Are Asians Sell-outs?

On the heels of the rapidly subsiding waves of controversy caused by the “SPLASH” of the Deadly Vipers controversy (read more: here, here, here, and here), I find myself  puzzling anew over the whole issue of how Asian-American identity is constructed, what is the relationship between ethnic identity and faith, how and whether to speak up and at what cost, and even how to bring others along on the journey without only being angry.

It strikes me that one of the basic underlying struggles is rooted in the question of what it means to be an authentically ethnic and Christian person when one either is or is immediately descended from people who intentionally forsook their ethno-cultural matrix in order to make a home in North America.  Or in other words, maybe it isn’t just the Francis Chan’s of the world who are sell outs.  Of course no one is actually calling the man a sell-out, it’s just making a point and raising a question about how much one’s ethnicity ought to be in play in an intentional kind of way, especially as a Christian.

But there is a larger and more problematically complex issue at stake here.  The racial history of the United States has created an oddly distorted racialized system that has been a double-edged sword for Asian Americans.  East Asian immigrants particularly enjoy quite remarkable economic and educational success in the United States and Canada.  And the reality of immigration is such that those who chose to leave their home countries came generally (though not always) with quite significant economic, educational, or entrepreneurial drive that made their ability to climb the ladder of economic opportunity much more likely than those left behind in their native lands .

This has been true of most immigrant groups who generally outpace natives in economic achievement after the first generation, however the racialized nature of American society has meant that such economic advancement has rebounded to create a sort of idealized image of Asian Americans that is the foundation stone of the “model minority” myth; a myth alternately decried and embraced by Asian Americans since it provides needed distance from association with non-model minority — Black Americans.  So the image of the hard-working, compliant, family focused and theologically orthodox Asian American who is educated at the finest evangelical seminaries is set against the decidedly lazy, angry, irresponsible and theologically liberal Black who is feared rather than loved. (not to mention Latinos and Hispanics!!) This of course ignores intentionally the many many lazy, non-hard working, irresponsible, dysfunctional Asians both here and abroad.  It is quite easy to have  a picture of relative success when you leave all the unsuccessful relatives back at home.

Of course this is the unintended consequence of the wholesale purchase of the American dream that has been sanctified via the dual cultures of Asian educational idolatry and American materialist pursuit.  A consequence that is further illustrated by the uncertain sound of the trumpet blast of justice against biases and stereotypes such as those employed during the Deadly Vipers controversy.  It is a bit challenging to sound the alarm against the system abusing, misrepresenting, and dishonoring Asian culture when ones own success and acceptance within America has been predicated upon the abandonment of that same culture or at least those parts of culture which are inconvenient and represent impediments to achieving the American dream.  It is a bit hypocritical to condemn the exploitation of ones culture by others when you unwilling to pay the price of defending it.  Certainly it is no virtue to continue to enjoy the privileges associated with being the “model minority” while wanting to avoid the quite high costs of being like that problematic other minority group that’s always complaining about something, i.e. Black people.

I say it with love and respect and those who know me can attest to my bonafides in terms of deep and abiding compassion (in the original sense of “suffering with”) Asian Americans, that AA have long enjoyed the fruits of the labors of others, notably Blacks and to a lesser extent Latinos, in plowing up the very hard ground of racism and racialization in the society.  We have often been (and I speak here of Black Americans) on the “point” of major issues, speaking out, expressing anger, demanding redress and in so doing have taken many hits while others have slipped in on the backs of our misfortune and in the bloody footsteps of our sacrifice.  It has been worth it.   Deadly Vipers would never have been done with an African theme; the writers wouldn’t have written it thus and Zondervan would never have dared to publish it.  However it has come at a cost, a high one.  Are you willing to pay it?

A sell-out is one who bargains away his own identity or people in exchange for acceptance and benefits afforded by those in power.  Asian Americans cannot continue sell out their cultural inheritance and then expect others to honor it.  They (I started to write “we”) cannot ask others to pay the full cost of understanding and appreciating the nuances of Asian culture while failing to be educated and deeply appreciating what it is all about.  They cannot continue embracing unthinkingly the theological and culture paradigms of White American evangelicalism which took root in a very different cultural soil while demanding a theology that influences and is influenced by the nuances of Asian American identity and understanding.  Asian Americans cannot decry the maladaptive use of their cultural symbols, language, and ideas by others while maintaining a steadfast refusal in their churches to demonstrate the redemptive reuse and re-adaptation of those same symbols, language and ideas to the glory of God.   It cannot be enough to say, “we are not your stereotypes” and remain unwilling to engage in the creative process of culture making, of dethroning Euro-American cultural idols of how church is to be done, and of creating an authentic Asian-American Christianity that is more than a bad system poorly imitated.

Hate is NOT too strong a word

I HATE this regime:

Al Jazeera English – Asia-Pacific – N Korea ‘tests weapons on children’

Shared via AddThis

There are no words strong enough to adequately explain quite how horrendous the scope of this evil.  And make no mistake, this is indeed evil.  When I read or hear people describe our own nation’s flaws and faults, or critique  our government for invading Iraq (a choice I did NOT support) I wonder if they have any notion of how truly exceptional the United States is.

It is not that we don’t have flaws.

We do.

It is not we have always done the right thing.

We have not.

But anything we’ve done at Guantanamo pales in comparison to this.

The massive irresponsibility of my blogging absence explained

I don’t have very many readers to this blog, and likely have far fewer now that I’ve neglected to update in nearly 3 months (or is it 4?), but those few readers ought to know that I have not been entirely unaware or absent from blogdom.

Indeed, as St. Jude would say, I have had every intention of writing, but have often found myself at odds with myself over the content that I want to communicate. It is rather difficult at times for me to put into words the concerns that I have had and to clearly lay out some of the recent thoughts I have had about various topics political, theological, ecclesiological, and otherwise. So… just as a way of whetting (or perhaps dampening) the appetite, here are a few things I’m thinking of writing on:

Are ALL Asian American Christians sellouts
(a response to the post at nextegenerasianchurch)

Further thoughts on women in ministry leadership (an exploration of history, hermeneutics, and sociopolitical considerations)

Black Asian dialogue (just wanting to know if we have anything to teach each other)

Are there any other suggestions?? Asian Christians and homosexuality? Preaching in the Asian church? Am I a sellout for going to an Asian church?

Christ against the multiculturalists

Higher education in the United States and indeed throughout the so-called “West” is dominated by multiculturalism, with the “hard” sciences, professional schools, and business schools being somewhat the exception. It is an unquestioned assumption within the storied halls of our most elite and least elite colleges and universities that the dominant narrative of Western culture is insufficient to educate students. Their biases, assumptions, and worldviews must be challenged, deconstructed and hopefully re-assembled into something resembling coherence.

Concurrent with these assumptions has come a rejection of what had been the core content of a “liberal” education – namely becoming conversant with the thoughts, ideas, and stories of Western culture (i.e. dead White men) and a departure from what had been the intent of such an education (the discovery of ‘truth’). Heretofore marginalized voices (women, minorities) are given privileged status as a consequence of their having been deemed historically oppressed. In history especially (my field), the European explorers, philosophers and missionaries of old have been transformed into apostles of intolerance, genocide, and unremitting oppression. Simply put, dead White guys are out of fashion and truth as a governing or transcendent concept is not even really talked about.

Of course this shift represents a major challenge for Christians in the academy since we follow a religion that both makes transcendent governing truth claims and whose most significant theologians happen to have been mostly dead White guys. It doesn’t help that the “West” is popularly associated with Christianity, notwithstanding the fact that Christianity did indeed originate in the Near East, its most famous early theologians (Augustine and Tertullian) were Africans, and the Christian legacy of India, Ethiopia, and Iraq is far older than that of Ireland. It follows easily that the worst crimes of the western world are laid at the feet of the theology, practice, and indeed even the existence of the Christian faith.

Enter: multiculturalism and the gospel of relativism. According to an article in First Thingsthe task of

a student in the multicultural classroom is to grant unquestioned authority to those who come from underprivileged or marginalized backgrounds. You have to do this because, you will learn, because Western culture has exploited every other culture, and your experiences are so shaped by Western culture that you cannot question those who criticize you. And thus you will become a good cultural leftist (which is the shape liberalism takes in the academy), or, if you are not convinced by these arguments, you will learn how to fake it for the sake of getting a good grade

The article continues:

All of this is profoundly anti-Christian, which is why Christian students are typically the most radical questioners of higher education. Because Christians believe in a universal human nature, they also believe they can make universal truth claims about human nature. That does not mean that every statement about human nature is true.

And so it is that Christians hold as profoundly and universally true the very thing that sticks in the craw of post-modern cultural relativists. Thus Christian students, albeit thoroughly unversed and ill prepared to “give an answer for the hope that lies within them”, they are nonetheless adherents of a gospel that declares that truth does indeed exist; truth about God, the meaning of life, the condition of man, and man himself. Further, they hold to the notion that these truths are not culturally bound, nor limited by time, but are always and in every place profoundly and fundamentally true.

It is true though that the lens of multiculturalism has brought a needed corrective to the myopia of the Christian church in the United States. It is perhaps a function of our relative isolation from people of different languages and ethnicity that the universality and thus the infinite translatability of the Christian religion has been lost on us. It is a good thing that churches are wrestling with questions of multi-ethnicity and culture. We must be careful though as we wrestle not to adopt the singularly unChristian, dare I say anti-Christian academy that reflexively dismisses the achievements of Christian civilization while highlighting its sins and lionizing those presumed to be victims.

It is no small thing that it is only in the Christian west that human freedom as a concept rooted in the Biblical view of all people being made in God’s image bore the fruit of eliminating slavery, or that women have enjoyed the relative equality of status that they do. When the West failed, it is perhaps not the failure of Christianity, but only an indication that the Christianization of society did not go far enough.

For such a time as this: the salvation of the American church

What is it the “plain gospel?” It’s the kind of question that keeps missiologists, pastors, theologians, seminarians and online pontificators busy. While this question has as many answers as it does inquisitors, I ask it primarily in the matrix of Christian faith and culture.

As a historic fact we acknowledge that a large body of what has come down to us in the Christian tradition was formed in the context of the evangelization of Europe. It took significant work to translate a Middle Eastern desert Messiah into the context of a hill and dale European world. The questions that are answered by the systematic theologians studied around the world are the questions largely of European believers in a European context addressing European realities. This is not to suggest that our systematic theologies are somehow untrue, but simply that they may be inadequate to the task of carrying the “plain gospel” to the ends of the earth.

As the locus of the church shifts significantly from North and West to East and South, believers in other parts of the world are unlikely to remain content regurgitating what they’ve received as gospel truth. Despite the fervor with which we defend our systems, Calvinism, Arminianism, and every other –ism is not the gospel, and frankly are not the only authentic ways of understanding or even conceptualizing the gospel. Whatever view we hold, we ought to hold with a healthy dose of humility. God in his grace has made us joint heirs with Christ, and that is something of which none can boast.

In any event, I believe that ethnic minority Christians have a unique opportunity to do theology in a new way. As people who are both thoroughly Americanized but also distinctly “other” there may be some unique theological purposes that God wants to work out through our communities. How this might take place I do not know. In Europe the revitalization of European Christianity is in the hands of those who are not of European extraction. And if we would be honest, despite all the shifting of deck chairs in Evangelicalism, there are not markedly more people following Jesus – especially among White Americans.

Non-White students now comprise fully 40% of students involved in groups like InterVarsity. It may well be that we, like Esther, have been called for such a time as this; that the salvation of the American church lies with us. This revitalization cannot happen however if we simply continue to unthinkingly parrot the systems, ways of being church, and worship structures that have dominated the American landscape.

I am not your enemy

That’s right my dear Korean American brother; yes indeed my Chinese American sister. Even though we come from different places, histories, and experiences we are more often alike than different.

Kim chi and Dim Sum are all right with me, and by the way I appreciate the fact that there really is more to you than food and anime. Yes, I know that there are things I can’t know; things that really aren’t secrets but are simply assumed when you are in your own company; things that are hard to explain to those who haven’t shared what its like to be the one or two kids in the class with squinty eyes and shiny black hair in a terribly unstylish bowl cut that your Mom gave you to save money.

I know that I don’t understand your struggle, and that it really is a struggle even though the myth of the model minority is as costly as it is based in partial truths. I know that because I am the un-model minority, and as much as I hate to admit, that myth is based in partial truth as well.

I know that I don’t know what its like to be unseen, invisible, and assumed to be either just like white people but of a strangely exotic kind of white. I know because I am all too visible, far too easily seen and assumed to be exotic in the same way that chimpanzees are.

I know that your people and my people most often meet across a counter top as you sell human hair and no-lye relaxers to me in order to finance the cost of your children’s expensive education so that they won’t have to slave away in a store for unseen countless hours. I know that my people think your people are little more than animated cash registers who we assume “speaka no Engrish” because we’re as baptized in the ignorant racialization of American society as anyone else.

I know that your parents would promise to fall over and die and disown you and faint dead away in that precise order if you married me, and that my parents would likely make some derogatory racial remark about you before getting excited about the fact that our children would likely have “good hair.”

I know that you like hip hop and rap and R & B because it expresses a part of you that seems unexpressed otherwise but that you would likely never actually venture into the hood other than to sell me some cheap Americanized Chinese food.

I am not your enemy even though there are those who would paint you as the model and inflate your egos in ungodly ways and divide our struggle so that they can keep you enslaved in your suburban middle manager-but-never-CEO lifestyles just as well as they keep us as nothing more than entertainer-athlete-criminal.

I wish White wasn’t the arbiter of all things good and glorious so that your women wouldn’t feel the need to change the eyes that I find quite alluring and enigmatic and mine wouldn’t spend so much time deciding who has good hair or not.

I happen to think samgyupsal would pair quite well with collard greens, and Kim chi jjigae with cornbread.

We are not each other’s enemy, and I wish I knew a way to bridge the gap so that we fought alongside each other against the common depravity that threatens both of our humanity.

I don’t have to go to church with you…

“I don’t need to go to church with you”

These words, quoted second hand by David Park of another mutual friend, aptly summarize the feelings I, and many Black Americans have about the whole multiethnic conversation. We often hear quoted the words that 11AM Sunday morning is the most segregated hour of the week. These words, provocative though they may be, are probably untrue. After all, most of us are not in interracial marriages and our closest friends generally tend to be people who are most like us – ethnically, economically, and educationally. Many people view this as problematic, especially in the ethnic dimensions. I have come to a place – full circle really – where this type of self segregation in the context of the church is not terribly troubling to me.

That I say this is perhaps surprising to some who know me, given my commitment to multiethnicity and racial reconciliation. However, as I said to my friend David – most Black people are not running around in angst about the fact that their churches don’t have white people in attendance. Frankly, interacting with Whites is something as minorities that doesn’t strike us as particularly ground breaking. Our world is filled with people who are ethnically and in some ways culturally different than we are. We know how to interact with Whites and do so without difficulty. In fact, we’ve grown up together in this country – mutually shaping and being shaped by the other.

Why then has multiethnicity become such a watchword in so many places and churches – not least bit among Asian Americans? There are of course, theological considerations. The church as envisioned by scripture is a multiethnic community, a place where the distinction of Jew & Gentile, bond & free are not barriers to participation in the grace of God. Of course the multitude of churches of varying ethnicities throughout the world and across the American landscape is ample testimony that ethnic considerations are no longer barriers to being Christian, as they might possibly have been in Ephesus or Corinth. In addition, the church is multiethnic. The diversity or uniformity of any particular local congregation says nothing about the overall diversity of the body of Christ – which is arguably the most ethnically, culturally, and economically heterogeneous group in the world. Besides, the lack of diversity in other dimensions in local churches (i.e. the disproportionate number of women, economic uniformity, etc.) seems not to draw the same degree of ire.

I submit that at least two important factors are at play – one of which I’ve mentioned already, in this current fascination with multiethnicity.

One is the idea that my local congregation is somehow the body of Christ. This is not an often mentioned issue, but it is implicit in many people’s understanding. If it isn’t reflected before my eyes with the people among whom I worship, then it somehow isn’t happening in the body of Christ.

The second is more troubling, and that is the insidious and quite evil notion that minorities are somehow legitimated in their Christianity by their acceptance by Whites. The presence of Whites in an “ethnic” congregation, as quite often happens in the English Ministry of immigrant churches, or in traditionally Black churches does not serve to render these groups adequately “multiethnic” even if Whites are present in some number. Rather (and I admit to numerous exceptions) it is when minorities join White congregations that multiethnicity is said to be occurring.

When Whites gather together to worship, they are not said to be gathering in ethnic enclaves, even if their worship services are 99% White, led entirely by Whites and conducted in a way that is culturally relevant to Whites. They are said to be simply worshipping. The same does not hold true for others. Is it possible that many minorities are simply uncomfortable being around “themselves” in any intentional way, and the presence of Whites, or the status of being a minority in a substantially White context is a salve to a conscience too easily seared with the heat of a latent self hatred?

Gain the world, lose your…

The easy and clever thing to say would be Seoul, since this blog is a commentary on the intersection of faith and life. It would be fitting too, since questions of immigration and assimilation for Christians involve an intersection of the issues of material prosperity and living faithfully as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.

America is a country founded not on a national principle of ethnic solidarity, nor even of geographic commonality. It is founded on an ideology that can be definitively traced back the European Enlightenment. Men of great wealth, extensive property, and high idealism formulated a republic loosely connected to Christian ideas, but more firmly rooted in “liberty,” whatever that means. This is encapsulated in our Declaration of Independence which affirms that men are endowed with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The expansion of the American ideal has taken more than two centuries, and can still be said to be a great unfinished experiment.

Beneath these lofty and idealistic sentiments however, lie another, baser reality which has been as fundamental to the formation of this nation, and which must be taken seriously by Christians who want to engage the culture that surrounds us. If America can be said to have any god, any national religion – it is the god of wealth. Almost every controversy, every major social and political realignment, from the Articles of Confederation to the Civil War to Civil Rights is intimately connected with a “pursuit of happiness” that has all too readily devolved into the pursuit of material and economic prosperity. It was not, contrary to what some people believe, any innate hatred of Africans that led to their enslavement by Europeans, nor was the conquest of indigenous peoples driven primarily by a messianic vision of manifest destiny. Rather both racism and manifest destiny were post facto ideologies developed to justify what is a much baser motive: greed. Free land and free labor were the foundations of the American prosperity we today enjoy. The accumulation of material good is the contemporary manifestation of that religion.

The church, not only in America, but throughout history, has contended with the very real god of Mammon . From the beginning, the apostle had to write warnings against the pursuit of wealth as an end in itself and against the association of material prosperity with God’s blessing. Ironically, I have hardly ever heard a sermon on I Timothy 6.9 about the snares that inevitably trap those who desire to be rich and who find themselves pierced through with “many sorrows.” It is perhaps too unpalatable a passage for those who have swam in these cultural waters for so long.

Part of the mythology of America is that immigrants have flocked here because it is the “land of opportunity.” Like all myths, this one is rooted in fact. America was and is a beacon of economic and even political opportunity. What is obscured in this myth is that in most cases the driving motivation has not been political, but economic, and that those who immigrated are often those with at least some means within their own countries of origin. The poorest cannot afford to escape and the wealthiest have no incentive to leave. So then the immigrants that have come to America often come with the social and cultural skills to “make it.”

What does this have to do with the gospel? If it is difficult to dethrone the god of Mammon for those of us who have been born here; it is even more difficult in the lives of those who came here to pursue Mammon’s fruit. Most contemporary immigrants do not come for the privilege of being better disciples or of worshipping God more freely than in their home countries. Indeed many do not come to worship of the living God until after they have immigrated. Immigrants come to make the best living possible for themselves and for their children.

The cost of that decision is paid not only by the parents who leave comfort and familiarity for what is all too often years of sacrifice. The cost is also paid by their children who are bequeathed an inheritance of a twilight ethnicity and an irrelevant gospel that seems utterly abstracted from the challenges they face day by day.

Reared by parents who prioritize material success over gospel adherence and assimilation for the sake of such prosperity over the value of culture, is it any wonder then that many 2nd generation find themselves also worshipping at the altar of Mammon while experiencing an existential and spiritual void that remains unmet by the culturally neutered gospel to which they’ve been exposed? How can they worship a god who is dis-incarnated – removed from their lives and experience, and irrelevant to their concerns? A Jesus who does not sympathize with the issues faced by latch-key kids with distant parents who demands academic success or at least the façade of social propriety seems less a mighty savior and more a Confucian tyrant dressed up in Western garb.

The Scylla of an irrelevant gospel is met on the other side by an equally ravenous Charybdis that threatens to shipwreck the faith and life of those who ply the waters of this existence. It is the monster of un-ethnicity, a ethnic reality that is affirmed in one place, declared unimportant in another, and altogether ignored in the church, which should be the one place where the totality of our humanity must be confronted and reformed in the image of Christ.

So then over and again the wealth obtained through great sacrifice and worthy effort often issues forth in the destruction of those things held most sacred by all cultures and particularly by Christians. Relationship with God through Christ becomes less important than relationship with “stuff” through VISA. The sharing of hearth and table, the places across which identity and culture are transmitted becomes less important than simply being “a person” distinguished only by the shape of ones eyes, the color of ones skin, and the brand name of the label of the designer purse. All else of history, legacy, story, and culture are sacrificed to Mammon. Gaining the world and losing what matters most.

Don’t treat us like children

I haven’t actually heard anyone say this of course, but the sentiment is there. As I have been part of an English congregation (EM) at a Korean church, again and again I’ve observed small and large ways that the folks in the EM chafe against the strictures imposed on them by the Korean Ministry (KM). As a cultural outsider, I can only get a partial picture of all the complexities involved, but I’m a savvy enough observer of human nature to see some things that certainly give pause for thought.

Observation #1: The KM controls the resources and therefore sets the agenda.

This in itself is not a stunning revelation. The KM is much larger in number and, by and large, has many more financial resources to contribute to the ministry. But the issue goes beyond dollars and cents. Why should the EM have a larger part in setting the agenda for the church when their financial contribution is smaller even than their membership percentage in the church would indicate? In other words, the EM simply doesn’t carry its own weight financially, or in other ways. It isn’t only in giving that the KM outstrips the EM, but it is the KM that shows up early and stays late to pray, to prepare food, to maintain equipment, and to do all the things that are necessary to the running of a church. Of course to many in the KM, this isn’t done with an eye towards serving the EM, which leads to my second observation.

Observation #2: EM is an afterthought.

By this I mean that no Korean congregation sets out to minister to English speakers (the same could be said of other ethnic immigrant churches). Rather their primary missions thrust is to serve first generation immigrants and to provide space for them to encounter the Lord in a culturally “safe” way. EM develops only as a corollary to “real” church, and usually has its roots in children’s church which is set up to care for the kids while their parents worship God. Over time the kids grow up and increase in number and the church has to hire a youth pastor (if they’re lucky) to keep them occupied and hopefully to impart some measure of spirituality and Bible knowledge. These children grow up, and if they don’t leave the church outright – BAM! – an EM is born. But this newly emerged EM didn’t develop with any intentionality or ministry focus. In the minds of the KM, it is still a place to keep the “children” occupied while the adults worship, event though some of these “children” are full grown adults with children of their own. Consequently there is very little genuine appreciation on either side of the others needs.

Observation #3: EM congregations are often spiritually (and otherwise) immature.

This is a blanket statement to be sure, and the same could be said of many in the KM as well. However, a cursory survey of the prayer life or Biblical knowledge of many EM congregants would likely reveal a significant disparity between them and their parents. Prayer and Bible knowledge alone don’t make one mature, but the simple fact that dawn prayer is such an integral (if cultural) part of KM and that so many in the KM are part of cell groups that have Bible study and fellowship compared to the virtual lack of either in the lives of the EM says something. This immaturity can be traced back to the fact that for most of their formative years, the KM’s chief concern for their children was not their spiritual development, but their academic and economic success. Also due to the nature of KM’s ministry focus, there is no urgency in preparing their children to take over the financial, spiritual, or social leadership of the church.

Observation #4: The two congregations don’t see each other.

Not literally, of course, but figuratively the congregations don’t recognize one another’s spirituality, love for God, or heart. Some of this can be blamed on language barrier, but I am coming to believe that this is a scapegoat. After all it is not language that prevents parents from talking with their children about spiritual things or taking them to prayer meetings. Language barriers certainly do not prevent parents from encouraging, providing for, and moving to a better school district for, harassing, shaming, and browbeating their children into academic success. It seems to be more a matter of priority than of inability. Of course the full blame cannot be laid at the feet of parents, but EM members must also take responsibility for their own unwillingness to speak the spiritual language of love to their parent’s generation… which is usually service. How might each groups perception of the other change if EM folks decided to attend morning prayer, or when there are opportunities sing songs in Korean? Sure it would take effort, but much less effort than is required for someone like me who is a complete stranger to the language and culture. If EM folks volunteered to serve rather than serving grudgingly, it could go some distance towards bridging the gap. And even if it didn’t, it would still be a good step in their own maturing process.

Observation #5: Neither group really wants the other to change.

This is probably an overstatement on my part, but maybe not. After all, if the other group changed then that would necessitate change for us as well. As much as EM folks complain about the dominance of the KM, they really benefit quite significantly from it. The KM retains the power, but they also retain the responsibility, and so EM is let off the hook for their own spiritual development, growth in concern for the church, financial accountability, and other markers of being “adults.” As for the KM, as long as EM doesn’t change, they won’t have to be intentional in broadening their missions focus, there is no need to share power, and they can retain a feeling of spiritual superiority. Unfortunately both sides win in this downward race towards spiritual mediocrity.

Manhood

Dpark, in his ever provocative way, has a post about Asian-American manhood, and asks the question how can the church work more effectively in spiritually forming Asian American men in a redemptive way.

I find the post provocatively in part because Asian American men are doing far better, by and large, than Black American men in all the ways that health and success is measured. They are healthier, wealthier, more educated, have more stable families, and of those who are Christian, have higher levels of participation in church.

I do not minimize the struggles and challenges Asian American men endure in coming to a healthy, God honoring appropriate understanding of masculinity that will help them to live as disciples of Jesus more effectively. Since I’ve waded waist deep into the waters of Asian American ministry, I get extremely annoyed and frustrated when I see emasculating images of Asian men, though they are becoming rarer. I do question however, both for Asian Americans and for my own people, if the proper way of moving towards such a healthy understanding is to begin with affirming what is already healthy and godly rather than beginning with a posture of critique.

One problem of holding up Black men or Asian men to some imagined standard of manhood and masculinity is that such standards are too often the standards of White culture dressed in the clothing of Christ. Another problem is that such standards are impossible targets to meet, and most of them are not explicit in scripture. Despite all that is written and talked about around Christian manhood, there is remarkably little in scripture about it. What we have mostly available to us are examples, positive and negative, about manhood, and a few commands having mostly universal applicability with the exception of those dealing with wives and children. Those specific commands can be boiled down to loving your wife and disciplining your children wisely. Beyond that, there just isn’t that much to go on.

This paucity of scripture increases the possibility that minority men, already under the pressure of negative images of who we are, will simply assume that the White way of being a way is better. This simply cannot be helpful, healthy, or godly.