Listen folks, both asian and non-asian – Christ came to reconcile ALL things to Himself. Why is that such a difficult thing? I am Irish, English, French, German, and recently found out Portuguese and I am a Pastor, so…, whom do I hang with? Whom do I reach out to? Whom do I call my community or body? It is whomever God puts in our path.

One Lord; One Body; One Love! Just start living it out and stop fighting over the scraps – cuz all of stuff is like filthy rags anyway. Stop fighting and start LOVING – let Francis do his thing. If that is what God called him to do, then let him be. He is in my humble opinion doing what God has called him to do. Jonah did not want to go Ninevah either, but God had him go. We are not always called to do what we think WE think we should.

I dont’ want to receive any more follow up comments to this, so.., please remove me from that if you could. It is a bit ridiculous at this juncture. Thanks!

Peace and One Love.

Richie

“Ethnicity, assimilation, identity, racism and reconciliation” exists with all immigrant communities. Many of the problems within English-speaking Asian American churches are problems that all churches face.

I do not pretend to (as you have written) to have the “truth.” I am curious which statements prompted your reactions, though it is understood that directly responding to your comments probably is not something you are seeking.

You are correct that I have a simple Faith, though it has been augmented by my studies of apologetics with teachers such as Josh McDowell. I hope that all your described past experiences and education (that far exceeds mine) will eventually provide the means to find the answers you are seeking.

To “elderj” – when iron sharpens iron, sometimes it results in “heated” responses from some of the participants.

I agree that often ethnicity, race and/or stereotyping/racism serves as a factor of separation by becoming the highest priority resulting in clouding one’s vision of what God wants to provide us on a personal basis.

To “Alpha Hayward”
“if you don’t purpose to reach a culture, then you simply won’t reach them” is a thought-provoking and insightful viewpoint. A possible alternative way to view this is that a church/ministry must reach out to meet the needs of the people they are trying to reach. Maybe a more “on-point” answer to your listed question then could be the following: what needs am I not meeting with people, who happen to be Black, within your comgregation.

To “Cricket”
In many English-speaking Chinese/Asian American churches, their selection of pastors/leaders could provides a tangible indication of the importance/priority they place on ethnicity vs Christian leadership

To “Annika”
Within the general Chinese/Asian American Christian communities, there are few problems considering the many requests he’s received to speak. He is called to be a pastor to the people attending his Simi Valley church and to all people. He has guided Cornerstone (his church) to have a great focus on evangelism, as noted by the expenditures of the church’s resources.

Merry Christmas to everybody!

+1 David on the responses and everybody else too. Certainly this post has generated a lot more responses than many, thought I’m not sure why, or rather I’m pretty sure why, but wish it weren’t that way. Ethnicity and race discussion of any kind make evangelicals nervous. Isn’t this focus a distraction from the “gospel,” why do we have to focus on race, and the more we focus on this the worse it is, so can’t we just move on?

Well, I wish the artificial construct of race were not a salient reality, and I wish we didn’t have a history of segregation and legalized discrimination in this country and I wish that racial stereotyping and racism hadn’t accompanied the proclamation of the gospel during the great missionary movements of the last two centuries, and I wish that Euro-American norms of behavior and ways of doing church had not become conflated with the “Christian” way, and I wish that we all were perfectly reconciled in actuality as we are spiritually in Christ, and I wish that I didn’t have to consider the impact on my children of being raised Black in a world that devalues Blackness, and I wish ten thousand other things, but wishing doesn’t make it so and further, in the sovereignty of God, he has allowed the present situations to exist and to persist.

It is God who confounded the languages and dispersed the people at Babel for their disobedience to his command to fill the earth and thus ensured that linguistic and ethnic diversification would take place with the subsequent result that cultures would develop along different lines. It was God who established the boundaries and the times for all people so that they would perhaps seek after him. It was God who at Pentecost inaugurated the miracle that the proclaimers of the gospel were enabled to declare the glories of God in divers tongues rather than those who were foreigners being granted a miracle of translation, it was God who made me (and all of us) thus, and how can the pot say to the potter, why did you shape me thusly, and it is God who declares the vision of people of every tribe, tongue, and language worshiping around the throne in resurrected ethnic bodies at the end of time. And it was God, whose incarnation we celebrate, who chose to bless culture by inhabiting it as a 1st century Hellenistic Jewish carpenter, who spoke a language, and used cultural idioms of his people, and who by his specific participation in one group became the messiah to all.

This stuff matters to God and it always has; from creation till eternity still to come, and we as his followers wrestle with it. Imperfectly, and with clouded vision, “as through a glass darkly,” but wrestle nevertheless so that we might more fully live in light of the glorious gospel of which we are all inheritors. I need to listen to David, and hear him declare the works of God through his own story, his own culture, his own Exodus / Exilic narrative, and I need to know that his story is not his alone — for we are not only individuals but we are families and groups (ethnos) in God’s view — but I need to know that his story has a people and a legacy and a journey behind it.

it is rare to have people give an honest opinion of one’s character and thoughts. i’m glad that you’ve clearly expressed that i’m very much in need of prayer and devoid of love for other people. those things are very true. i am a man in need of much prayer. if you look over the body of work expressed on this blog, and not just this one post, you’ll see that i have wrestled with this matter and its many dimensions for a long time, and i have been humbled by many and encouraged by others. this is a complex issue and i assure you i don’t give “whiplash responses” as often as you perhaps think. what bothers me most about your comments in particular is that you seem to think that this is a very simple issue without need of nuance and that my questions and adamance for thoughtful ethnic identity are misplaced and counter-gospel. perhaps you know something that i don’t jeff, but from where i sit, these matters of ethnicity, assimilation, identity, racism and reconciliation are not as clear as you make them out to be. i don’t have problem with accepting the truth, it’s the pretentiousness that you convey when you say that you have the “truth” and i am somehow refusing to accept it.

we’ve had several rounds of discussion and we don’t get close to being on the same wavelength (and i don’t know why i keep doing this) but i want you to know that while i’m certainly insistent in the particularity of asian american identity, voice, and theology as distinct from the dominant majority, i am not militant nor am i doing this out of adolescent angst. i’m not anti-multi-ethnic worship, nor do i think that anything that doesn’t AA cultural references as “useless”. you go too far when you put words in my mouth as you have before. also, you are wrong to presume a sense of inadequacy or unwillingness to live in harmony with others. i am married cross-culturally, i worship at a multi-ethnic church, and by most accounts, i’m quite content in my asian identity. i’ve listened to hours of francis chan’s sermons. i have been a youth pastor at a korean church. i have been pursuing these matters of culture and faith for many years now and you make it sound like i’m an idiot (a less holy one at that), like i just fell off the potato truck.

listen jeff, i’m fine with disagreeing with you. but please, don’t insult my love of Christ or my intelligence or my sense of ethnic identity or my pursuit of God’s purposes for my life. don’t patronize me. and if it makes you feel better, i have no beef with francis chan. sure, i’d like him to speak for asian americans given his visible platform and his face, but i’m fine with it. he’s doing great work regardless. i don’t think he’s the anti-Christ and i don’t pray for his demise. and for the record, i’m very happy for people like pastor habino. and i hope you can accept that truth.

Everybody understands that facing the truth often exposes a raw nerve that results in various whiplash responses. As shared previously, I still asked people to pray that you will able to receive the answers the Lord has waiting for you. Since you have initiated the thread that started with your position on Francis Chan, supplying additional information to make a more-informed analysis of your request (along with other subsequent) often is the best way to find answers.

I look forward to your identification where my words accurately displayed a “patronizing and condescending tone” – along with your perceived “poor analysis and personal attacks.” If addressing specific topics and/or accountable to one’s words makes one uncomfortable, that is something that I cannot help.

Sadly, it appears that specifically addressing your comments with answers (in the spirit of Christian love) is something that you are uncomfortable with.

I welcome other opinions within this open forum of the spirit and nature of my responses. Everybody acknowledges that accepting truth often is hard.

Still with love and compassion while seeking what the Lord has planned for all our futures.