I found that some Jewish people treated the vulnerable far more warmly than many of the Korean Christians I met, who said they “believe in Jesus.”
In Jewish homes, I saw families offer free room and board to strangers, invite young people they felt they could learn from, and turn their homes into something like a living school—
eating together, sleeping under the same roof, and spending hours in conversation and study.
By contrast, among many Korean Christians I encountered— people who regularly went to church and called themselves believers— a number of them seemed to change their attitude completely depending on a person’s assets, background, and social status.
I heard “I believe in Jesus” very often. But I did not often see people living in the way Jesus appears in the Gospels— standing with the poor, the sick, and the socially excluded.
Where does this difference come from?
Are Jews inherently more “good”?
Are Christians inherently more “class-conscious” and hierarchical?
Starting from this question, I found myself exploring multiple layers of history, culture, and psychology.
First, we need to be clear about one thing.
Not all Jewish people are generous to the vulnerable.
Not all Christians are classist or discriminatory.
The Jewish people I met happened, by chance, to belong to communities with a strong culture of learning, sharing, and welcoming the vulnerable. Many of the self-identified “Christians” I encountered, on the other hand, seemed to be shaped more by a form of faith fused with capitalism and class consciousness than by the core of Christian teaching itself.
So the more accurate question becomes:
“Why do some Jewish communities choose to give life to the vulnerable,
while some Christian communities fail to do so?”
To answer that, we need to talk a little about history, tradition, and group psychology.
For a long time, Jewish people lived as a diaspora— a scattered people, constantly moving.
They lost their homeland, would finally settle somewhere only to be expelled again, and faced repeated threats to both their property and their lives.
Experiences like these leave a deep imprint on a community’s psyche:
“We are a people who can become vulnerable at any time.”
That awareness can manifest in two ways:
one is defensive, closed nationalism; the other is empathy and solidarity with the vulnerable and the stranger. The Jewish communities I encountered showed much more of the latter.
In Judaism, there is a concept called tzedakah.
It’s often translated as “charity,” but the nuance is actually closer to:
“Not pity, but an act of justice—something you are simply supposed to do.”
Another key concept is tikkun olam, which means “repairing the world.”
Helping the poor, welcoming the stranger, opening your home to those who want to learn—these are not seen as occasional, heroic acts of goodness by especially nice people,
but rather as:
“The basic way we ought to live as human beings, and as Jews.”
So it becomes natural to:
Share the extra room in your house,
Share your table,
Share time for learning,
and to let your life itself become an open school, an open sanctuary.
By contrast, among many Christians I met in the U.S.—especially in Korean-American church culture— I often sensed something else at work.
Not so much pure Christian faith itself, but a religious culture deeply soaked in capitalism and success-driven thinking. Of course, not every church is like this. But it’s hard to deny that this pattern is widespread.
In some churches, you will hear these messages—sometimes subtly, sometimes quite openly:
“If God is with you, your business will prosper, your children will succeed, and your health will be restored.”
“A higher salary, a bigger house, increasing wealth = signs of God’s favor.”
From this, a very simple formula emerges:
If you’re doing well → You are blessed.
If you’re poor → You lack faith or effort.
Once that logic is solidified, then those who are poor, unstable, or in need of help
begin to be seen as people who are also spiritually lacking or problematic.
At that point, faith quietly stops being a force that stands with the vulnerable, and instead becomes:
“A pious wrapper around a network of successful people.”
In some Korean-American churches in the U.S., you can see this quite clearly.
People with:
Similar income levels,
Similar education,
Similar class backgrounds
use the church as a kind of safe social club. They say, “We are brothers and sisters in the Lord,”but in practice, the way they treat people depends heavily on:
Which neighborhood someone lives in,
How much their house is worth,
What their husband does for a living,
Which school their children attend.
Facial expressions soften or harden, voices grow warmer or colder,
according to those invisible metrics.
In such spaces, the poor, the outsider, the person whose life has “failed” by worldly standards
may be viewed as an “evangelism target,” but it is very hard for them to become a true friend or equal sibling.
From the perspective of Jungian psychology, a believer who looks down on the vulnerable can be understood this way.
On the surface, such a person might say:
“We are children of God.”
“In Christ, we are all precious.”
But deep down, these questions may be constantly simmering:
“Am I really respected in this society?”
“Have I failed in life?”
“Am I falling behind others?”
These anxieties and inferiority feelings seek relief in two main directions:
Trying to stay close to those they see as “above” them, and
Stepping on or looking down at those they see as “below” them.
The result:
They become harsh and dismissive toward the weak, and
Excessively kind and accommodating toward the wealthy and powerful.
They speak of Jesus with their mouths, but in their hearts they are more devoted to class hierarchy and capitalist values than to the Jesus of the Gospels.
For Jung, the healthy role of religion is to serve as a mirror that reflects us more honestly.
Through that mirror, we might see:
Our greed,
Our fear,
Our inferiority,
Our shadow, reflected in the people we hate or despise.
But very often, religion becomes a social mask (persona)— a way to project who we want to appear to be.
“I’m someone who goes to church.”
“I’m a person who believes in God.”
“I stand on the side of goodness.”
If all our energy goes into maintaining that image, then our inner ugliness, violence, cowardice, and double standards are never truly faced.
And when that spiritual mask combines with power, money, and religious authority, you get something quite dark:
A believer who despises the weak in the name of God.
One key factor is the difference in expectations.
When we first meet a Jewish person, we usually don’t see them as “spiritual judges” of our lives. We see them simply as “someone from a different culture.”
So if they open their homes, share meals, and welcome learners,
we are pleasantly surprised:
“Wow, they’re so much warmer than I expected.”
That positive surprise stays with us. On the other hand, when we meet someone who says, “I believe in Jesus,” we already have in our minds a certain image from the Gospels:
Jesus eating and drinking with tax collectors and “sinners,”
Jesus standing by the sick, the poor, the outcasts.
So when we encounter a “believer” who:
categorizes people by money and status,
looks down on the weak,
or quickly condemns those outside the church, we don’t just feel disappointed.
We feel something closer to betrayal:
“You are betraying the Jesus you claim to follow.”
The hurt and disillusionment cut much deeper.
These days, I’ve come to see it this way:
“It’s not that Jews are inherently noble and Korean Christians are inherently hypocritical.
It’s that the tradition, history, and communal culture in which people practice their faith
profoundly shapes how they treat others.”
And I would add one more thought:
“For some people, religion becomes a force that calls them to look inward and stand with the weak.
For others, religion becomes a cosmetic— something that covers class privilege
and polishes a sense of superiority.”
The free lodging, open learning, and everyday education I witnessed in Jewish homes
are one expression of a long, accumulated communal choice. Meanwhile, the coldness, class consciousness, and contempt for the weak that I witnessed in some Korean churches may also be expressions of something accumulated—not the Gospel itself, but collective anxiety, inferiority, and shadow, wrapped in religious language.
As I put all this into words, I notice that the question eventually turns back on myself.
“What kind of faith am I living?”
“How do I treat those who have little power?”
“Do I use my religion / philosophy / values as a tool to decorate myself, or as a mirror to carve and examine myself?”
Perhaps, if each of us begins to stand honestly in front of these questions, we might move a little closer to that generous table I saw in Jewish homes— and to the place where Jesus stood
in the stories of the Gospels.