I was born the fourth child and eldest son of eight children, in an affluent part of South Korea. My father was a government official, and my mother was a pharmacist. Their marital relationship was filled with conflicts due to differences in personality and religious beliefs. My parents had had widely dissimilar upbringings. My father was born into a humble farmer’s family in South Korea. He was influenced by Korea’s traditional folk religion, which is a combination of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Shamanism that emphasizes ancestral rites. This spiritual background contrasted heavily with my mother’s religion, as she was from a devout Methodist family in North Korea. My mother’s maternal grandparents were among the first generation of Korean Methodists who had accepted the Christian faith more than a century earlier. During the Japanese occupation of Korea, my mother’s family established a local Methodist church in Pyongan Province to spread the Christian gospel.

After their marriage in North Korea, my maternal grandmother converted my grandfather from Confucianism to Christianity. My grandfather, who used to be a civil servant in Pyongyang before the liberation from Japanese colonial rule, suffered from severe persecution by Kim Il-sung when North Korea became a communist country after the liberation of Korea in 1945. In the fall of 1946, he fled alone to South Korea in search of freedom. My grandmother followed soon after, holding the hands of her three children to cross the 38th Parallel to enter South Korea. My mother was 12 years old then. After one year, the family reunited with my grandfather, who had established himself in South Korea. In 1953, after the Korean War, my maternal family, together with several Methodist families who had also fled from North Korea, founded Kwanglim Methodist Church in Jung-gu, Seoul.

Meanwhile, my father was studying law at Seoul National University, passing the bar exam and the higher civil-service exam during his undergraduate years. After completing his military service, his career path led to his becoming a high-ranking government official. After my mother graduated as a pharmacist from Ewha Womans University, she met my father through a friend of my maternal grandfather. Although they married with earnest intentions, differences in faith proved to be a huge stumbling block in my parents’ relationship. On the occasions of family commemorative rites for ancestors, to abide by her Christian faith, my mother refused to bow in front of ancestral tablets. This led to sharp criticism from her in-laws. While my mother worshiped at church every Sunday, my father took part in social gatherings, such as playing golf with friends. These differences in their marriage led to instability in the family.

In accordance with the Methodist faith, I received infant baptism and obtained a Christian education by attending church and Sunday school. Due to extreme nearsightedness, I exhibited slow academic growth and did poorly during elementary school. I resolved to improve during middle and high school, and my academic success increased when I studied diligently in order to make the honor roll. During the weekends, I actively involved myself in church activities, serving as president of my middle school and high school student councils when Kwanglim Church relocated to Gangnam-gu in Seoul.

Near the end of high school, I excelled on the academic aptitude test and was admitted to the Department of French Language and Literature at Seoul National University in 1983. My acquaintances congratulated me on my acceptance to a prestigious college, but behind my smile and gratitude was a dark and painful reality. Some mental-health issues plagued my siblings at that time. One sister suffered from depression, and two other sisters were failing in school due to psychiatric difficulties. Hopelessness and dissatisfaction filled me as I acted as a mediator for my parents’ marital discord, and I felt frustration at their inability to resolve my siblings’ mental issues. On top of these familial stressors, I began to question and forgo my Christian faith and delved deeply into Korea’s traditional religions such as Buddhism and Taoism, as well as Indian philosophy. A deep interest in Eastern thought and religions fueled me to study comparative religion in my junior year of college and to continue my spiritual exploration by preparing to enter the Department of Religious Studies at Seoul National University Graduate School.

Mounting depression and dwindling self-confidence led to my decision to join a Korean religion that practices ancestor worship. In the hope of reducing my family’s mental suffering and gaining spiritual enlightenment for myself, I devoted myself to Korean traditional religious practices such as meditation while juggling the rigorous coursework of the religious-studies graduate program at Seoul University. My physical health declined sharply, and I experienced a psychological breakdown due to an irregular lifestyle that included an unhealthy diet and lack of sound sleep. In the fall of 1991, I reached a breaking point and took a leave of absence from school. I ceased my involvement in the Korean religion because it was not helping me and my family in the way I thought it would. Looking back, I think I was suffering not only from clinical depression but also from a kind of religious addiction at that time.

While my life was in shambles, my parents came into contact with a Seventh-day Adventist, who inspired them to leave the Methodist Church and espouse Adventist beliefs. They were deeply touched by the health principles of NEWSTART, which is an acronym of Nutrition, Exercise, Water, Sunlight, Temperance, Air, Rest, and Trust in God. Wanting to spread this health message, my mother helped run the Adventist Galilee Retreat Center near Seoul, which sought to heal physical and mental maladies by following God’s plans for wellness.

Around that time, my eldest sister took her own life because she was unable to overcome her severe depression. My sister’s suicide became a turning point in my life. Although I was resistant to the Christian faith and deeply resentful toward my parents, the shock of my sister’s death and the collapse of my body and soul left me with no choice but to seek the help of my parents. In the fall of 1991, I was nursed to health in the Galilee Retreat Center while grappling with the searing pain of my sister’s death. In that dark moment, I made it my life goal to become a counselor or psychotherapist to help people with mental difficulties, including my family members. After experiencing physical and spiritual restoration at the retreat center, I returned to graduate school to finish my Master’s program.

In 1993, my mother’s poor health led her to fly to Weimar Institute in California to participate in the NEWSTART health program hosted for Korean-speaking individuals. The program attracted dozens of Korean patients with various illnesses, such as cancer and diabetes. My mother, experiencing a physical transformation and spiritual revival, strongly recommended this program to me, leading me to also attend. I entered the Weimar NEWSTART program in the summer of that year (1993). At Weimar Institute, eating nutritional food carefully prepared by the volunteers, walking in the outdoors every day, and breathing fresh air in warm sunlight caused a restoration in my physical health and uplifted me out of my depression. But the most important component of my healing was listening to God’s Word and Bible-based health messages delivered by the NEWSTART director every morning and evening for three weeks. As I witnessed fellow Korean participants recovering physically and spiritually, my heart was opened to feel God’s love and a deep sense of forgiveness toward my parents. On returning to South Korea, I was baptized into the Adventist Church at the Seventh-day Adventist Language Institute and church in Seoul in December 1993.

After obtaining a Master’s degree in religious studies and getting married in 1994, I moved to the United States to study pastoral care and counseling at Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California, to fulfill the dream that stemmed from my sister’s tragic death. While raising two children with my wife, I received my PhD in theology and personality at Claremont and also studied psychology to become a licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT) in the state of California. In 2014, as an international certified addiction professional (ICAP), I returned to South Korea and was appointed as an assistant professor at Sahmyook University in Seoul, specifically for the Department of Addiction Science at the graduate school. At Sahmyook University, I am doing my best to establish an Addiction Recovery Center that is based upon the NEWSTART health principles of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. I pray that God will be in the center of our vision for addiction recovery and His healing ministry.

Jinsoo Jason Kim (PhD in Theology and Personality: Pastoral Care and Counseling, Claremont Graduate University School of Theology, California, U.S.A.) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Addiction Science at Sahmyook University in Seoul, South Korea. He is a licensed marriage and family therapist in California, U.S.A., and South Korea. E-mail: [email protected].

Recommended Citation

Jinsoo Jason Kim, "How I Became an Adventist Through the Health Message," Dialogue 35:3 (2023): 22-24