Before I address the question from the subject line, let me state this: I am not quite sure how the intersection of church and Asian-American culture can really exist in the same sentence. I feel as if I’ve killed off some brain cells pondering this question.
How do you define church?
Can we come to a clear consensus as to what church is so that we can then explore the context of church and faith from an Asian-American perspective?
When I spoke with Daniel So yesterday I began to wonder if our perspective should be the church focusing on Asian-American awareness and cultural issues or if it should be used as a way to compliment American culture at large from a third culture mindset, as Dave Gibbons discusses in his book The Monkey and the Fish: Liquid Leadership For A Third-Culture Church.
Should we be defending our right to gather as Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese and Hmong or rather should we be reaching out to other Asian cultures and inviting them to begin the process of being a third culture church? Can we be critical of the American church if we don’t first look to engaging other Asian cultures within our church settings first?
Again, the question to ask first is, how do your define church?
What I find amazing is how people can look at Asians and truly believe that we all look alike. It’s as if we Americans become instantly stupid at the sight of Asians. I can’t tell you how many times I have been in a Japanese restaurant somewhere and overhear someone speaking to a Korean waitperson in Japanese. Just because an Asian is working at a Japanese restaurant doesn’t automatically make them Japanese! Rather than ask politely before showing your ignorance, you just figure it would be super cool to say something in Japanese to someone that doesn’t even look Japanese. In the same way, some look at my last name (Ingland) and assume that I must be only half Asian since my last name is not Asian. Funny, as when I was younger people used to figure I must be only half Asian because I was 5′ 10″ and taller than the stereotypical Asian at the time. My, how things have changed! I’m actually kind of short or average in height compared to other Asians now.
If you’ve watched the movie Mr Baseball with Tom Selleck, you’ll know that there is a scene where he is at the dinner table in a Japanese home and eating noodles. Everyone at the table makes loud, slurping noises as they eat. Selleck’s character is told that it is polite and shows that you are enjoying the meal if you make lots of noise. Everyone at the table is holding the noodle bowl in their hands and slurping away. However, don’t try this in a Korean home. In Korea it is customary to eat quietly. Additionally, it is considered impolite to lift a bowl off the table to eat from it, let alone slurp noodles or drink soup out of it. Even things like how Asians eat rice is different. In Japan and China rice is eaten with chopsticks and the bowl is lifted up to the mouth. In Korea, rice is eaten with a spoon and the bowl is never lifted from the table.
With differences in facial features and customs, why then is it okay to cast John Cho as Mr Sulu in the new Star Trek movie? 
To me, it is no different than casting Mickey Rooney as a Japanese man in the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I guess there were no Japanese actors that could act in the role of Sulu or draw fans like Cho could. Either way, I am one that thinks that neutralizing our ethnicities and just being Asian-American really takes away from our uniqueness and heritage. Being Thai, Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese, Japanese or Fillipino makes a difference. We are not all the same! Our languages are different, our appearance/features are different, and in many cases our cultural perspectives are different.
Have you seen the movie Gran Torino? Rather than pick from a very limited pool of SAG Asians like John Cho, the producers cast the movie with local talent. Not only did that add to the realism of the movie, but everyone that was supposed to be Hmong was Hmong in the film. I would have lost all respect for the film had a demure little Japanese girl been cast as Sue. In reality, since most Americans can’t distinguish between someone that is Hmong or Japanese, it really shouldn’t matter, right?
Unfortunately, I believe that this stereotypical homogenization of Asian-Americans is what clouds the judgment of the church in America. It’s believed that if a church adds a Chinese pastor to the leadership team that they will be an effective draw for Koreans, Japanese, and Vietnamese people as well. I mean come on, we all look alike anyways.
We as Asian-Americans should not settle for Francis Chan or Dave Gibbons as our featured pastors. We should push for more diversity within ministry and help raise up other Asians into ministry. Why should my voice be Dave Gibbons just because he is Asian? Why aren’t there more Japanese voices in the ministry. Why aren’t there more Vietnamese voices in ministry?
It’s bad enough that Americans in general think that we Asians all look alike, but when we buy into that and let them know it’s okay to confuse John Cho as being Japanese or that it’s okay to be ignorant and assume that a Korean waitperson is Japanese because they bring you a platter of sushi, then we really do ourselves and our culture a disservice. How can we ever be respected for our perspective in the church when we let the world think just attracting Asians is all that matters. Stop giving in for the sake of just getting any Asian representation! Stop letting people think they compliment us when they ask me what nationality I am and when I respond by saying Japanese, they then tell me how they used to have a Vietnamese neighbor and that he was such a nice man as if that gives us an immediate bond somehow. We need more voices in Asian-American ministry that will help educate others and bring about more understanding of the current situation. We need to take a stand against those that want to categorize us as one nice, compartmentalized segment known as homogenized Asian-Americans.
In this Asian Pacific Arts interview, 
The Game-Changer: An Interview with John Cho, by Oliver Wang, we discover a bit of the actor’s family background and intersection with faith. Arguably “Hollywood’s most visible Asian American” with his latest role as Sulu in the Star Trek reboot. I first saw John Cho in the infamous Harold and Kumar movie.
APA: Your father was a minister. What denomination?
JC: This was a denomination called Church of Christ.
APA: Many of my Asian American friends growing up attended Christian churches where they would have weekend night services filled with singing, playing music, and performances. Was that what your father’s church was like?
JC: Actually no. There were no musical instruments allowed in this church. Their philosophy is based on the absence of the mention of musical instruments in the New Testament. They took it very seriously.
APA: Wow, so no organs or guitars, I’m assuming?
JC: This church would call all that stuff entertainment. And the church wasn’t a place for entertainment. So we didn’t have a choir. It was only communal singing. We sang together from the pews, four-part harmonies, and no one was allowed to get up in front and solo. Or have a special light shown on them.
When the premier hot dog eating contest takes place this Saturday on Coney Island, I’ll be rooting for Kobayashi, and I think that reflects the complicated nature of race in America.
Kobayashi’s only real competition is Joey Chestnut, a full-blooded American boy born and raised in California. As an Asian-American, I should be cheering on Chestnut. Like Joey, I was born and raised in America, a full-blooded ABC. I have no real connection to Kobayashi besides the fact that I look more like him than Chestnut.
Am I the only Asian-American who hopes Kobayashi can reclaim his title? Care to help explain my prejudice? Does my attitude tarnish the cause and only reinforce the perception of perpetual foreigners and mixed allegiances?
Conversations about race and ethnicity are really difficult, especially if you care about the people involved. Sometimes I feel like I’m crazy when I try to discuss race as a reality, because it’s so visceral to me, but to others, it’s the “race card,” a complication in the relationship, a red herring, etc. And these conversations can be so painful, even with loved ones, that I (and I believe, they) avoid them.
But avoiding the conversation doesn’t seem to be the solution, especially in places where terms like love, justice, mercy, forgiveness and righteousness are mentioned. When we darken the doors of those places, why is it the most difficult issues, the most intimate pain, the most vulnerable soft spots don’t get mentioned?
I don’t always think of communities of faith being places where we acknowledge the realities of pain, prejudice, abuse, and injustice, but I believe that we need to get better about “going there”. I believe we need to grow in our capacity to bear one another’s burdens, to hear one another out, to feel each other’s pain, to drink one another’s poison and not be hurt.
So it is in the vein, I wanted to share a few clips from the documentary, “The Color of Fear,” directed Lee Mun Wah. I haven’t seen the video in its entirety yet, but my good friend and mentor, Jimmy McGee has spoken very highly of it. As I watched this, it felt “real” to me, as real as the difficult and painful conversations I’ve had.
I have a favor to ask: Once you’ve watched the videos, could you reply in the comments, what do you think of it? When was the last time you’ve had a conversation like that? Thanks in advance.
Part One:
Part Two:
I just read something that disturbed me. I’m trying to determine why. As a Japanese-American pastor I have felt the need for a multi-cultural church here in Sacramento, California. Diversity is almost non-existent here on Sundays. When the workplace, schools, restaurants and malls have people of all races living together, why must Sunday be so segregated? So, when I saw an article in the July/August issue of Rev! magazine celebrating diversity in the church in America, I was kind of excited. It was encouraging news to me. The article cites that:
The big news is that white congregations in this country now have more Latinos, Asians, and African-Americans than ever before. Compared to a decade ago, fewer congregations today are 100 percent white.
On its own, that may be encouraging news. In combination with the title of the article, I am feeling kind of dirty. The title of this article celebrating diversity in the church is “The Browning of Our Churches.” I just went from excited and encouraged to disturbed and a little outraged.
After living much of my youth wishing I were white and about 6′ 5″ tall like all of my friends that didn’t get words of hate and violence directed towards them because they were in the majority, I have finally embraced the fact that I am yellow. Not only embracing this, but actually thankful that my experience isn’t the same as my white friends (nor my African-American or Hispanic friends). It gives me a different perspective as well as allowing me to see myself in a different perspective. As an Asian-American, I am not a pastor or church planter, but to some I am viewed as the Japanese pastor. Okay, I accept that. Now, after going through all of this I get to read in a magazine that I’m not yellow. Now you’re saying I have to be brown? I have to be blended in with other racial groups that aren’t white and conceived as living in one happy melting pot. <Insert sound of the needle on the turntable being screeched across the surface of the record> What? Did I just get my Asian taken away and replaced with the color of mud? You know, when you mix water and dirt together it forms a thick, goopy, non-descript brown goo. You can’t see the elements that went into it, all one sees is brown goo. Do I really want to be like mud? How did we go from melting pot–where distinguishable ingredients can be seen and tasted and combined to form something delicious–to mud?
The article cites multiracial Americans as the driving force behind the browning of American churches. Standing proudly as the token people of the mud are Tiger Woods, Vin Diesel, and Mariah Carey as contributors to the public’s acceptance of being multicultural in the church. Um, what public are we talking about here? The Caucasian public? Seriously, on any given day when I may think it might be confusing to people to see me–someone born in Osaka, Japan, adopted by a Caucasian Father and Japanese mother, and brought to California at the age of 4 while growing up in a country suburb where 99.9% of the residents were white–all I have to do is look to Tiger Woods. Not only are people confused by his appearance, but at times he seems confused about who he is. Everyone wants a piece of Tiger and look to him as a representative of their heritage. Now the American church wants to embrace him as their poster child for what a great job they are doing at attracting different races of people into their white church. Woo hoo! Oh yeah…sorry to be the bearer of bad news here, but I have not been in any conversation (ever) where people have looked to Vin Diesel or Mariah Carey as representing people of color or multiracial.
Of course, Dave Gibbons and Newsong are dragged into the mix because they are not a white church. Newsong is cited in “The Browning of Our Churches” as the largest church in the Evangelical Covenant Denomination, which I challenge the accuracy of. However, rather than share the merits of how Newsong is reaching Asian-Americans and that they have diversity on their leadership team, it is being used as a glorious example of how a church in a denomination founded by Swedish immigrants can be predominantly non-white and how there is hope that the American church can become more multicultural too. Why didn’t they cite an example of Tim Keller and how the congregation at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYC is multicultural and predominantly Asian? I guess you can’t use a token white guy in an article about being multicultural.
For the first time in my life and in my ministry I am starting to get what all the discussion is about amongst Asian-Americans and the American church. When we strive to be in unity and all working together as the body of Christ, it is a beautiful thing as it is what heaven will be like. However, when we as non-white people are used as a sign that we are blending in and being less-distinct and more homogeneous that is where I have to draw the line. For the first time I am drawing the line rather than trying to walk both sides. I feel as if I am becoming less confused.
When we are being invited to worship in the American church, yet are being played according to their rules, I take issue with that. When the American church invites diversity into the congregation, yet has Caucasian leadership and allows no voice to the people they are trying to reach, I take issue with that. When it’s more about being multicultural because it is cool to be multicultural, rather than being multicultural because you want to celebrate diversity , I take issue with that.
Today I take a stand. I refuse to be brown for the sake of conforming. I am yellow and if you want me to come to your party, you’d better give me a valid reason. Invite me because you want to hear my voice and know my struggles, not because you want to make me a statistic and show me off to your less-multicultural church friends.
“Can a church become post-racial?” Efrem Smith tackles this question over at Theooze.TV:
The embedded video is a preview. Watch the full video at Theooze.TV, and see the discussion already going at the comment thread there.
Also see this response to this video was posted at the Storrs Community Church blog (the church is located in Storrs, Connecticut):
… My immediate response to seeing the question, “Can the church become post-racial?”, was one of frustration that we are bandying about the wrong word and at the wrong time, when every well-being statistic you can look at across the country shows extreme white privilege and a sizable racial/ethnic gap. This is not by chance. It shows up in almost every category. And its a direct result of slavery and our policy making and community building that favored Whites over anyone else. It’s most likely not intentional racism from anyone nowadays, but racial inequity nonetheless.
… The church is not separate from culture, but quite collusive historically. Hence, we see similar inequities within. We’re not talking about overt, Jim Crow racism (i.e., race relations), but rather the scaffolding in our communities, however unseen to some/many.
On the night of June 19, 1982, a fight ensued at the Fancy Pants strip club on Woodward Avenue in Highland Park where Vincent Chin was having his bachelor party. The group was thrown out and after a heated exchange of words subsequently parted ways. Ronald Ebens instigated the incident by declaring, “It’s because of you little motherfuckers that we’re out of work,” referring to U.S. auto manufacturing jobs being lost to Japan, despite the fact that Chin was not Japanese. Ebens and Michael Nitz searched the neighborhood for 20 to 30 minutes and even paid another man 20 dollars to help look for Chin, before finding him at a McDonald’s restaurant. Chin tried to escape, but was held by Nitz while Ebens repeatedly bludgeoned Chin with a baseball bat. Chin was struck at least four times with the bat, including blows to the head. As Chin slipped into a coma, he whispered to his friend “It’s not fair.” When rushed to Henry Ford Hospital, he was brain-dead and died after four days in a coma, on June 23, 1982. (from wikipedia)
The two men responsible for Chin’s death never served a day of jail time, and Ebens proudly declares he will never pay a dime of the civil suit to Chin’s family (and he hasn’t).
Have you heard of Vincent Chin?
I confess that his name meant nothing to me until I went to seminary in Atlanta. Our school was pretty much black and white, with some international Korean students. For the first time, there was no Asian-American lunch table that I could sit at, and that’s when I started to learn more about being Asian-American and read about Vincent Chin.
Here’s where I’m curious: what role should the Asian-American church play in educating the congregation about ethnic and race issues? I had attended Chinese churches almost my whole life, and we never heard any stories concerning AA issues. We might have language classes, celebrate New Year’s in February, and eat rice after church service– but we never engaged and taught about being Asian in America. We implicitly taught that my faith had nothing to do with my skin color. In a sense, we prioritized assimilation and embraced being honorary whites.
Why does education have to happen at church? Because it won’t happen anywhere else for the AA community. Schools will not talk about the first Asian immigrants who came as indentured servants. The laborers behind the transcontinental railroad get rewarded with the Chinese Exclusion Act, but no one, or at least no school board cares. WWII is about Pearl Harbor, D-Day, and the Holocaust; there’s no time or space to talk about the internment camps. But Vincent Chin (and just last week– David Kao) tell us that race matters, and the prejudice behind past sins persists today.
I’d love to hear about a small group reading through Helen Zia’s Asian American Dreams, thinking deeply about how our faith intersects our identity and the role of the church in AA advocacy, instead of just choosing the latest curriculum from Beth Moore or John Ortberg. Then we might begin to encounter Jesus in ways that allow AA to bless the world as only we can.
The book by Ryan Bolger and Eddie Gibbs, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures, is now available in Korean!
Link to the Korean online bookstore where the book’s for sale.
Curious how Koreans in South Korea, and in the United States, would read this book to join the conversations, and what emerging churches in a Korean context would look like.
Worship services and churches for the next generation, and even English ministries, were not all that common in ethnic Asian churches back in the days.
One factor that likely contributed towards the development of English ministries within the Chinese/ Asian church was an organization called FACE, the Fellowship of American Chinese Evangelicals, which started:
… at the 1978 NACOCE [North America Congress of Chinese Evangelicals] congress, the Fellowship of American Chinese Evangelicals (FACE) was born, sounding a call for “parallel ministries” for American and Canadian born Chinese in the Chinese church. Today, American born Chinese ministries, and the broader challenge of planting Asian-American churches, are an accepted part of the ministry scene in North America. [a]
They published a quarterly newsletter from 1979 to 2003 called “About FACE”. According to the first issue, The Fellowship of American Chinese Evangelicals is a ministry established by four American-Born Chinese (ABC) participants of NACOCE and encouraged by NACOCE to enable the whole Chinese Church to be more effective in ministry to ABCs. The “About FACE” newsletters have been made available online for free download at www.mediafire.com/aboutface.
Browse this spreadsheet for an index of “About FACE” article titles, authors, and topics.
Browse through those ol’ newsletters and find historical artifacts and insights that may be quite informative to the conversations going on here. How’s that saying go: Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it?
