I am immediately drawn to the mindset of society during my youth when I heard things from Black Americans that called out those Black citizens that chose to speak fluently and work (and live) in a predominantly White society. They were deemed to be too White or not Black enough. At the time, the majority of White America was a huge majority, so unless one intentionally segregated themselves amongst only Blacks, there was no choice except to be in a mostly White America. Do Asian Americans feel a similar conflict?

As Asians in America, do we have a responsibility to uphold our heritage and cultural norms for the sake of other Asian Americans? If not, have we disappointed and shamed other Asian Americans? Should there be such a thing as Asian pride?

I guess my main question is aside from the exclusively Asian churches–such as Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc. where English is in reality a second language–should there be a distinction between those Asian Americans that minister to mostly Asian Americans versus those that minister in diverse or predominantly White contexts? Must we choose?

Many Colors: Cultural Intelligence for a Changing Church is the new book by Dr. Soong-Chan Rah.  This is a follow up to The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity.  His latest book both sounds the alarm for the need for the Church gaining cultural intelligence as well as some practical steps on how to get started.

The book is divided into three parts: Understanding Culture, A Constructive Cultural Paradigm and Cultural Intelligence in Action.  There were some parts of the book that were hard to get through – and probably because it was necessary groundwork to get through to the payoff of how do we see more multicultural involvement in our churches. 

The book was an uncomfortable read in parts simply because I resonated with certain portions where Dr. Rah addressed Asian-American assumptions in a group dynamic. And, on the topic of uncomfortable parts, was where he shared some stories as it relates to minority culture and their food. He remarked how some caucasian students at his seminary reacted uncharitably when some Korean students shared some of their traditional food. I had that reaction from my neighborhood friends all growing up because of the very foreign look, feel, taste and smell of my very Filipino food that our family had to offer for dinner.

One of the most practical steps offered in the book is how our food and sharing meals and life together around a dinner table can help bridge the cultural gap that exists between us. He masterfully weaves in how Jesus did this with the Communion meal of bread and wine. Dr. Rah’s explanation of the life shared at the Communion table to the dinner table is well worth your time and attention.

For me, Dr. Rah’s The Next Evangelicalism is an important work as it gave me some resources to draw on in explaining the current problem in the Church as it relates to race relations. For his follow up work in Many Colors, essentially the same case is stated as he did in his first book but the presentation comes across more winsome – but just as compelling at the same time.

As an Asian-American pastor, I am thankful for Dr. Soong-Chan Rah for being a practical prophet for our times.  Not only speaking the uncomfortable truth, but for giving us in Many Colors some practical resources on how to get where we need to be as the Church in the 21st century.

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Since this is not my personal blog, maybe I’ll use this space to bitch a bit.

Having just finished a really tough MDiv in record time and with good marks I find that I am becoming a casualty of the pastoral unemployment dilemna. Is it because I’m unmarketable? Maybe I can’t “gather people” as I’ve been told. Maybe I’m “inexperienced” or not ordained yet. Bullshit.

And what tickles me is that these criticisms have come from churches / search committees / boards / people from my own ethnic background. Can’t you give a brother a break I have noticed as a Korean-American the strong propensity towards a certain kind of ecclesiology with almost no backing for it. For example. When I search KAMR it astounds me how many Korean churches want to hire pastors who are “Reformed”. I’ll bet many of these have no clue that Calvin was a closeted Arminian. Nope just made that up. Made you flinch. But really, Korean-Americans tend to be completely clueless as to why the vast majority of us must lean one way theologically. It drives me nucking futs.

Will I give up on the Korean church?

I’m not so sure about that yet. As exasperated as I have become after a year of job searching, I still know that there is a strategic role for the Korean immigrant church to play. And I’ve watched other ethnicities closely on this. I mean it. But us Koreans? I just don’t know yet. As for now I reverting back to my desire to find a pastoral call to a multiethnic church. Or maybe even a totally white one. But go back to the Korean church? I think I’ve had enough.

Am I wrong? Should I keep my heart and mind open to the abuse? Or should I keep my heart and mind open to love my people?

My experience first as an Asian-American, particularly as a first generation American with parents from the Philippines, can best be summed up as it is very much an honor/shame way of being brought up.  And, a win/loss is not just individual, it’s for the whole family.  In the Philippines, the word for shame is hiya. As one author put it:

a universal social sanction, creating a deep emotional realization of having failed to live up to the standards of society”. Of course, HIYA is to be avoided at all costs by Filipinos. The greatest insult is to say that someone is WALANG HIYA (WITHOUT SHAME).
-Alfredo Roces and Grace Roces, Culture Shock! – Philippines, 1992

Again, I can’t speak for all Asian-Americans, but I do know the honor/shame part to be very real.  My grades in school reflect not only on me, but on my family.  My behavior in public not only reflected on me, but my whole family.  My decision to leave the church I was raised in and decide to go elsewhere was not only a reflection on me, but my whole family.

My experience of growing up Asian-American was that in order to obtain honor and avoid shame, it involves a lot of DOING.  So, “be the best” in order to obtain honor.  If you don’t do your best, then comes the shame and it is not just your burden to bear – it’s upon us all.

Now, when one such as myself comes to a saving faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Redeemer … what now?  I prayed to receive Christ into my heart when I was 16 years old.  When I confessed Jesus as Savior and Lord, I know that I received His love, His forgiveness and His grace.  I’ve never been the same since that day, June 14, 1992, and I have been mission obsessed with bringing this message of the Gospel to as many people and places as possible.

In the midst of all this spiritual transformation, something that seems to be firmly embedded in me and something that I war against in the flesh is still this cultural honor/shame.  Because there is always a temptation to always be DOING.  When instead, there is a rest that comes in fully receiving Jesus’ work on the cross.  The cross covers my shame and my faith in Him brings me honor – in this life and in the life to come.  My laboring for the Kingdom of God cannot add to the cross or take away from the cross.  The cross is a reminder that everything has already been DONE by Jesus Christ and His sacrifice.

Simply put, the Christian life calls me  –  this child of immigrants who is constantly entrepreneurial, working for honor and avoiding shame at all costs  –  to lay down this war in the flesh at the foot of the cross.  Our Lord took upon Himself our shame (our sinful nature and even parts of our cultural identity that don’t create new life in Christ) and He raises us to new life in Him.  Thanks be to God.  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

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Dr. Jack Lumanog is Priest and Senior Pastor of Christ the King Anglican Church in Lansing , MI.  He serves in the Anglican Mission in the Americas as the Clergy Formation Advisor overseeing candidates in the process of ordination for the Heart of North America Region.  His website is here:  http://www.jacklumanog.com.

Would you agree? Do you feel the survey accurately reflects the Asian American faith community? If it is accurate, what reflection does this have upon the church?

Here’s a link to the entire results of the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey: http://www.asian-nation.org/docs/aris-2008.pdf

Saw a very open post from Dan Ra at the nextgenerasianchurch.com website this morning that really resonates with me. In it, he mentions:

I feel pretty lonely, ecclesially speaking, but I feel guilty for it. And it might be the Asian conscience within me telling me to “put up or shut up” but I just don’t know where to turn to. Although I would feel more of a theological connection to a mainline church, I honestly feel no ethnic, emotional, and social connection to what is usually a mostly white American congregation. Although I would feel an ethnic, emotional, and social connection to an Asian American church, I don’t find much theological affinity with them.

He then questions whether or not living in Atlanta is a stumbling block for him finding a church community that would be a good fit for him. Unfortunately, I believe that Asian Americans all over the United States feel exactly as Dan does. If such a church existed, I think we’d all have heard about and would then have some active model to follow and discuss.

Ra continues with:

I want to be a part of an Asian American community that asks hard questions about faith, that wrestles with God like Jacob did. I want to affirm the wonderful traditions of my ancestors and the ancestors of my ancestors’ neighboring countries. I want to know how a God-incarnated poor Jewish man relates to my hyphenated-American identity. I want to collectively extend the arm of humble love and hopeful peace with our Black American siblings as there’s so much pain and mystery between our two peoples. I want to be a part of a community that embraces doubt, loss of faith, and emotional struggle as a part of the collective spirituality. I want my pastors to struggle with their faith before my eyes so I know that I can pastor them, and them me when I struggle. And so on and so forth goes the dream.

As a former church planter in Sacramento, CA my experience was different than I had expected. I tried to start a community very similar to the one that Dan Ra describes seeking. However, my intent was never to attract Asian Americans. We ended up being exclusively Asian American. It did not work. What started as a dream and vision to reach people far away from God through our openness and transparency soon became something mainly about Sunday worship and how we could build critical mass so that their Asian American friends would want to come visit and eventually connect. They wanted something different and had hoped I would bring it to the 2nd & 3rd gen Asian American community. I gave in and tried, but my heart just wasn’t in it.

Through my experience I left feeling like not only was my dream for a community of real people seeking conversations about God and faith, and how to love God and love others more practically, but that Asian Americans don’t seek this. They had to be distinctly separate. As my journey has placed me in a similar path as Ra’s I find my tension being in that I want to see–and be a part of–a community much like he describes, yet at the same feeling like celebrating culture and ethnic identity must play a role in this. My dream has become convoluted and even more difficult to see realized. Yet, for some reason, I have hope that somehow like minds will verge and something will begin drawing us together. Where, when and how are questions I cannot answer at this time though.

First, let me say that I really appreciate the space that is being created here for some nuanced and in depth conversations on being Asian American and Christian.  I am not sure how much I will contribute but hope to muse every once in a while about topics that peak my interest, feed my soul or just plain piss me off.  I hope, as this space grows, we’ll get a breadth of Asian American Christian perspectives that represents the amazing complexity that is Asian American Christianity.

As I thought about what to write first, when it comes to race and Asian America, the list of things that have bubbling around this 3G Chinese/Filipino’s brain are plentiful.

• Why do Asian Americans still seem to be absent from conversations about race in the church?
• How much do larger social constructs about Asian Americans such as the model minority myth, gender and sexuality expectations and the perceived invisibility of Asian America affect our place in the churches we serve?
• How does White culture still impact our understanding of church: who can pastor who, how do we theologize differently, where does our cultural and spiritual heritages converge with modern Christianity?
• And so on, and so on, and so on . . .

While would like to be able to answer all of those questions today, the biggest question that still bugs me is exactly what I think YellowFaith is trying to get at, “Is there even a way to define the Asian American Christian experience?”

IMNSHO . . . not if we choose to use modern methods to do so, no.

So . . . here is where I think we, as Asian American Christians, offer a glimpse into the culture of the future church: postmodern, emerging, or otherwise. Newsflash: Asian Americans have been living a postmodern, emergent life for a very long time.

What we lack in a cohesive historical narrative or language that pulls us together, we make up for a multiplicity of narratives that we all bounce in and out of all the while holding onto this elastic thread called “Asian America.”  Somehow amidst a huge disparity in language, immigration trends, and native histories we have somehow managed to become part of the larger society in ways that really make no sense.  But it does if you are Asian American – and I would bet to some extent for other non-dominant ethic groups – as we bounce from traditional Asian circles to White circles to hip-hop circles to politics, to entertainment, to church leadership, to elite to poor and back again.  We are not experientially committed to rigid categorical placements nor Western understandings of syncretism so we are able to simultaneously exist and thrive in multiple contexts.

It is in this complexity that I think we will find and are finding our voice and place together in society and the church.  There is no one Asian American Christian existence other than a corporate ability to be agile between different cultures, a deep sense of being in a middle place in terms of race and . . . okay, I’ll say it, people still have a hard time telling us apart.

It is in this complexity that I also find my most compelling encounters with the Holy. I embrace this ambiguous role we have today in the church and in America and believe that if we are open to the possibility that our one voice will actually be found in the breadth and depth of our collective stories, then the peace that is offered in Christ will be made know through the very act of being Asian American.

That’s where I begin this journey with you, firmly located in my complex Christian Asian American-ness.

Lastly, thanks to whomever is starting up this blog, because here is a place where we can dive into this wonderfully vague place called Asian American Christianity and allow ourselves not to be tied to strict western and modern ways of thinking and being, but to boldly claim and live a varied history that has brought us to this even more varied today.

It’s taken me a long time to come to understand this, but no matter how much I feel like I fit in with anybody and everybody, I miss being able to connect with people of my heritage. People that look like me, think like me…understand things without them needing to be expressed in words like me. There is something inherent in each of our cultures that we just know on an instinctual level that others just cannot.

I constantly go in through the out door and out through the in door when it comes to my thoughts on multiculturalism within the church. It’s because I am seeking my own inner being of who I am and why. The question why can be broken into subsets such as:

• Why do I look and feel different than those I’ve been called to worship with and minister to?
• Why do I feel like somedays I have nothing to offer others of my ethnic background within the context of the church?
• Why do people want me to be a part of their congregation, yet speak to me in a generic white American cultural context?
• Why is it that most days I feel like a square peg in a round hole?

I’m on a contemplative path with no clear epiphany in sight. I know many others feel the same way. What has been your process? Does being Asian in a predominantly white church feel comfortable or uncomfortable to you? Should any of this even matter to me?

The issue of ethnic identity vs identity in Christ has logged many miles in debate. What value is our ethnic identity once we have found identity in Christ? Galatians 3:28 seems to answer that question for many:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

However, one question that remains unanswered after hearing the argument supported by the notion that we are all one in Christ Jesus, is this…If that’s true, then why do I look different from you? Why am I an Asian man living in America trying to wrestle with my identity and what its relevance is in the context of Jesus?

Sure, there are bigger and more profound questions facing the world today other than why I was created as an Asian-American Christian, but to me it’s a question–that once resolved–could lead to something exponentially powerful.

Let me pose this question to you: Who are you? Why?

Here at yellowfaith we hope to engage in some hard questions in the interest of gaining some understanding to the state of faith in Asian American culture today.