Migration, Higher Education, and the Changing Church

Abstract

Karen is a second-generation immigrant from China to the United States. She grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where her family attended a close-knit charismatic Presbyterian church. She came to the United Kingdom to study for a master’s degree at the London School of Economics (LSE), where she felt at home with the fairly conservative theology of the Christian Union. But life at LSE brought her into contact with people of different theologies and religious backgrounds in a way she had not previously experienced. A lot of her presuppositions were challenged, particularly when she took up the opportunity to join an interfaith trip for Muslim, Christian, and Jewish students to Israel/Palestine. Reflecting on the trip, she commented, “As a Christian, I was a bit too comfortable in my ignorance of Islam and Judaism and honestly believed I didn’t need to learn any more about my own faith. This trip humbled me by challenging those beliefs and making me realize how much more I can learn about other people and about myself. As I learned more about the core principles of the other religions, I was constantly examining the reasoning behind my own faith, asking myself why I believe what I believe and what my actions and words said about those beliefs.”