For starters, everything I say here is my opinion which is based on my experience. Anyone can agree, disagree or partially agree with anything I say. No problem. Here are some ways in which Christianity has helped Korea/Korean people:
1 - Health - Koreans who are Christians dislike drinking and smoking. Actually a high number of them refuse to drink or smoke. Even one Christian young man told me he'd never tasted alcohol. This is rare for Korean young men. Sometimes I have heard Koreans say, "I can't drink because I am Christian." I never hear this from Christians from any other countries.
I believe I know where this comes from. A Korean pastor told me that American missionaries who converted Koreans in the past asked them to promise to not drink or smoke. In fact, when people were baptized, they made a promise to be Christian without drinking or smoking. So it's like they were making two or three promises in one.
Whatever one might think of drinking or smoking, most think moderation is okay, going without both of these leads to better health, fewer accidents and the like. Actually, as I write this, I realize that its hard to be moderate in Korea. Korean students or salarymen go out to eat and drink so much. Maybe the only way that these people can avoid drink or smoking is to avoid them completely.
2 - Jobs - This sounds funny but...I think Christianity actually created jobs for Koreans. The number of pastors in Korea is high, I think at least 10 percent of Korean adult men are pastors. Okay maybe not quite that many but its not much lower than that. Something I've heard: There are more pastors than churches in Korea. Something I know: There are Korean churches round the world, obviously all or almost all of them have pastors which come from Korea.
Another option is becoming a missionary. There are Koreans who are missionaries round the world. Korean churches support missions; they support want-to-be missionaries as they go through seminaries or Bible colleges.
3 - Travel / Opportunities/ Exposure to New Cultures - Of course Korean pastors and missionaries working around the world have the chance to be in new countries, new environments AND their families are often with them. This means Korean children of pastors/missionaries are growing up learning different languages and being exposed to things they would not be in Korea.
Two quick stories about this: I know two Korean young men who grew up in different countries because their parents were pastors and/or missionaries. First, they learned the languages of the countries where they stayed; one of them learned two languages, Spanish and Portuguese because his parents stayed in more than one country in South America. The other most likely learned the language of the country where he stayed which was the Phillipines, however because English is also a major language in that country, it's possible he didn't learn Tagalog, but I assume that he did.
On top of knowing Korean and other languages, they both spoke/read/wrote English perfectly as far as I could see because....they grew up attending international schools where the primary language was English.
Another benefit one of them received was that he received a full scholarship to a Christian college in the US which he said favored children of pastors, and then atttended grad school at one of the best engineering universities. The other attended university and then seminary in Korea, which were likely free for him. Korean universities often give scholarships to foreign students and seminaries are often free for students who receive church support.
One more quick story: A Korean pastor I spoke with who spent some time living in the UK and the Phillipines to attend seminaries was joined there by his family. I'm not sure if he pastored in the UK but he may have. His parishioners asked him to return to Korea so he did with his wife, but his kids continued to attend school in the UK. They had gotten scholarships I believe to middle school and to college. I thought it was interesting that they could stay there even though he and his wife were in Korea. There's a very good chance that his children will decide to remain in the UK after finishing school, in my opinion. This is a benefit which they wouldn't have had had their father not been a seminarian and then pastor. I only talked with him a few times and I don't know his family's entire story, but he did tell me these things which I wrote about.
Something else I heard: USA seminaries have more students which are Korean than any other nationality. If this is true in the US, I would bet it's also true in other Western countries, The Phillipines and other countries. Fuller Theological Seminary, which I heard is the USA's largest, offers courses in Korean as well as English. There may some courses in Spanish. I've met Koreans who had attended seminary or Bible college in the US, or who were considering it.
I'm not criticizing any of this, I just find it interesting the number of opportunities which open up to Korean Christians. Koreans who are not Christian, almost all Japanese, Chinese, Thais and the rest of Asia do not have these opportunities. If they want to do something like move abroad they need another method.
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