things that I saw
and cared about it enough to want to bring, to
make the church a better place or had a desire
to bring about change. I actually have this wonderful
memory of some of the Boston University students
starting a pub church where on Sundays they hit
the bars, right? And then they hold a service
there. It was like a fun way to like brainstorm
when I remember like hearing them brainstorming
that like, yeah, like instead of breaking, you
know, bread, what we're going to do is we're
going to break like chips or something or popcorn
or whatever they had at the bar. And instead
of like wine, they would drink beer. It's like
Boston culture. They just love their beer, right?
But I love that they were trying to reach out
to the people who were. really having a rough
time, right? Like, who are the, where are you
going to find people who are drinking away their
life on a Sunday, right? I mean, you're going
to find them at the pub, right? And they were
wanting to reach people where they were at. And
I thought that was so wonderful. I also remember
that during my time there anyways, there was
a deep division about how to view and whether
or not to accept the LGBTQ community with regards
to, you know, gay marriage, but also, you know,
ordination. Like, can you ordain, you know, somebody
who is lesbian or gay or, you know, so on. And,
you know, to accept them into the church full
on, right? Like, just make them a real member
of the community and accept them as they are.
What was, you know, I mean, it was tense. It
was uncomfortable, a lot of the conversations.
But for me, anyways, regardless of how things
played out, I was already comforted in knowing
that there were actually so many other people
fighting for the kinds of same things that I
was hoping that the church would come to embrace.
They would just actually understand that people
who are gay and lesbian, this is not some lifestyle
choice or something. sinning against God. There's
a whole set of beliefs that seem to go with their
understanding of a whole community that didn't
make any sense. I was glad to see that others
were fighting for the same things I was fighting
for. That gave me hope. They gave me a lot of
hope. I think I also had a lot of hope from just
encountering all these past... pastor essentially,
who didn't keep me at an arm's length and just
embraced me into the fold at the church in a
way that I don't think I really fully experienced
while I was here, even in light of all the things
that I believed, that all the things I had doubts
about. They had no qualms with my doubts. and
uncertainty and questions and agnosticism about
these things, right? Like they were willing to
just, and it wasn't some sort of like, you know,
malicious plan to like sucker me into something.
They were just, they weren't trying to convert
me and change my beliefs. They let me be who
I was and they still were willing to accept me.
And that I think made, gave me a lot of hope.
Or at least at the time it did. One of them,
even now a pastor in the suburbs of Boston, one
of whom even asked me to be the godfather to
one of his kids. And it wasn't some sort of master
plan. Well, maybe it was. Maybe it was some sort
of master plan of his to try to plant some seeds
in my head or something. He would also tell me
that I should be a pastor. He envisions me being
a pastor. I wouldn't be surprised if he spent
a lot of time praying that I become a pastor
myself. If you know my love -hate relationship
with the church, it's not going to happen. Let
me just shut it down, right? But the hope that
I got from my time at Boston, I got exactly what
I was looking for in Boston. had a sense of hope
because I think the biggest thing for me was
I just felt like if I was who I was, then there
would be no space for me in the church. If I
was who I was authentically, there would be no
space for me in the church. And my time in Boston
gave me hope that that might not be the case,
that there might be space for me. And it carried
me for a long time, right? When I finished up
at Boston, I came back to California. I was a
grad student at UC Santa Barbara, but I spent
a lot of time in L .A. because I had friends
there. But I also started attending a church
in L .A. that was right up my alley, right? They
were big on justice and serving the community.
I loved being a part of that community and serving
places like Lincoln Heights and later South Central
LA, where there was a lot of kids, a lot of families
who were in need of just love. There was no trying
to convince them of anything or converting anybody.
It was just a way to extend love and grace and
just honor. humanity right um to the fullest
uh and when i got married and moved over to philadelphia
for a while i we found a church there um you
know that we became i still have friendships
there i still stay in contact with uh and you
know when we moved back to california you know
we found a church in orange county uh that became
uh we became part of that community Oddly enough,
at all these places, for some reason, I tend
to end up becoming friends with the pastors,
with the pastoral staff. The crew, crew or clique
sounds weird, but the people that I got closest
with while I was at all these churches, well,
maybe not in Philadelphia, but in Orange County,
and then also back when I was in... In LA and
everywhere I went, I just ended up becoming good
friends with a bunch of pastors. Or if they're
not officially serving as pastors, they studied
theology. They were about to be pastors. They
were on their way to being pastors. It just seemed
to gravitate towards that type, maybe. Yet everywhere
I went, I honestly, I always felt kind of the
same. I felt like... Yeah, I'm a part of this
group. I have some hope, but I still feel like
I'm on the outside looking in. I never felt that
same thing that I felt when I was younger, when
I would sneak into the church alone and I just
felt at home. And I couldn't put my finger on
it. I didn't really know why I was feeling the
way I was feeling. Even though I seemed to, to
some degree anyways, be kind of embraced at all
these churches, wherever it is I kind of went.
And I think it wasn't until years into therapy
that I think things began to become a little
clearer for me. And the truth was, it wasn't
the church. There was nothing that the church
was doing. It wasn't anything about the church
embracing me. It wasn't about the church accepting
me, but rather it was me. I was actually refusing
this whole time to accept who I am, to accept
that I believed what I believed, and that I cared
about the things that I cared about. The truth
is that I never accepted anything that would
constitute me a Christian. I don't know what
definition other people are working with, but,
you know, I didn't accept any of the doctrines.
I was honestly critical of most of Christian
history and its traditions, right? I think most
of the traditions are actually, you know, appalling
or have roots in something that is, for me anyways,
unacceptable. Hell, I'm critical of most churches
regardless of the denomination. I'm just... in
that place. Much of the things that churches
are still debating to this day, honestly, were
settled matters for me personally for a long
time. Things like gay marriage and women in leadership
and, you know, reconciliation over past wrongs
by the church. I mean, it's, but it's also less
so the beliefs, it's the practices. It's the
living out of whatever it is. I don't know exactly
what, because churches just, especially the Protestant
church, it's just fragmented in a lot of ways.
There's just too many different groups moving
in different ways. But at least the churches
that I've been a part of, it just feels like
collectively as a community, they weren't moving
in the same direction I was. We didn't seem to
have the same commitment. My commitment has always
been to truth and justice. I think that it all
just leads to the same place. Truth leads to
goodness and goodness leads to truth. And we're
all just moving in that same direction. That's
where my commitment is too. And I honestly could
care less whether it came from the church or
elsewhere. And what I knew... from my own experiences
anyways, that bothered me, that I wasn't willing
to really acknowledge just how much it was bothering
me, was that, for me anyways, the church always
seemed to act in response to the world instead
of initiating that change for the better. You
know, I don't, I never, like, take, like, for
instance, Black Lives Matter movement, right?
Like, I didn't see churches at the forefront
of it. I saw the churches as following. along
with it right like they were they might some
of them might have participated some of them
might have opposed but you know they they just
i don't know like they just seem to be following
along with something instead of being at the
forefront of change the fight against poverty
homelessness right like these things seem to
be like the places from everything i was taught
from my dad you know And all those like, you
know, family Bible studies, like everything I
was taught tells me that these are the places
where the church should be at the forefront of
demanding change to eradicate poverty through
various tax policies, through whatever means
necessary, right? To eradicate homelessness by...
you know, not allowing people to amass so much
wealth or to limit the houses that are being
available or like at least affordable housing,
right? Like find ways to solve these issues that
they should be at the forefront of these issues,
but they weren't. In fact, most of the time it
seems like they could seem like they could care
less until it was that time when they some, for
some reason they cared, which. often seem to
coincide with when the rest of the world seem
to care. Again, I'm not speaking on everybody.
I'm just talking collectively as a church, as
a larger body. It doesn't seem to be moving in
the same direction, at least that I want to be
moving. And from my experience, all the churches
that I've been to, it felt like I had to be the
one to prompt. the church to start a fight against
injustice instead of the church prompting me.
Usually, you know, if the church prompts anything,
it has to do with community building or, you
know, finding ways to care for people within
the church. These aren't bad things, but they
are very inward focused, and that's just not
me. That's never been me. My eyes were always
on a bigger picture. a desire to kind of live
it out in the world outside of the church. And,
you know, like I said, individuals might have
been working towards the same goal, but the church
collectively, as I saw it, just wasn't, at least
not to the degree that I was wanting. And more
than anything, I was trying to make the church
be something that it wasn't. If anything, I wasn't
accepting the church for what it was. And I was
wanting for it to be something that fit more
of what it is I needed for me to be able to accept
it. And so when I chose to just be honest with
myself about where the church was and where I
was at, the decision was fairly clear for me.
And I made a decision to leave the church for
good. And to just shed any notion that I was
a Christian in any sense of the word. And I just
don't know how to explain how painful it is to
say all this out loud. I still don't know exactly
why it hurts so much. Maybe it's this feeling
that I lost a home and all the feelings that
come with that. Or if it's the sense that I lost
a sense of myself. Maybe it's the realization
that I just never had something that I thought
I had, right? This place that... a community,
a home that I believed was something that I could
be a part of. I don't know. What I do know is
that as crappy as it feels, as painful as it
is, I do sense, I can feel it, that I am being
more honest with myself. And now I'm holding
on to hope grounded in reality in some ways that
at least if I'm being honest with myself, I can
make clear -eyed decisions moving forward about
what I want to do with my life. And real quick,
to Pastor Bob, I'm sorry, your dreams. of my
becoming a pastor, it ends here. I hate to burst
that bubble for you, but I do promise that I
will fulfill my duties as a godfather and guide
your son to living the right kind of life. Because
that I do care about. And that's something that
I hope the rest of the world does care about
too.