Preaching to Korean Immigrants

In terms of practical-theology’s critical reflection on marginalized people’s wounds in a wider society, this book investigates the question, “How to proclaim the good news in response to first-generation Korean immigrants’ contextual suffering in the United Sates?” To answer the question, the book starts with investigating Korean immigrant hearers’ contextual predicaments in a new land to point out emerging practical-theological issues in relation to the practice of preaching. In this book, the primary subjects are first-generation Korean immigrants, especially those who have relatively low socio-economic status and struggle with the purpose of their lives as immigrants, particularly those whose material dreams have been shattered.
In order to proclaim the good news, this book proposes a more appropriate immigrant theology for/in the practice of preaching by reclaiming the priorities of God’s future in our lives and confirming God’s active identification with Korean immigrant congregations in the depths of their predicament. Such reconstructive work for immigrant theology arises in response to their existential hardships, marginality, ethnic discrimination, and relative powerlessness in life.


While acknowledging both the possibilities and limits of the diverse forms of current Korean immigrant preaching, the book then offers a strategic proposal for a new homiletic theory, namely “a psalmic-theological homiletic.” This proposed homiletic is deeply rooted in the theology of the Psalms and their rhetorical movement. This re-envisioned mode of eschatological and prophetic preaching in times of difficulty recovers ancient Israel’s psalmic, rhetorical tradition that aims toward faith. Its theological-rhetorical strategy intends to both transform hearers’ habitus of living in faith and enhance their hope-filled life through communal anticipation of God’s coming future on the margins. Specifically, this proposed homiletic critically adopts key features from psalms of lament and their typical, fourfold theological-rhetorical movement (i.e., lament, retelling a story, confessional doxology, and obedient vow) as now core elements of a revised Korean-immigrant preaching practice.

"Rebecca Jeong finds important spiritual resources for preaching in the experiences of first generation Korean immigrants and in psalms of lament. She reimagines preaching to Korean immigrants as a “place-making” practice where stories of grief and loss are shared, compassion and mutual care are nurtured, prosperity-thinking is resisted, and vows to live boldly into God’s promised future of justice are performed. Preaching for the Marginalized is an elegant, heart-felt invitation to a new and deeply prophetic form of preaching." 

-John S. McClure, Charles G. Finney Professor of Preaching and Worship, Emeritus, Vanderbilt Divinity School 

“This book is tremendous resource for preachers who seek to develop a wider inclusiveness in their sermons. Dr. Jeong appropriately contextualizes preaching within Korean immigrant experiences into a new homiletic centered on the Psalms. It is an exemplar for congregational leaders to develop better capacities for hospitality in all aspects of pastoral care.”

-Roger S. Nam, Professor of Hebrew Bible, Emory University

Dr. Rebecca S. Jeong has written a remarkable book that moves beyond the kinds of binaries that too often haunt works that hold together gospel and context.  In her close reading of the Korean immigrant context and its sense of gospel, Jeong finds both challenge and possibility for faithful preaching beyond the American Dream and the tendencies toward the prosperity gospel.  Drawing on the deep wells of Korean-immigrant ecclesial life and the rhetoric of the psalms that move from lament to a vow of obedience, Jeong discerns the possibility of  “prophetic ecclesiocentric preaching.”  Her contextual/theological vision is remarkable and her vision for preaching in a context of White racism and diasporic life is promising indeed.

-David Schnasa Jacobsen, Bishops Scholar in Homiletics and Preaching, Boston University School of Theology

Jeong’s work imagines an immigrant-centered homiletic, grounded in the lament psalms’ models of resistance to injustice and oppression. She centers the lived experience of first-generation Korean immigrants to remind us that theology and preaching take on their value only as they are embodied in community praxis. I hope that many will apply this generative homiletic which seeks to reinvigorate faith amidst communal suffering.

-Lisa J. Cleath, Assistant Professor of Old Testament, Princeton Theological Seminary

Rebecca Seungyoun Jeong is Assistant Professor of Preaching and Intercultural Studies at Portland Seminary, George Fox University, USA.