A key problem with immigrant churches and their children is basically the inability to speak the same language. The majority of those born in the US are not fluent in the language of their parents. In order to succeed, they have to speak English in schools and at work, which means the mother tongue gets a rest, sometimes a permanent vacation.

It seems that the priority of English in order to succeed – read: English as a first language beats ESL any day, leads to rifts in the church. We can’t worship together (efficiently and/or effectively) and we have problems communicating as a whole. In fact, language is at the very crux of the problem in many churches and homes. Both generations can often feel like strangers in the same home. They speak to each other and kind of understand one another, but something always gets lost in translation. When parents speak among themselves in the mother tongue, it seems like plotting. And when the children retort in English slang, the parents can’t help but feel disrespected. 

But does globalization possibly change that dynamic? Or does English truly become the new lingua franca? Does the tension increase or decrease in our families/churches? Is language seen as an inefficiency (again, sorry to borrow verbiage from economics) or will it be viewed as an asset? And one question further for our immigrant churches – is there a strong theological rationale for the preservation of languages? Do we keep the inheritance of the Tower of Babel as a good thing or a bad thing? 

Interestingly enough, globalization tends to support ghetto-ization, at least in my observation. Channels of distribution that increase the import of ethnic foods, television, music and movies means the children of immigrants stand a better chance of preserving the mother tongue. It also means that there’s less of a delay in culture. That means there’s less of “time capsule” effect that occurs with first generation parents. For instance, if my parents came from Korea in the 1970s, they bring over a 1970s Korean mindset. So even though Korea undergoes its own cultural shifts and trends, my parents are like time travelers somewhat, and the picture of Korea that I inherit from them is not necessarily the Korea that is. 

But now that’s changed, and the real question is then what effect will globalization have on language. 

Here are some excerpts from some Freakonomists pondering that very question: 

English is a tool, just like a piece of technology. Much of the world’s economy is tied up in English-speaking countries and for that reason, English is like a cell phone provider offering the best plan. But if the dollar continues to drop, the most viable option could shift. Mexico and Korea don’t need English to communicate if Korea begins to find it profitable to learn Spanish.

In fact, globalization means that we have more reason than ever to learn a language. While globalization has its benefits and drawbacks, learning a language, like almost any other skill, is at best useful and at least a bit of personal edification (like learning Ancient Greek or fly fishing).

It’s obvious that English promotes American power in the global linguistic marketplace — but a slogan of Li Yang’s Crazy English movement is “Conquer English to Make China Stronger!”

one of the intriguing consequences of globalization is that English’s center of gravity is moving. Its future is going to be defined not in America or Britain, but by the new economies of places like Bangalore, Chongqing, and Bratislava.

Realistically, fifty years from now the world’s big languages may be as few as three: Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, and English. Hindi, Bengali, Urdu, and Punjabi will also be pretty big — but chiefly because of massive population growth on their home turf. Arabic, too, will have grown — for religious reasons at least as much as economic ones.

So while organizations like Wycliffe are busy translating the Bible into minor indigenous languages across the world, dozens of other languages are simply going to vanish. Is that a good or a bad thing? What does that mean for ethnic churches – Fight to keep the language? or learn to lose it? And what if we can’t pick it back up again? How much culture can I retain without the language? Why is it that I feel like I’m holding water in my hands? or rather, my tongue? 

I’m really glad to welcome Daniel So on board here, he’s an extremely gifted writer and thinker.I should have piggybacked along with Daniel’s post earlier this month, but it’s been a rough season for me personally.  I’m getting to the age where there begins to be more funerals than weddings at certain stretches and every news of birth seems to coincide with someone’s passing away.

In any case, this video was from last year’s May celebrating Asian American Heritage month, but since I didn’t post it then, it still seems to apply this year and features one of my newfound heroes in Beau Sia, a very talented poet whose passion and fury I wish I could reproduce every time I get a chance to speak.

Enjoy..

Wired has a great article this month entitled, “Screw Organic. Go Nuclear. Live Urban. Crank the A/C.” Subtitle: “Inconvenient Truths: in the age of climage change, what matters most is cutting carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. That means rethinking everything you ever learned about being green.”

China and India, two emerging superpowers usually get a lot flack for their growing consumption and their overworked factories, but I thought this was an interesting flip of the script. Here’s an excerpt from the article, enjoy.

Pop quiz: who’s the volume dealer in alternative-energy hardware? If you said, choking, smoking, coal-toking China, give yourself a carbon credit.

Consider solar cells, the least carbon-intensive option after nuclear, wind, and biomass, according to an analysis by the International Atomic Energy Agency. In 2007, photovoltaic factories in the People’s Republic tripled production, grabbing 35 percent of the global market and making China the world’s number one producer. How about rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, critical for superefficient electric vehicles? Chinese manufacturers will soon rule that world, too. Windmills? “Prepare for the onslaught of relatively inexpensive Chinese turbines,” says Steve Sawyer, head of the Global Wind Energy Council. His forecast: China will produce enough gear to generate 10 gigawatts of power annually by 2010–more than half the capacity of the whole world installed in 2007.

China has three big reasons for jumping feetfirst into the carbon fight. Obviously, there’s the threat of climate change–flooding in China’s coastal cities, drought in the country’s interior. Second, there’s political instability: Air and water pollution is already a flash point for public protests. And then there’s the burgeoning export market for green products stamped MADE IN CHINA.

Will renovating the planet spur the first wave of homegrown Chinese tech innovation? Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric, thinks so. “China has as much or more at stake than anyone,” he said at a recent corporate summit. “Solar energy, carbon sequestration–we’re going to be blown away by China’s progress over the next couple of decades.” If only they could clean up Beijing’s air in time for the summer Olympics. –– Spencer Reiss

What strikes me is the power of economics. More than the politics and the environment itself, it seems that the opportunity for profits seems to create the momentum for change. Perhaps I’m too cynical, but I can’t help but observe that “saving mother earth” just isn’t a good enough motive. Isn’t it strange that the ideal itself rarely is enough to live accordingly? Don’t get me wrong, I’m encouraged to read an argument that doesn’t just point the finger at the growing Asian economies as the biggest culprit in climate change. That’s a nice consolation argument piece. I’m just interested in the notion that in order for us to make environmental consciousness ubiquitous, we’ve had to make it consumable – and consumption, and its twin brother production, is what got us here in the first place.

Instead of Walter Wink’s “Myth of Redemptive Violence,” it is as if there is a Myth of Redemptive Consumption. It’s not that shopping is evil, it’s that you’re shopping for the wrong things. But that’s the great conundrum, isn’t it? Like Bob Dylan said in one of his Christian episodes, “You’ve got to serve somebody.” We are never quite as free as we would like to be. There seem to be some who would like to think we could live on earth without leaving any footprint at all, much less a carbon one. But what would that profit us? My soul and not the world?

Bruce Reyes-Chow (candidate for moderator in the PCUSA) has written a succinct exposition with Asian Week on why Asian Americans tend to be conservative theologically. 

Please do read the article and here’s a bit of a teaser…

Are Asian Americans more drawn to conservative Christianity?  Is conservative Christianity seeking out Asian Americans?  Yes, and, well, sort of.

Here are three characteristics that create an environment ripe for the convergence of conservative Christian teachings and Asian American mojo.

1) Conservative Christianity and Asian American culture like the idea of working hard for what you get…

2) Conservative Christianity and Asian American culture emphasize the family unit before the individual…

3) Conservative Christianity and Asian American culture stress strict obedience to the authority given to elders….

It’s true. The only theologically liberal Asian Americans I’ve met go to seminary or divinity schools. They’re not in Asian churches. Admittedly, often they’re the ones with a chip on their shoulder – women who’ve been refused in leadership or guys who asked too many of the wrong questions. They’re the pariahs of the Christian community…and perhaps of the Asian community. It seems too American (and I mean American in the worst sense of the word) to be this type of Christian. 

I know evangelical Asian American Christians are seen as the booming segment on college campuses and the Great Yellow Hope for morality and conservative theology, but can we actually dialogue past these categories of liberal and conservative? I tend to think that the church, especially in Asian circles, wounds as many people as it evangelizes, so at some point, we need to talk, don’t we? And we need to add theological language for reconciliation that is not merely, “when you get it right, you can come back.” Because in all my reading of Christ, when we get it right is when we figure out we’ve done it wrong.

Even though it’s already over halfway through the month, I thought I would mention that May is Asian Pacific American Heritage month. Check out Enscriptchun for some great links to various voices in the Asian American blogosphere. I definitely resonate with Enscriptchun’s words about APA Heritage month:

I’m quite aware of the issues surrounding the relegation of the vast sum of Asian Pacific culture and history being reduced to a single month celebration, but it’s nice to have some recognition of contributions of our people, right?

Many of us have endured more outright racism than we’d like to remember. Even innocent sounding questions like, “No, where are you really from?” or well-intentioned (but totally wrong) statements such as, “I don’t even think of you as being Asian” only serve to reinforce the notion that we don’t belong here, that we’re something other than “normal.”

This morning, I heard a piece on NPR by Dmae Roberts called Secret Asian Woman — you can listen to the audio here or watch this video she produced. Although she speaks specifically about her multiracial identity, I found myself relating to much of her story — the struggle, pain and weariness from being Asian in America and learning to forge a new sense of identity in the face of a culture that often belittles, dismisses or ignores us.

It has taken me many years to recognize my God-given identity as an Asian American follower of Christ. For so many years, I lived in the marginality of “neither/nor” — neither fully Asian nor completely American. While this sense of spiritual homelessness has made me cling to my ultimate heavenly citizenship, as I have walked with God over the years my perspective has shifted dramatically. I have begun to see myself as “both/and” — in all of the beauty and mess that being both Asian and American means.

In many ways, being “both/and” people uniquely positions us for missional leadership. Many of us, in order to survive adolescence, had to learn to navigate fluidly between different cultures inside and outside the home. We had to learn to process, filter and recontextualize information and learning to the appropriate cultural setting. As Friend of Missional describes, “A missional church knows that they must be a cross-cultural missionary (contextual) people and adopt a missionary stance in relation to their community.

David Gibbons has been talking about building third culture churches that reach out to the marginalized. Dave describes these communities in this way [h/t: DJ Chuang]:

Third culture is the mindset and will to love, learn, and serve in any culture, even in the midst of pain and discomfort.

Perhaps one of our greatest contributions (in addition to some pretty cool musical endeavors), as “both/and” Asian American followers of Christ, will be to build third culture churches who are actively engaged in the mission of God in the world.

Just something fun since I finish my last final for the spring semester today.

People on the ground level have said that the death toll is going to reach 40,000 – almost twice the number reported yesterday.

2 million have been displaced from their homes.

Understandably, the government of the nation once known and disputed as Burma is reeling. So on top of this, the military government, which was already in the news and under scrutiny for how they dealt with anti-government protests at the end of last year, is guarded about the help they receive and how “relief” is administered.

This means that relief workers are literally unable to get in the door to help. I heard this morning that when U.S. First Lady Laura Bush implied that the Myanmar gov’t was incompetent, visas to awaiting American relief workers were immediately denied. In effect, “thanks, but no thanks.”

So pray. Give.

Ken Fong is willing to go there. His church, Evergreen is hosting a talk along with the group, Christians on Social Issues (CSI), entitled “We Need To Talk: A Conversation on Homosexuality”. 

Here’s the info straight from the Evergreen web site. 

7:00 p.m., Saturday, May 10, 2008
WE NEED TO TALK: A Conversation about Homosexuality and the Asian American Christian Church
Sanctuary

Sponsored by the Christian Social Issues (CSI) group, an informal gathering of Asian American Christians who discuss wide-ranging social issues and how they relate to our Christian faith. Join three old friends – two straight and one gay – who will engage in a conversation that needs to happen more often in order to dispel ignorance, quell fear and hatred, and foster greater understanding. Debate about scriptural interpretation or scientific evidence is not within the scope of this dialogue. It is not our intent to resolve this highly complex issue. Though we may ultimately arrive at different conclusions, at the very least, we need to break the awful silence in our churches surrounding this subject. We really need to talk. 

If you have a friend or loved one who is gay, or you are gay yourself, or you are a Christian who is concerned about this issue, please join us in this much needed and long-awaited dialogue. Please remember that this will be about fostering a conversation, not conversion. To find out more, Click here.

Having met Ken face to face last year, one thing that impressed me more than his ability to speak was his ability to listen, really listen. And he has the courage to give others a voice and enable them in whatever capacity that he can. This is one example of where that ability of dialogue is particularly timely and necessary in our generation. Here’s a link to a slideshow that Ken has put together earlier this year. 

This conversation is a particularly difficult one among Asian Americans. Most churches don’t acknowledge the existence of the GLBT crowd at all. It’s a double stigma among socially conservative Asians and theologically conservative Christians. At this point in time, my own jury is hung. To borrow a line from that Jim Carrey movie,”Liar Liar”: “I hold myself in contempt! Why should you be any different!”

And although this is totally unrelated…here’s a trailer to a movie about Asian American homosexuals and the church. Attend the conversation if you can…and I look forward to Ken sharing some notes online so we can continue the conversation in the blogosphere…

Living differently. The last few years I’ve been attending SWBTS and lately the chapel sermons have been centering on living differently, esp. for those called to the ministry. I guess the message has not changed much over the years, but why has it been hitting me so hard lately? Do I act like the world? Do I need to change? I wonder is it all legalism? But I guess in a world where evangelical leaders are found out to be gay, drug taking fiends (hyperbole), well its not your mama’s church leader. Where even the question of homosexuality as a sin is questioned?

Should we be watching certain movies? Or listening to certain kinds of music? Is it ok to smoke? Can we drink a beer if we don’t get drunk? Is it ok to use profanity? Definitely I am convicted that we need to live a different kind of life. (If you have time, about 1 hour, check out this sermon by Paul Washer). The sermon calls on the carpet “American” Christianity…y’know stuff like how our divorce rate is higher than outside the church…

I also wonder where does being AsianAmerican fit into all this? (When being Christian is hard enough.)