Beyond Secular Toleration: Reimagining Christian Hospitality in Race and Labor

Introduction: A Self-Critical Christian Culture

The beauty of theological reflection lies in its capacity not only to resist oppression and systemic injustice but also to invite self-reflection rooted in God’s love and justice. In The Politics of God, Kathryn Tanner argues:

If a Christian culture is self-critical, the one extreme of blanket approval for sociopolitical arrangements is ruled out. If a self-critical Christian culture is to remain an established culture in its own right, the other extreme of anarchic repudiation of any and all forms of social order is also ruled out. Where a self-critical Christian culture falls between these extremes becomes a matter of the relative weight or emphasis given to the various beliefs within the body of those I have specified, with their differing capacities to undermine or undergird prevailing practices[1].

As a Korean and a Christian, I have witnessed my community, an oppressed minority in the United States, suffer systemic injustice. Yet in other settings we, too, become oppressors. Regarding migration and ethnic diversity, South Korean society should ask how it treats those marked as “other.” Karl Rahner likewise contends that the salvific events of metanoia, as the grace of forgiveness and the bestowal of life, should include “genuine acts of self-criticism”[2]. I therefore invite reflection on the story of the Joseonjok, ethnic Koreans in China, and on how they are represented and perceived in South Korea. Drawing on history, social phenomena, and Christian theology, I argue that moving beyond secular toleration toward Christian hospitality can transform our relation to marginalized neighbors.

Who Are the Joseonjok?

Joseonjok (Chaoxianzu) refers to ethnic Koreans living in China. Historically, many Koreans migrated to Northeast China (Manchuria) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, where they formed communities. After South Korea and China normalized relations in 1992, large numbers of Joseonjok began moving to South Korea in search of work. They filled labor shortages in what Koreans call the “3D” jobs—the Dirty, Dangerous, and Difficult forms of manual labor. In the early years of this migration, South Koreans welcomed the Joseonjok as long-lost family. People called them dongpo, meaning “from the same womb,” a phrase that implied affectionate recognition of shared origin.

That acceptance, however, did not endure. As more Joseonjok arrived, South Koreans came to realize that decades of separation had produced significant linguistic, cultural, and ideological differences. In contemporary South Korea, negative stereotypes of Joseonjok are widespread. They are often portrayed as criminals or cast as a cultural threat. In a 2022 survey of Korean college students, 83.5% described Joseonjok as “rough” or “dangerous” [3]. Many Koreans harbor suspicions linking Joseonjok migrants to gang violence, drug trafficking, or other crimes, treating them as threats to public safety, especially to women.

What lies beneath this shift from kinship to contempt?

One major factor is class and labor. Most Joseonjok in Korea work in low-wage, labor-intensive sectors. This reality fuels the perception that they are uncultured or somehow “beneath” mainstream society. In truth, Korean society projects its own fears and anxieties onto this vulnerable group. Rapid national development has been accompanied by deepening inequality and insecurity about economic and social status. Rather than confronting these structural problems, it is easier to blame an “outsider” group. Shame and disgust are often projected onto marginalized people as a way of coping with one’s own vulnerability [4]. Her analysis helps explain how South Korea’s anxieties about crime, poverty, and inequality are displaced onto Joseonjok, who are then imagined as dangerous, impure, and socially contaminating.

The Deeper Issue: Race, Class, and Exclusion

Joseonjok have become what might be called a “necessary outsider” in South Korean society. Economically, their labor is indispensable—they staff suburban restaurants, construction sites, and factories—yet socially, they remain excluded from belonging. Giorgio Agamben’s notion of homo sacer clarifies this contradiction: a person may be abandoned by legal and social protections even while their existence remains useful to the state. Joseonjok are welcomed when they satisfy economic need, but when they suffer exploitation or become victims of violence, their vulnerability is treated as though it were not fully “our” concern.

I understand this issue not only as racism or xenophobia, but also as a revelation of how South Korea’s prosperity-driven culture imagines the “lower” rungs of society. The stereotype of the Joseonjok exposes an uncomfortable truth: despite shared ethnic roots, South Koreans have constructed a hierarchy that places co-ethnics from poorer contexts near the bottom. This form of “co-ethnic racism” is intensified by national pride and economic status. In the process, Koreans fail to see Joseonjok as human beings with their own histories, wounds, and dignity.

Beyond Toleration: Embracing Christian Hospitality

How should we respond to this reality of prejudice and exclusion? One way is to clarify the difference between secular toleration and Christian hospitality. Luke Bretherton offers a helpful distinction. In social terms, toleration often means permitting “others” to exist within “our” society so long as they do not unsettle us. It is better than persecution, but it demands little of us. We can tolerate someone while keeping our walls high and our hearts closed. Toleration, in this sense, remains superficial; it may restrain violence or legal discrimination, but it does not cultivate genuine understanding or relationship. It keeps the Joseonjok at arm’s length, treating them as objects of benevolence at best or suspicion at worst, rather than seeing them as neighbors.

Christian hospitality, by contrast, calls for something far more radical. In the Christian imagination, hospitality is not mere social acceptance; it is a response to God’s grace toward us. Christian hospitality begins with humility and memory. We remember our own vulnerability and the ways God has welcomed us. Such memory decenters us; it undermines pride and any presumption of ethnic or moral superiority. It becomes difficult to look down on any migrant once we recall that, before God, we are all sojourners.

Hospitality moves beyond tolerance by actively fostering relationships grounded in God’s love, grace, and justice. It requires opening our spaces and even our identities to transformation through the presence of the other. Bretherton’s image of the church as a “tent” is illuminating [5]. Unlike a temple or a house, which mark fixed territory, a tent is a mobile and shared space. It names a way of life in which host and guest dwell together provisionally, listening to and learning from one another under one canopy. In a tent of hospitality, everyone stands on mutual ground, and each person’s welfare is bound to the welfare of the others. This vision stands in stark contrast to the treatment of Joseonjokin South Korea today: kept outside the gate unless needed and never fully “let in.” Reimagining the church as a tent calls for envisioning our community as a sanctuary where boundaries are not walls of exclusion but sites of mutual care. Such a vision does not deny difference or pretend that fear and conflict do not exist; rather, it commits us to sharing life amid those tensions, trusting in God’s love, grace, and justice.

Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube for more content like this.