First Entry: what factors of your native culture have informed your religious views? Explain the impact of these factors

Before I talk about factors of my native culture that have informed my religious views, I would like to discuss about the impacts of my personal background and parents on my religious views because I believe they are equally as influential as native culture is. I have parents who hold different beliefs. My mother is a strong Christian who prays, reads Bible regularly, and goes to church regularly. However, my father is almost an atheist. I have rarely seen him talking about religion with my mother or with anyone. Thus, I had been accustomed to the inconsistencies between the parents about Christianity. My father was a very down-to-earth atheist who believed that religion is for the "weak" on which to depend and rely, whereas my mother firmly believed that it is the ultimate source of life. In short, my parents had posed one critical question in my mind about religion; what is the truth?

Although I was born in L.A., California, my childhood had not been much influenced by American culture at that time TCIS because I came back to Korea when I was two. Since then, I had been going to a Korean school until I moved to TCIS in 2005. I was a person who was very indifferent about religion; I did not care if God existed or if Christ cared for me. I had no knowledge about the Bible and Christianity as a whole. And since my mother, who has always been a Christian, had never forced me to go to church or believe in God, I was never forced to take part in any religious activities that rarely happened between my mother and cousins who believed in God. Although I was occasionally encouraged to go to church with my friends, I did not consider that as more than “Sunday morning meeting friends and going to PC band afterwards.”

However, my entrance to TCIS in 2005 was a pivotal point in my life. Although it does not mean that, I miraculously felt the existence of God immediately after coming to TCIS, my viewpoint about God had significantly changed in the sense that I now “care” about it. TCIS has either encouraged or at times forced me to have interest in Christianity through means of CIC, Chapel, SEW, Christian teachers, Bible class, which I do not think had negative influence on me at all although at first I did not welcome the enforcement. I started learning that in Biology class evolutionism is not ethical or scientifically correct. I learned that Bible is 100% true.

TCIS has gradually changed my point of view on religion. When I first came, SEW felt like a three-day half-vacation where I hang out with new friends. Bible class did nothing more than forcing students to memorize Bible verses, which I knew I would forget after the final exams anyway. In 9th grade, Bible class was more like a “second study hall” or “sleep-if-you-want” class to me. Chapel was merely another opportunity to fall asleep while someone was talking on stage about something I did not really care. Yet, my tenth grade Bible teacher was, unfortunately, or fortunately, not “nice” enough to let me do other homework or fall asleep. I was to take notes about stories in the Bible just as I would in any other class. I learned about statistics regarding how accurate and correct Bible is. Nevertheless, most importantly, it intrigued me to ask myself questions about the religion. Does God exist? Why do bad things happen then? Is it to make us appreciate the ordinary days we take it for granted most of the times? Why isn’t God talking to me if He exists? Is the Bible true? Although I have not found all the answers to any of my questions, I became open-minded, curious, not judgmental, eager to learn, willing to be objective. I now abandoned prejudices I had against religion somewhat enforced upon me by my father; religion is what “weak” people believe in because they need something to rely on other than themselves.

Due to the impact of factors of native culture I experienced in my life, my current status on religion became open-minded and unprejudiced. I now believe that God could exist, in fact probably exists, and I am pretty much ready to try to live my life for Him when He calls me.