Scholars, donors and community leaders announced on Nov. 16 a four-year grant of $504,000 from the Henry Luce Foundation to the UCLA Center for Korean Studies to establish the first and only academic program on Korean Christianity to be undertaken in the United States.
The grant will fund the Luce Distinguished Professor of Korean Christianity, postdococtoral and graduate fellowships, and a regular colloquium series, according to the program organizers.
Korea has one of the most dynamic Christian traditions in the world today, but it has been little studied in the West, said a panel of participants at the UCLA news conference.
The conference panel included Robert Buswell, director of the UCLA Center for Korean Studies; Byung-Suh Kim, professor of sociology, Ewha Womans University and Luce Distinguished Professor of Korean Christianity at UCLA; and Jacqueline Pak, Luce postdoctoral fellow in Korean Christianity at the school.
Christianity is crucial to understanding the modern history of Korea, the panel members said. Although only two percent of the Asia’s population are Christian, one-third of South Korea’s population are Christian, they said.
In Los Angeles, home to the largest ethnic Korean community in North America, an eststimated 50 to 75 percent of Korean Americans go to Christian churches and they have established more than 800 immigrant churches here, compared with about 20 Buddhist temples.
UCLA has the biggest program in Korean studies in the continental United States, as well as the largest enrollment of Korean American students in the country, which is estimated at about 3,300. About 80 percent of them identified themselves as Christian, according to the school officials.
Henry Luce Foundation was established in 1936 by the late Henry R. Luce, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Time, Inc. Noted for supporting higher education in several fields, the foundation has been funding research on Christianity in Asia.