Lost Nomad has a link to this Economist article about “megachurches”, with the largest being Yoido Full Gospel Church, with 830,000 members. Coincidently, the university I work for was founded by the Full Gospel Church, and (Pastor) David Cho is a graduate. His wife is our university’s president. At first, I thought it would be weird working at a Christian university, when I wasn’t a Christian myself. To tell you the truth, it hasn’t been bad, but there are definitely some nuances of working here. First, there’s mandatory chapel service every Tuesday for all students. Actually, Pastor Cho came on campus yesterday to give a sermon, and I didn’t realize it. I wondered why there were SO many cars around in the morning. Second, our campus is a no smoking and no drinking campus. When we have festival week, it’s completely dry. Of course, there are professors and students who smoke, but everybody does it discreetly. In the last couple of weeks, there have been signs reminding people that smoking is not allowed. I’m a non-smoker, so I have no problems with this rule. Third, we have to be sensitive about teaching non-Christian topics. For example, the children’s program celebrated Halloween, but we were advised not to make crafts or costumes dealing with witches. Whether you think the church is cult-ish or not, I generally find my theology students to be good in English and genuinely very kind.

Along with six others, Ras and I had lunch with the president last week. The group took pictures together and everyone was gifted a copy of her book. We even got her to sign the cover page. Raswan got a “God Bless You” in his book, and I didn’t.

[Insert joke here] I will refrain from the obvious comments about the title of this book, since she is my boss.