Separation of Church and Grace

When I go to visit my parents in San Diego, I usually stay for less than 24 hours. I'll arrive Friday night or Saturday morning and head back to Orange County Saturday night. If I stay until Sunday, I'll have to argue about why I'm not going to church with my parents, which seems odd since I attend church regularly in Fullerton. So why will I go to one church and not the other? The answer is simple: I don't want to wear a suit.

My parents go to a 0 generation Korean church (at least that's what my friend, Abe, calls it). The main service is in Korean, the hymns, the readings, the sermon, everything is in Korean. There's also a smaller English service and the youth group is in English as well, these are ancillary things. The ethnocentricity of the church doesn't really bother me, but since it's a 0 generation church, it's definitely old fashioned, hence my father demanding I wear a suit if I'm to go now that I'm "grown up".

The suit is definitely an issue for me, but it's more of what the suit represents: image. I'm well liked by the parents at this church and I'm doing pretty well for myself, but my parents want these other parents to see that I'm doing well or at least that I dress like I'm an adult who knows what "doing well" is. It's something I try not to blame on my parents, it's very generational, but like I said, it's not the suit that keeps me away.

There was a kid, we'll call him Mark. He's 4 years younger than me and I, for a lack of a better word, mentored him. He wanted to learn how to play guitar for the youth group worship team so for the majority of my senior year of high school, we'd hang out, play guitar, and I'd beat his ego down. He was a bright kid, who had just tested into a gifted program. This coupled with him joining this worship team at "such a young age" (the words of others, not mine) was a recipe for disaster, but for some reason I was the only person who could see it coming. I referred to him as my Anakin Skywalker and he definitely had the ability to bring things to the dark side.

I went to college and came back to see my parents every month and a half or so, and eventually I started to go back to Irvine, on Saturdays, much like I do now. This church was no longer part of my life, but I tried to check up on Mark every now and then. During my 4th year of college, I actually came down to San Diego every weekend because my Mom was in Korea and I figured my Dad could use some company. The first weekend I was there, I decided to see how Mark was doing, and there I saw Darth Vader destroying everything in his path.

Mark started to date this girl from the youth group. I've known them both for a very long time so I didn't really think too much of it. The families didn't like each other very much but this wasn't a Romeo and Juliet generational feud. They didn't like their kid dating the other families' kid, and Mark decided to throw a drum of gasoline onto the fire. Mark disclosed to me that he thought his girlfriend was pregnant, and he was turning to me for advice. Since I'm not well versed on after school specials, I decided to ask some questions.

I skipped the obligatory "Don't you know premarital sex is forbidden by the Bible?" question and still found myself really disgusted with his answers.

"'How many times did you have unprotected sex?"
"Three."
"Why didn't you ever get protection?"
"I figured she could always get an abortion."

I don't want to open up a pro-choice/pro-life debate. I think either side will agree that these answers are ignorant, despicable, and absolutely appalling. For some reason, I didn't punch him in the face and leave, I listened to him drone on about how he loved her and how his parents didn't understand and blah blah blah blah blah. I heard him out and he asked me what he should do. I told him for starters to keep his dick in his pants. I then proceeded to tell him to stop pissing everyone off and that he had done enough damage. He needed to graduate from high school (4 months away) and then move/ let his parents kick him out of the house and then he could be with the girl and live happily ever after, but the key was to lay low until then.

I guess he wasn't expecting this. I guess he was expecting me to tell him that he was right and that everyone should leave them alone since they were in love. The next day I was supposed to have lunch with him but he didn't pick up his cell phone. I darted over to her apartment and found him there, trying to convince her to pack up her things and run away with him. I couldn't put up with him anymore. He lied to me and I realized he didn't want my advice, he wanted a "yes man". I saw him a week later, he told me she wasn't actually pregnant, and acted like all was well. That was the last time we spoke. I ran into his dad a week later at church. His dad didn't know I knew what I knew about his and he openly mocked me for wanting to be "a movie producer". Now I was completely fine cutting ties with this family and this church.

Eventually the truth came out about the kids and the pregnancy scare. My mom told me to stop talking to those kids, and I told her I was way ahead of her, but that's the unfortunate thing about this. The church was not a place where these families could find support in their time of crisis, it was a place that shunned them and forced them to leave in disgrace. I found out later that Mark's relationship with the girl ended because he couldn't control his drinking. My relationship with this church ended because I was the only one trying to save Mark from himself.