you’d be amazed at how many later gen koreans remember many of the popular hymnals from the national korean protestant hymn book (i believe they are similar to chinese hymn book too). there’s also the old school praise songs from vineyard, steve camp, keith green, steven curtis chapman, michael w. smith, etc. that are becoming classics. if we could collect these together along with some of the newer ones by tomlin, hillsong, redman, etc. would be a nice set!

only if pastors and worship leaders can get together somehow, communicate, coordinate and compile a modern asian american hymn book “canon” (with theological discernment of course) of these songs…might be a good place to start at the grass-roots level. especially for the welfare of our future generations. there needs to be a inter-generational mentality.

plus, too many “new-songs” are really counter-productive for corporate worship. my pet peeve is that worship leaders keep pumping out new songs every week. every 5 years, there’s a “generation gap” in praise song knowledge, it’s destroying corporate worship. and we really need to get rid of all the singular pronouns and change them to “we, us, and our” for Sunday praise!!! (wow, rambled a lot! hehe)

as with elderj and yourself, as long as we define the gospel as the proclamation of christ through the cross and resurrection, then i’m fine deconstructing the rest. the difficult part will be to make sure that none of the reconstruction calcifies into idolatry. but i do agree with your multi-valent view of a solution. there are several dimensions where we need to negotiate these things openly, particularly when it comes to theology. further, i think that negotiation needs to take place with the people, not just among scholars. if we take the “priesthood of all believers” seriously, we should relegate Confucian hierarchy into a new ethos in how we unpack the text and let the body come together to see what Christ has called us to. but it should be fun…and i’m glad it seems that God seems to be stirring the pot recently. There seems to be a lot more interest in this subject matter than 5 years ago.

i think the disenchantment seems to be the result of three primary issues: inter-cultural issues, inter-generational issues, and theological issues. 1) inter-cultural worldview, in the sense that older gen asians were more communal, later gens are more individualistic and less hierarchical (probably the difference between Greek worldview & Confucian worldview). 2) inter-generational attitude, in the sense that older generation were busy surviving in a harsh environment trying to build a “colony” for later gens. they had to be much more practical and less theoretical. hence they seem like hypocrites from later gen perspective, and later gen seem like idealistic, ungrateful snobs from first gen perspective. 3) theological in the sense that they just took the pre-packaged theology from the european missionaries, we have time now to reflect and develop our own.

i personally think the gospel is non-negotiable (as mentioned above by intersection), but how you package that can change. the issue of free-will, man, sin, grace, and righteousness are timeless but in so far as the outer package such as systematic theology, covenant theology, dispensational theology, etc. (which is actually a debate over hermeneutics), we should make one better suited for asian americans.

wayne, this really is the heart of the issue, much like danny mentions a few comments ago. orthodoxy is so strongly associated with europe, and the protestant ethic that was birthed out of the reformation is so closely tied to colonialism, i’m not sure if we can separate power from orthodoxy. the critique of those churches that snuggled up with orthodoxy is that they were oppressors nonetheless, thus creating the need for liberation theologians who emphasized praxis. i share your hope, but right now, all i have are questions.

just observationally, i think that a great deal of disenchantment in the AA context re: the church is because we have not spoken through our experience to arrive at our theology. what we preach from the pulpit still seems assimilationist, which means we don’t need to be in the pulpit if all we really want to do is aspire to be white preachers. There are plenty of those around anyway. i don’t know is p.dan’s notion of an antiochian hermeneutic is going to be helpful to developing distinctive AA preaching, but i think it’s worth investigating. i think a great deal of the silent exodus would appreciate hearing something distinctive about AA christians so that the assumption is not that we have “sold out” but we are being more true to ourselves by claiming Christ as savior and Lord. honestly, that’s what i think is at stake here. and perhaps that’s what a great deal of af-ams and latinos needed to hear as well. no white preacher would ever preach that word of hope for them, right?

I would like to hope that we can bring a new “brand” of church on the scene that has a strong orthodoxy (which Asians can be obsessed over) and yet embrace some of the pragmatic elements of Liberation theo…

reformed theology is only related to the nestorian church in hermeneutics (antiochian school), nothing more. the reformation fathers chose to take the side of the antiochian school instead of the alexandrian. hence, the part about reformed theology being asian theology is an exaggeration. it would more accurate to say that antiochian hermeneutics is asian.