For those in AA congregations, yes – I think that discussions about race are important. I wholeheartedly agree with your statement: “Why does education have to happen at church? Because it won’t happen anywhere else for the AA community. ” — however, my hope is that with this next generation (the one where WE are the parents), that we will foster open dialogue with our children so that the burden isn’t only upon church leadership – to discuss, well, hard-to-discuss matters.

My question is: How does an Asian American Christian put their faith 1st, when dealing with racism, and not be motivated to react in anger, when dealing with Asian American advocacy issues of racism?

I once heard someone say (with a lot of vehemence) about an alleged racist incident, “you ALWAYS have to deal with racism right way and never let it go…”… and it made me wonder, “ALWAYS???” (I do believe there is something in Proverbs about dealing with fools and mockers who do not wish to listen to wisdom.)

I wonder what would have happened if Vincent Chin had decided to not deal with the racial slurs, and walk away? Not to say that we should always walk away from racism and racial injustices. But sometimes the time and place may not be the most appropriate place/time to deal with racism … and wisdom over the situation needs to reign.

There is such a large room for error and anger when dealing with racism, and injustices in this world. The question isn’t whether one should stand up for the rights of the voiceless, and the ignored… but rather, how does one do it as a Christian? It’s a fine line…. that can sometimes be easily be blurred. One moment, one is advocating and fighting for injustices in this world, and another moment, one is reacting in anger, retaliation and self-righteous anger and judgement.

It’s a tough call. Yes, as Christians we should fight for justice. But let’s not forget the mercy and wisdom in dealing such horrific situations as well.

5 or 6 years ago when I was staffing CBS (now AACM) I led a series of ethnic identity discussion groups. We looked at ethnic identity in the life of Joseph, listened to AA spoken word, brought articles, talked about racism (ours and others, and social justice etc. Good stuff. One of the things I was most proud of was starting a culture of students taking AA studies classes and growing in ethnic identity.

And yeah, I agree with you – I believe in the role of ethnic-specific fellowships and church communities, but they have to be thinking about how to reach that particular community with the gospel (which means understanding how the gospel intersects our ethnic identity).

Last year Bread of Life Church in Torrance hosted an Asian American conference that I wish I could have attended:
http://l2foundation.org/2008/why-god-made-you-an-asian-american

We need more churches to make commitments to teaching about these issues.