A Pilgrimage to the Motherland: Understanding Pilgrimage Experience as Embodied Religious Education for Korean American Youth and Young Adults

AbstractThis article explores how pilgrimage shapes the ways in which Korean American youth and young adults develop their sense of intersectional identities by visiting their motherland. The coauthors begin by highlighting the limitation of Korean American churches’ emphasis on text-based education, suggesting how pilgrimage as a spiritual practice could be more implemented for more embodied and experiential learning. By analyzing the Trip to the Motherland program run by the Presbyterian Churches in Korea and North America, the article demonstrates how transnational pilgrimage enables young pilgrims to gain a renewed sense of intersectional identities, which integrates their racial, ethnic, and religious lives.Keywords: Korean Americanpilgrimageembodied learningyoung adultsidentity development Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 The term “intersectional identity” comes from the concept of “intersectionality,” first coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw (Citation1989). Intersectionality describes how race and racism need to be understood at their intersection with other forms of indentification, such as gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality, immigration status, and more. This concept is helpful in exploring how Korean American young people often struggle to make sense of their racial, ethnic, cultural, and religious identities as racially minoritized individuals in America.2 Christine Hong and Anne Carter Walker (Citation2020) use a similar methodology in their co-written article. Inspired by bell hooks, Hong and Carter Walker use their personal narratives as a way to engage in critical dialogue and reflection on religious education and what it means to be religious educators as scholars of color. Patrick Reyes (Citation2018) also employs a similar approach in his article, “Practical Theology as Knowledge of Origin and Migration.”3 Cho participated in the pilgrimage in 2015 and 2018 and Han participated in the pilgrimage program in 2022.4 In the history of Korean Christianity, along with American Presbyterians, American Methodists also laid the Protestant Christian foundation in Korea, such as Henry G. Appenzeller, George Heber Jones, and Mary Scranton.5 Another similar program is called Brightright Israel, which provides opportunities for young American Jews to visit Israel on an all-expense-paid ten-day pilgrimage-tour. Sociologist and Jewish studies scholar Shaul Kelner (Citation2010) writes about the program and explores how it helps American Jewish young adults to think more extensively about their identities as they visit their motherland in Tours That Bind: Diaspora, Pilgrimage, and Israeli Birthright Tourism.6 While the transition into “Individuative-Reflective” faith ideally happens in the early to mid-twenties, Fowler (Citation1995) strongly indicates that not every young adult succeeds in doing it. Many people could also transition into this stage after their young adulthood.7 Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul is the world’s largest congregation with about 480,000 members.8 On May 3, 1984, Pope John Paul II visited this site to pay respect to the martyrs. He visited during the 200th anniversary of Catholicism in Korea. Mother Teresa visited the shrine a year later in 1985. On November 7, 1997, the shrine was designated as a site of national historical significance.9 But, Warfield also indicates that there are religious sites at which participants encounter possible disappointment with a sense of being underwhelmed. As a result, pilgrims might experience cognitive dissonance, which is the mental discomfort people feel when encountering conflicting experiences.10 The quotations from the interview with the participants come from the journalistic article Cho (Citation2017) wrote for Presbyterian Outlook.11 In his article (2020), Montague Williams, while he does not analyze pilgrimage as a developmental process, examines how a pilgrimage to Ferguson, Missouri in the aftermath of Michael Brown’s death enables young college students to embrace unity between spirituality and bodily engagement in social justice, and to engage in vocational discernment as a whole group of pilgrims.12 Woori as a Korean word for “we” or “us-ness.”Additional informationNotes on contributorsEunil David ChoEunil David Cho, School of Theology, Boston University School of Theology, USA. Email: eunilcho@bu.eduGaram HanGaram Han Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, USA. Email: garam.han@garrett.edu