Found this post on Racialicious featuring this video:

Asian American males are often portrayed in the media as less  than”manly”, maybe even asexual. Christian males often are seen as “safe” and “nice”. When combined, Asian American Christian men can often be the most “harmless”  and “nicest” across the spectrum of men. I wonder if some of the behaviors I see in young Asians is largely reactionary to this type of stigma.

I’m not saying that we swing the pendulum the other way into some sort of violent, brutish, testosterone bloodthirsty frenzy, but I wonder does our discipleship require emasculation? Is there repressed aggression under this double layer of church and Asian culture that can take harmful forms in our friendships, relationships, marriages, and other areas even as we might be “high performers”?

Are there ways our churches can serve as places to encourage stronger formation of Asian American Christian men? I understand that the goal of the gospel is not necessarily to create us in some sort of projected image of what we’d like to be, but does the church provide us the means to show transformed lives from what we have seen thus far?

Share and Enjoy

At a recent invitation by MrPages at the Wonderful Pages blog, I’ve been asked to participate in a blog carnival re: worship. Woot! One of my favorite topics.

While I’m a bit late in joining the discussion, the first question is intriguing and a wonderful starting point: “When you strip everything away and get to the essense, what is worship?”

I’m not sure that I’m qualified to answer this question at all, but I’ll start of with this:
Worship begins when I see where I end and God begins. Worship is the response borne out of the understanding that I have no leverage with God, that he is holy, and that every breath, every motion, every small of creation that I can muster up to express that sentiment was itself a gift of grace from God. And I am awed that the Giver is amazed when the gift is returned in my voice, my words, and my actions. The Giver has made me a giver; and in essence, worship is the act of taking on the image of God as one who gives without fear of unrequited love.

I am most moved when I read some of the responses of those who have no leverage before God and yet are unafraid to bear the consequences.

In Daniel 3, when the Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednago are challenged by King Nebuchadnezzar to worship his likeness or be thrown in the fire. The king finishes with a most megalomaniacal question, “If you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?”

Their response is unbelievable: refuse by saying, “If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

“Even if he does not”? Wow. That’s worship.

Or check out Job, after the tragedies have beset him, he still has the faith to say, “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him”. That’s an attitude of worship.

As I view worship, there is this crazy notion that my trust in God, my hope in God, my love for God is so real and palpable, I don’t even care if God doesn’t acknowledge it, because he’s still worth it. He’s that worth it. In my mind, it’s very similar to the cliffhanging that love is between my wife and me. I had no idea how this was going to turn out, but there was a point in our budding relationship, where I didn’t even care if she loved me back. I loved her so much that it was no longer dependent on her reciprocation of it.

Sound stalker-ish? Maybe. But I had the right heart about it. I didn’t want to possess her or control her. I love her, and in my mind and heart, she didn’t have to love me back, it wouldn’t change the way I feel. That’s when I started to get a glimpse of how God loves us. And that’s where I get the notion that I could love God the same way.

Repentance is worship. A life of repentance is synonymous with a life of worship.

In Judges 10:11-16, there is an interesting story where God plays coy: “You have forsaken me and served other gods, so I will no longer save you.  Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you when you are in trouble!”

The response here again is remarkable about how strong the conviction is to repentance: “‘We have sinned. Do with us whatever you think best, but please rescue us now.’ Then they got rid of the foreign gods among them and served the LORD.”

That’s the essence of worship to me: an admission to God that this is where I end and He begins. Even if I can’t earn his favor, he is worthy of worship and I’m learning to live with any consequence to that.

Share and Enjoy

Remember the Danny Yang guy I mentioned? Here’s a mirror of his latest post from his Xanga site that is generating some great conversation.

i can’t quite abandon the idea that a set of core beliefs determines everything else (i.e. foundationalism), and looking back, my understanding of the gospel was the big problem. i knew Jesus Christ through a gospel that was communicated in a series of statements. if i agreed to certain things about God, Christ and myself, i would be saved.

but as i read more and worked in church, i think the gospel itself cannot be tamed in this way. the gospel at its simplest is simply that Jesus saves us. but exploring this salvation can take multiple paths. and the gospel we received was the product of refinement that stretches back to martin luther. it is good news and salvation for a colonizing, european, predominantly white culture.

yet most asian-americans have aligned to this version of christianity, that holds no distinct word for our experience. (and i base this assumption on the popularity of john piper among AAs; we were hugely overrepresented at a recent piper conference.) that picture above was taken at a taiwanese church; apparently Jesus can’t be Jesus unless he has blond hair… but he can have other asian features.

i guess i’m wondering whether the gospel must begin with culture. knowing who we are first, then we let Jesus Christ impact our lives, leaving a crater in our experience (hat tip to karl barth for the crater imagery). perhaps we look at who we are as asian-americans, ask where we seek salvation and peace, repent, and confess Christ as our source of salvation. [emphasis mine]

And this other guy, flightpath, shares an absolutely brilliant statement [emphasis mine]:

i think what we’re seeing with AA’s is an unquestioning willingness to baptize wholesale white ownership of the Gospel even if it comes as an expense to their own identity and calling to lead. i don’t want merely a customized Gospel either, but i want a Gospel that encompasses the asian, black, latino, etc. experience without doing violence to it. the Gospel breaks down barriers but doesn’t negate identity. that’s why african-american theology is so vital for the black church — Christianity for African-Americans is inextricably linked with their sojourn as a people (contra individualism) and comes to bear upon their understanding of past (in exile, captivity), present (God as deliverer), and future (the eschaton). African-Americans cannot understand their identity in Christ in isolation from their corporate experience. and that’s why blacks don’t jibe well with white congregations that don’t want to relinquish leadership, interrogate issues of white privilege and power dynamics, acknowledge the unique experiences of other people groups, or change for anybody else. more often than not, African-Americans are implicitly expected to check their “blackness” at the door for the sake of a superficial “colorblind,” culture-neutral (but really white) Gospel. this is also what happens when whites try to undertake racial reconciliation on their own terms (diversity without sincerity or repentance) anyways, i see much fruitfulness for a distinctive AA theology. AA’s need to take ownership of their own sins against other minority groups as well.

[Read more...]

Share and Enjoy

Sorry for the long break — selling a house, buying a house, and moving is not to be undertaken lightly.

But found this interesting article on Media Guerilla, a social media marketing and PR blog.  The contents are short, so I quote them here:

Passion Rarely Equals Influence

I think as more marketers dig into customer advocacy projects there’s this tendency to assume a loyal customer (a “passionate customer”) is also an influential one. That’s a very dangerous assumption, tread carefully.

Loyalty and influence are two separate things and more often than not, unrelated.

Is a loyal customer likely to give you feedback on your product? Sure. Will this customer recommend your product to others? Maybe. Will this customer’s recommendation have an impact and influence on others’ decisions? Who knows…to assume, however, that someone’s passion and loyalty is somehow proportional to their influence is a formula that’s problematic to say the least.

This finding has interesting ramifications if brought back to the roots of “evangelism” in that a lot of church activities are driven to instill passion in youth, but perhaps that is no indication as to how we’re addressing the issue of authentic Christian influence in the culture. Perhaps this is why we see factions among churchgoing Asian Americans and those that don’t. We have a “passionate” group that perhaps is less aware or capable of influencing culture than we think.

Share and Enjoy

Met up with Danny Yang today on my lunch break. Don’t worry if you don’t know him yet, you will.

He sent me the following article, which after reading, I have to say, resonates with me a great deal. If you get a moment, please click here for the full read. I’ll begin with Rudy Carrasco’s intro…

I am a Christian. A follower of Jesus Christ. A guy trying to find out who I am and what God made me to do, so I can go out and do it.

This is not easy for me, because I have a quadruple consciousness.

By quadruple consciousness, I mean I have inside of me four perspectives that influence the way I live my life. Here’s how they break down.

W.E.B. DuBois wrote in the early part of this century about the “double consciousness” experienced by African-Americans in the U.S. As fellow Americans, they are “insiders” in our society. Yet they are also “outsiders” because of their skin color and racism.

This “double-consciousness” is true also for Latinos. But for U.S.-born Latinos like me, there is an added twist.

Dr. Eldin Villafañe, associate dean of urban and multicultural affairs at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Boston, says that while we are insiders/outsiders in relation to mainstream society, we are also insiders/outsiders in relation to first generation Hispanics.

Though we are bilingual and bicultural, we are not totally accepted by our mostly monocultural, Spanish-language-dominant parents and authority figures. They perceive us as different–too norteamericano in behavior and Spanish-speaking ability.

As a result of these insider/outsider dynamics with the White mainstream and with first generation Hispanics, a third consciousness arises.

We who find primary identity with neither the mainstream nor with the mother country find it most readily in each other.

In the Southwest, this is known as “Mexican-American” or “Chicano” identity. In Texas, these terms are joined by “Tejano.” In the northeast among Puerto Ricans, it’s “Boriqua” or “Nuyorican.” In Florida among Cubans, it’s “Cuban-American.” And across the nation, this third consciousness binds people of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Latin American descent into “Latinos” or “Hispanics,” turning a U.S. census fiction into reality.

But for a second generation Latino trying to follow Jesus, add a fourth consciousness: an American Evangelical consciousness.

What does this all mean? It means confusion for a Christian young man trying to find his way. When these voices say different things, which should I follow? Shall I choose one perspective against all the others, or is it possible to integrate them?

Answering that question is the greatest accomplishment of my life.

Share and Enjoy

Asian Americans and their churches have often unknowingly worked against the purposes of the Gospel. Instead of unity, the habits borne out of the immigrant experience have led to divisiveness. Instead of rest for the weary, it has led to burnout for both laity and clergy. Instead of building bridges to other communities, often we have remained in a state of navel-gazing.

John Lee is one of the ones who’s not willing to let the status quo remain.  In our conversations, he’s been hungry to see churches unite, to see exhausted leaders refreshed, and worship leaders given the opportunity to share. To that end, he’s started re:charge and their first event is June 9th in Wheeling, IL. If you’re in the area…check it out and be blessed. This is just the beginning, but I believe that it’s great vision that God has given my brother and I love being a witness.

Check out their mission and vision statement:

The People:
We are a like-minded group of individuals from local 2nd Generation Asian (meaning that our parents immigrated to North America from Asia and we were born and raised in the U.S.) churches in the suburbs of Chicago.

The Problem:
Burnout is a common occurrence among those who serve in the 2nd Gen church. While 2nd Gen ministries in Chicagoland are abundant, most of them are small in size (ranging anywhere from 10-100 people). However, these ministries are often primarily fueled by passionate people who willing sacrifice their personal time and resources. Great need and a lack of manpower combine to create this snowball effect called burnout.
[Read more...]

Share and Enjoy

My pathologist wife introduced a new concept to me many years ago for diagnosis called a biopsy. So I take samples of the culture of what I can find about Asian America on YouTube. Enjoy. Diagnosis forthcoming. Tell the surgeons I need a bigger margin.

“Behind Yellow Walls”

“Geishas and Math-Nerds”

“Asian American Beauty: Part 1″

Click here for Part 2.

“Projecting Asian America: The Asian Presence in Hollywood”

“Kate Rigg Talks About Asians, Race, and Comedy”

“What Is The Difference Between Asian and Asian American Studies”

“Asian American: The Journey”

Share and Enjoy