Congrats to Bruce Reyes-Chow, who was elected moderator of the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) on Saturday, June 21st!

Here is a great quote from Bruce at the GA:

…nothing is too hard or too wondrous for God. If the church steps out in faith rather than clinging to survival, to be more intent on being faithful than on being right, to be together based on our common covenant in Jesus Christ rather than by property or pensions, then we will be able to live into a future in which we are a vital and vibrant presence in the world.

Bruce is pastor of Mission Bay Community Church in San Francisco and is a prolific, insightful blogger. It looks like the banner of his blog can now read “pastor/geek/dad/follower of Christ/moderator.”

As a Presbyterian myself, it is a breath of fresh air to see the denomination move away from what can often be an insular old boys’ network and towards a different picture of what the future might be. This is more than just saying, “Let’s start using this internets I’ve been hearing about to keep those young whippersnappers inside the church” — Bruce is fully engaged in culture 2.0 and it will be interesting to see how he can help turn the ship around.

To many Presbyterians, the fact that a young, urban, Asian American church planter could become the new face of the denomination is nothing short of miraculous.

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In a recent conversation with anakainosis from Merging Lanes this week at the nearby James Joyce Pub,(oh yes, Happy Birthday, Dan Ra), we reached brief moments of lucidity with regards to Asian American church: “There is no culturally-neutral expression of the Gospel”, the rationale for an Asian American church is not so much to re-create our cultural bias and therefore stigmatize a particular view of Christianity further, but to to remind ourselves that every culture, whether we assimilate in to White Evangelical American Christianity or assume that there is something to the indigenous Asian responses to the Gospel, has limitations (consciously or unconsciously) to allowing transformation of that culture.

However, the goal is not to eliminate culture, but similar to what Peter Rollins says about Christianity being an atheistic theism (or an irreligious religion), what we should strive for in our conversations about culture is to make it an acultural culture. We oppose the calcification of Asian and American cultures precisely because they are both self-preserving, and the Gospel is not. But neither is the Gospel a despiser of culture, therefore we seek to create something in the midst of the twilight which we embody – neither completely Eastern nor Western, Asian nor American. The beauty is that we can be honest and authentic about the very transplant that has occurred and discuss the dislocation as a personal and social phenomenon, not merely as a spiritual one. Furthermore, we understand even this location of “establishing” some Asian American church as transient – we are in motion as it relates to this Christ and the Spirit (wind, breath) of God. 

The real challenge then is not to re-write history or to re-invent our identity, but from this moment begin to commit to the creation of culture transformed as the DNA of Christ becomes hard-wired, transcribed into our genes one strand at a time neither erasing who we were created to be nor denying that we are being fashioned into something more (and yes, I am mixing my metaphors here). What the Gospel has been unable to do (albeit it has been a relatively short history for Asian conversions to Christianity, although we can make a strong case that the West has not fared much better), is puncture a core barrier of culture. Sure, we accept moralism and borrow language for hierarchy and order, but we refuse to be transformed at the nucleus. This is precisely why even the zealots with the best intentions still re-create empires that bear none of the true ethos of Christ in the end. We were not called for dominion in that sense, or perhaps as we have consistently presumed, we think too highly of ourselves to begin with. We were called to be generative, and regenerative, born again, healed again, called again, forgiven again, and sent again. We were not called to reproduce the Tower of Babel as though that were the solution to the kingdom – gathering the masses of people under one language, one banner, and one edifice. We were called to be the “living stones,” the very material – with all the particular properties that go into building materials of varying texture, composition, density and color (i.e. race, ethnicity, and culture). 

And…then I don’t remember what else we talked about, and I have to clarify for his sake, some of this is extrapolation from our conversation, but keywords were “diversity of doctrine”; the fear of reproducing empire; and creating community for (lack of) creation’s sake. Then we drank “flaming Dr. Peppers” and I went home.

But sleep easy, we’re got this figured out. I just can’t remember it right now. 

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Continuing on from the video on David Choe, is this video I found about graffiti on the streets of Shanghai. Graffiti is all about expression and it’s wonderful to hear mainland Chinese talk about creativity in a way that I think most “churched” people do not articulate. There’s an awareness of ideas, identity, and expression that is amazing. Perhaps this is why people associate the church/Christianity with backwardness, but I believe that we have the theological language to inform, encourage, and support creativity and expression.

When we create we bear the image of God most fully. Even when we graffiti.

May we be as daring as these artists in Shanghai.

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h/t to DJ for finding this one….

Asian American Pastor Speaks Only English

Chicago native of Korean descent also knows no martial arts

HOUSTON – The employment of James Kim as youth pastor at Mt. Olive Baptist church here has resulted in some disappointment among church members, but not for the usual pastoral dissatisfaction reasons.

“When I saw that we had hired him, I was so excited,” said church treasurer Lilly Rudd. “I thought we could finally start an outreach to the Chinese and Filipino populations of Houston, but when he opened his mouth I noticed there was no accent at all – even his l’s and r’s were all pronounced right. That’s when I had to ask him if he even spoke Chinese at all. I was completely speechless when he told me he’d never even been outside the US.”…. Click on the link above to read the entire parody…

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Is there room for a David Choe in your church?

There’s simply something intriguing about an artist and his art. Perhaps it is because God as the Creator has made us in his image that we take on a certain divine resemblance and authority when we also create.

It’s a curiosity that most Asian Americans who dare to be creative in the face of our parents’ wishes to be practical and profitable are cast off as failures and deemed as having wasted their lives.

But the last time I checked, the Gospel is not practical or profitable either.

Anyone who has wrestled with a simple case of “writer’s block” should understand the notion that the act of creation requires something of us. It pains us to try and express ourselves. It is unnatural and somehow divine. Perhaps it is actually divine and somehow made natural in us.

Even though most of us grew up taking violin or piano lessons, it seems that Asian Americans have over-emphasized the performance aspect as opposed to the composition aspect. It’s much easier to read than to write, to appreciate than paint, and to imitate than innovate. But perhaps that’s the crux of the problem – you cannot “imitate” the life of Christ, it has to be “created” in you. When we merely consume to sustain ourselves and then work to secure all that we have gathered, we have fallen short of that creative image of God, we become less than human. Why would the church want to perpetuate that?

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