Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive, stayin' alive!
Editor's Note: Rachel Held Evans is a popular blogger from Dayton, Tennessee, and author of “A Year of Biblical Womanhood.”
By Rachel Held Evans, Special to CNN
On "The Daily Show" recently, Jon Stewart grilled Mike Huckabee about a TV ad in which Huckabee urged voters to support “biblical values” at the voting box.
When Huckabee said that he supported the “biblical model of marriage,” Stewart shot back that “the biblical model of marriage is polygamy.”
Posted by timtseng63 on November 18, 2012
http://timtseng.net/2012/11/18/149/
More than 73% of the Asian Americans who voted chose Barack Obama over Mitt Romney last Tuesday. This was 11% more than the 2008 elections. Some pundits speculate that the high percentage of non-Christians among Asian Americans may have been turned off by the Christian rhetoric within the GOP. This argument doesn’t really work since African Americans and Hispanics are predominantly Christian and voted overwhelmingly for Obama. Others suggested that communitarian values of the Democratic Party were more attractive than the Republican virtue of individualism.
What does the election results say to Asian American Christian leaders – especially the evangelicals who urged a return to traditional family values? Shall these leaders join the chorus of conservative Christians who are now denouncing America? As an Asian American evangelical who has strong sympathies with progressive politics, I will not gloat. Actually, I hope that my brothers (mostly) and sisters who have allied themselves with conservative politics will not give up. I hope they will continue to inspire our communities to engage politics and contribute to the common good.
But I also hope that they are open to what I believe the elections are saying to them. Here are a couple of thoughts. I’d very much like to hear others.
1. Many Asian American evangelicals are seriously out of touch with Asian Americans, other minorities, women, and the working class.
Let’s resist the temptation to call Obama supporters “takers” and “dependents” as some conservatives are doing. Asian American evangelical leaders who uncritically embraced the religious right have not paid enough attention to what is happening in their own communities. Instead, I hope that they’ll actually listen to what Asian Americans and other member of the Obama coalition are saying. Paying as much attention to Asian American studies scholars as to James Dobson would be a helpful first step. Most Asian Americans live in diverse urban metropolitan regions. There are so many opportunities to meet and learn from the people in these regions. It’s as if Jesus has sent Asian American evangelicals into the highways and by-ways of life to deliver invitations to his welcoming banquet where new friendships can be formed. This is an opportunity to really listen to the hearts of people!
2. Many Asian American evangelicals must broaden the social issues they advocate
It is time to acknowledge that their fellow Asian Americans (including many who are in their pews) are far more sophisticated than many evangelical leaders give them credit for. Despite the poor economy and despite the embrace of abortion rights and same sex marriage in the Democratic platform, racial minorities that are largely Christian still voted for Obama. I believe that the politics of white resentment was a major reason that Asian American and the other racial minority voters swung to Obama. Asian Americans were well aware of the racial undertones uttered by many Republicans. The GOP’s “little tent” strategy of appeasing the shrinking conservative white male base finally collapsed as racial minorities, young people, and women chose Obama’s vision of a more inclusive America. Few elections in recent history have highlighted the important of social justice for the marginalized as this one. Thus, Asian American evangelicals leaders must broaden their range of concerns or risk not only alienating the wider Asian American community, but intensifying the “silent exodus” from their own congregations. They will gain a more comprehensive life-affirming biblical vision for social engagement when they broaden the social issues they espouse.
Going forward, I hope that Asian American evangelical leaders will reject the rhetoric of scapegoating and demonization. I hope they will show greater civility and compassion to those who are different or disagreeable. I hope they will acknowledge their own history of being scapegoated – and as they explore this history, I hope they will discover that it is better to safeguard civil and religious liberties and social justice for all than to curtail the liberties of a few. What do you think?
Posted by timtseng63 on November 9, 2012
http://timtseng.net/2012/11/09/what-the-u-s-elections-are-saying-to-asian-american-evangelicals/
This article appears in Inheritance Magazine (No. 17, August 2012): 7-10. Visit: inheritancemag.com
I’m Spiritual, not religious
Young adults in America are shaping and being shaped by an emerging culture that is viewed with alarm and hope. In The Next Christians, Gabe Lyons calls this culture Pluralistic, Post-modern, and Post-Christian. Christianity, however, is still the dominant North American religion. In two 2008 surveys, just over three-quarters of Americans identify themselves as Christians. But this is a drop of about 10 percent since 1990. One might assume that the recent growth of immigration from non-Christian countries caused this decline. But the percentage of non-Christian religions in America has only increased between .5 and 1.5 percent.
Despite the numeric dominance of Christianity in America, there is sense that the Church is no longer respected or viewed as positively as it was a generation ago. This is especially true among young adults. Indeed, young adults make up the largest group that identifies itself as “not religious.” In fact, this group has grown the most of all groups in the survey (from 8.2 to 15 -16 percent).[i]
Studies also show that many who consider themselves “not religious” want to be considered “spiritual,” too. Though nebulous (and perhaps because it is nebulous), being “spiritual” is perceived to be a good thing. A person who is in touch with God, a higher power, one’s true self and feelings, or with nature is viewed more favorably than a person who is committed to a faith community or its convictions. Young adults appear to be demonstrating this with their feet. In the 2012 Millennial Values Survey of college-age adults, 25 percent reported that they were “religiously unaffiliated.” Only 11 percent indicated that they were “religiously unaffiliated” in childhood. Catholics and white mainline Protestants saw the largest net losses due to this movement away from their childhood religious affiliation. College-age young adults are also less likely than the general population to identity as white evangelical Protestant or white mainline Protestant.
Furthermore, in the same survey, only 23% believe that the Bible is the word of God and should be taken literally. 26% believe the Bible is the word of God, but that not everything in the Bible should be taken literally. 37% say that the Bible is a book written by humans and is not the word of God.[ii]
Finally, the Millennial values survey indicated a negative reaction to Christianity. Christians are perceived by 84 percent of the “religiously unaffiliated” as “judgmental” and “hypocritical.” 79 percent believe that Christians are “anti-gay.” 73 percent believe Christians are “too involved with politics.” Even though 56 percent believe Christianity “has good values and principles,” 41 percent believe that Christianity “consistently shows love for other people” and only 18 percent feel that it is “relevant to your life.”
What is happening? Why is there an increasingly negative approach towards words like “religion” or “faith.” Where is this anti-religion sentiment coming from? Why does ‘being spiritual’ feel more safe, more PC? What’s the appeal, particularly for young adults and second generation Asian Americans?
Perhaps all this is a reaction to the political activities of the so-called Religious Right. After all, most young adults favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry and keeping abortions legal. More likely, this “spiritual, not religious” attitude is the culmination of a growing individualism and anti-institutionalism since the 1960s. In his classic study, Habits of the Heart (1985), sociologist Robert Bellah observed that a personal worldview that he called “Sheilaism” was on the rise. “Sheila” was raised in the Christian church. But rather than embracing those beliefs in adulthood, she created her own spirituality out of different religions and pursued a satisfying life without institutional religion. For more than a generation, the fastest growing population has been the tribe of “Sheilaism” – the church of “spiritual, but not religious.”[iii]
An unconnected and individualistic spirituality is nothing new. The belief that faith is an individual and private affair has been deeply embedded in American culture through its history. Many would rightly argue that this type of spirituality has led to greater tolerance for diversity and individual freedom. Nevertheless, the recent rise of “Sheilaism,” especially among young adults, has not been greeted with universal acclaim. And it’s not just advocates of organized religion who have raised much of the alarm.
Spiritual, but not responsible
Social scientists such as Robert D. Putnam, warn that the increased individualism and privatization is causing “the collapse of social capital” in American society.[iv] Television and the Internet are blamed for keeping people home rather than participating in community life. Fewer Americans participate in traditional community activities such as bowling leagues, local political clubs, or neighborhood churches. Without vibrant participation in community and public life, Putnam (and Bellah) fear a weakening of democracy that could undermine the health of American institutions.
In Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood (2011), a team of sociologists led by Christian Smith argue that many young people today face five major problems: confused moral reasoning, routine intoxication, materialistic life goals, regrettable sexual experiences, and disengagement from civic and political life. “The idea that today’s emerging adults are as a generation leading a new wave of renewed civic-mindedness and political involvement is sheer fiction,” says Smith.[v]
Jean Twenge, professor of psychology at San Diego State University, concurred in her two studies, Generation Me and The Narcissism Epidemic (coauthored with W. Keith Campbell). In a recent article in The Atlantic, Twenge says that “Millennials were less likely than Boomers and even GenXers to say they thought about social problems, to be interested in politics and government, to contact public officials, or to work for a political campaign. They were less likely to say they trusted the government to do what’s right, and less likely to say they were interested in government and current events.”[vi]
These troubles cannot be blamed on the poor individual decisions of young adults alone. They are deeply rooted in the mainstream American culture that young adults have “largely inherited rather than created.” According to Smith, failures in education, consumer capitalism, hyper-individualism, postmodern moral relativism, and other aspects of American culture all contribute to the difficult situation facing young adults.
In sum, these scholars argue that the “spiritual, but not religious” attitude may actually harm American society. By rejecting institutions such as religion and government, this attitude encourages withdrawal from social engagement and responsibility, and, possibility the loss of compassion for others.
Getting Religion: the Key to Responsible Spirituality?
If not for Christianity as an organized religion, the idea that spirituality applies only to personal well-being and not family life, community, social issues, and politics might have been the norm in American culture. For good and ill, the Christian church’s historic proclivity to engage (some would say interfere with or impose its values and beliefs on) politics and culture has contributed to a vibrant democracy. Its moral values have empowered people to reform and transform society.
Given the current Pluralist, Postmodern, Post-Christian situation, Gabe Lyons invites Christians to engage this landscape in a more positive, creative, and hopeful manner. Instead of getting offended, withdrawing, or protesting the changes, Christians ought to see our contemporary situation as an opportunity to renew our mission to North America.
“From the standpoint of the public good,” according to James Reichley, “the most important service churches offer to secular life in a free society is to nurture moral values that help humanize capitalism and give direction to democracy.”[vii]
Given the decline in mainstream American churches, the time may be ripe for Asian American Christian Young Adults to renew our mission to North America. God may be calling us to counter the hyper-individualistic spirituality so prevalent among our peers. And the way to do that may be to build up our churches rather than be consumers of spirituality. It may be time to finally get religion!
[i] Barry A. Kosmin and Ariela Keysar, American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS 2008) (Hartford, CT: Trinity College ISSSC, 2009); The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey 2008,” http://www.religions.pewforum.org; Robert N. Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1985) . See also http://www.robertbellah.com.
[ii] 2012 Millennial Values Survey. A Generation in Transition: Religion, Values, and Politics among College-Age Millennials (Public Religion Research Institute, April 19, 2012). http://publicreligion.org/research/2012/04/millennial-values-survey-2012/
[iii] Bellah, Habits of the Heart. See also http://www.robertbellah.com.
[iv] Robert B. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000).
[v] Christian Smith, et. al., Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 224.
[vi] Jean Twenge, “Millennials: The Greatest Generation or the Most Narcissistic?” The Atlantic (May 2, 2012). Accessed at
[vii] A. James Reichley, Religion in American Public Life (Washington, D.D.: The Brookings Institute, 1985), page 359.
Posted by timtseng63 on August 13, 2012
http://timtseng.net/2012/08/13/im-spiritual-not-religious-inheritance-magazine-article/
Presented at The Second Asian American Equipping Symposium (Feb 7-8, 2011) at Fuller Theological Seminary (Pasadena, CA) on Feb 4, 2011
Opening Remarks
This panel presentation will introduce the theme of the symposium, namely the interrogation of the historical amnesia in church and academy regarding Asian Pacific Americans. The following questions may be addressed:
Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep, the missing coin, and the prodigal son in Luke 15 serve as a backdrop to the presentation:
8“Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? 9When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ 10Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” (Luke 15:8-10, NRSV)
How did the woman know that she was missing a coin? Don’t all the coins look the same? We don’t know, but I suspect that she felt a sense of incompleteness and disquiet that we sometimes feel: “Something is missing, I just know it!”
Among Asian American Christians, a similar sense of disquiet surrounds us. Something is amiss. Unlike the woman and God, those who notice that our stories are missing from the narrative of Christian history are few and far between.
The recent interest in global Christianity has been a welcome development. But the ignorance of the history of Christianity in Asia, Africa, and Latin America is more than missing a small coin. As the story of world Christianity justifiably receives greater attention, the story of Asian Americans is still missing. Most recently, Philip Jenkins has written The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asian – and How It Died (2008). His central point is that the expansion of Christianity is not inevitable.
Nevertheless, while scholars like Jenkins, Samuel Moffett, and others are retrieving the histories of Asian Christianity – and rescuing it from mission history – the state of Asian American Christian history remains lamentable.
1. APA Christianity is not so much missing, but dismissed in church and academy
34“Salt is good; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? 35It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; they throw it away. Let anyone with ears to hear listen!” (Luke 14:34-35, NRSV)
Jesus concludes the previous chapter with this cryptic remark that seems out of place. Yet, it resonates with many in the church and the academy. If something is irrelevant or insignificant and if it doesn’t seem to have a function, it should be thrown away. In so far as Christians reify the irrelevance of history and the academy reifies the insignificance of APA Christianity, the history of APA Christianity is likely to be dismissed.
When one compares this situation with African American or Latino histories where religion is so much a part of the fabric of these communities, it is deplorable that religion (and specifically Christianity) is rendered irrelevant to Asian American history. David Yoo has rehearsed some of the reasons for this in the first issue of Amerasia Journal dedicated to religion in Asian America. Allow me to state them a little differently.
Therefore, the history of APA Christianity faces a double marginalization in the church and academy. The worst part of all this is the self-marginalization of our histories. Insofar as APA evangelicalism embraces this modern “discourse of death, the death of material existence” we will never find value in our experiences, our stories, and our histories. Instead, we will pursue the Orientalist strategy of “leap frogging” Asian America.
So what can we do? Beyond protesting this state of affairs, we must move towards representation in both senses of the word. Representation as a political act of empowering participation; Representation as an act of self-expression and culture making. But in both cases representation does not occur de nova, nor is it created ex nihilo. It must be grounded in history.
2. God values the marginalized.
1Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” (Luke 15:1-2, NRSV)
What does God value? Outcasts and marginalized. Here, the tax collectors and sinners are the ones who are outcast. Yet, Jesus portrays God as one who actively searches for them. This continues Jesus’ lessons in Luke 14 about inviting “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind” to banquets (Luke 14:13-24).
Carter begins his study with an overview of Irenaeus work Adversus Haereses (Against Heresies, ca 180). I’ve always liked Irenaeus – from his name, which means peace, to the pastoral heart for the flock in his theology. Indeed, to counter the Gnostic attempt to Orientalize Jesus and his Jewish identity, Iranaeus embraces the entire historical scope of the Hebrew Scriptures vis-à-vis his theology of recapitulation. Jesus Christ is the recapitulation of Creation, Fall, and Israel. Rather than renouncing Hebrew Scripture and the history of Israel, the Gospel is its fulfillment. Thus, all are welcome – not just the spiritually enlightened elite. All, including the mulatto and hybrids.
APA Christian histories are mulatto [cf. Brian Batum’s Redeeming Mulatto: A Theology of Race and Christian Hybridity (Baylor University Press, 2010)] and are therefore ignored, leap-frogged, and excluded. Nevertheless, our missing histories are of great value to God, just as the missing coin led the woman to light the lamp and to sweep diligently in order to find that coin. Indeed, this is the historian’s craft!
So what can we learn from the Asian American margins of the history of American Christianity? A few themes may be helpful to consider.
First, in contrast to the romanticized narrative of immigration into the American melting pot, the story APA Christianity prior to the Second World War is filled with nationalist discourse and transnational practices (e.g., Ng Poon Chew). Asian American Christians did not simply mimic white Christianity. They believed that Christian faith would empower Asians – whether in the homeland or the North American diaspora. Very early on, Asian American Christians sought to indigenize their Christian institutions vis-à-vis nationalist rhetoric. Institutional independence from denominational control was an effort to fight white supremacy, but also an attempt to redefine Asian participation in the church as a whole.
Second, the Asian American Christian story between World War II and the 1980s is also about a shift from an anti-segregationist to an anti-assimilationist posture within American society. During this time, Japanese American nisei (and other Asian Americans) initially valued integration, but when it came at the expense of their cultural identities and denominational representation they started to question how it was implemented. Thus the caucus movements were started in the 1970s. The story of caucus founders (e.g. Paul Nagano) within mainline Protestant denominations needs to be told – not only because the civil rights inspired stories are compelling, but because their experiences teach us about theology, identity, and empowerment within structural injustices.
A third theme is the story of the evangelical transpositioning of Asian American Protestantism. Whereas Asian American leaders in mainline Protestant denominations approached faith, culture, and civic engagement through the lens of the Niebuhr brothers, the evangelical renaissance among post-1965 immigrants created a different lens through which to understand APA Christianity. Of course, to call this a renaissance implies that it was all good – and after all, isn’t church growth a good thing? Unfortunately, it was not all good, in my opinion. For we see the re-inscription of hierarchical gender roles and a shift to a privatized and color-blind faith. Furthermore, the evangelical story is not all about immigrants. We must never forgot the witness of leaders as Hoover Wong, Stan Inouye, and many women evangelical leaders.
Having said this, I am still not convinced that an APA Christian history will be written any time soon. We live an an era that proclaims America to be post-racial. In this environment will the missing coin APA Christian history remain MIA? Perhaps. I’m not hopeful.
3. Fulfillment of our yearning and desire.
Nevertheless, it is my prayer that the search for APA Christian history will be received by the Church with the same spirit as that woman who found her missing coin. Note how she celebrated with her neighbors! Joy and fulfillment was the natural outcome! The search for our missing history is indeed motivated by a desire to correct injustice. But from the vantage point of faith, this is not the final destination. Joy and celebration with all God’s children, not just APA Christians, should be the ultimate goal of engaging our missing histories.
The search for our missing histories fulfills not only God’s yearning and desire to find the marginalized and lost, but the church’s missional call to invite all to the Great banquet!
Posted by timtseng63 on February 5, 2011
http://timtseng.net/2011/02/05/asian-pacific-american-christian-history-missing-or-dismissed/
Posted on the ISAAC blog on Dec 4, 2009 [http://isaacblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/04/the-deadly-viper-incident-how-then-shall-we-represent-by-tim-tseng/]
This blog was originally posted on the Postcolonial Theology Network site on Facebook. Go to:http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=23694574926&topic=11673#/group.php?gid=23694574926
On behalf of Zondervan, I apologize for publishing Deadly Viper: Character Assassins. It is our mission to offer products that glorify Jesus Christ. This book’s characterizations and visual representations are offensive to many people despite its otherwise solid message. There is no need for debate on this subject. We are pulling the book and the curriculum in their current forms from stores permanently.
So stated Moe Girkins, President and CEO of Zondervan Books on Nov. 19, 2009. The removal of curriculum Deadly Viper Character Assassin: A Kung Fu Guide for Life and Leadership ended a two-week protest by Asian American evangelicals over the use of images that, according to Professor Soong Chan Rah, reveal “a serious insensitivity to Asian culture and to the Asian-American community” and “co-opt Asian culture in inappropriate ways.” [http://bit.ly/40mQuU - see also Rah’s weblog: http://profrah.wordpress.com/] Among the Viper’s deadly sins were the use of martial arts movie themes, mock Chinese names, Asian accents, and conflation of Chinese and Japanese cultures. Rah, the key leader of this protest, is Milton B. Engebretson Associate Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago and the author ofThe Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity (InterVarsity Press, 2009). No stranger to the struggle against racism within American evangelical circles, he led an unsuccessful campaign several years ago against “Rickshaw Rally,” a Southern Baptist Vacation Bible School curriculum. “Rally” also employed Asian caricatures to teach children about “other” cultures. During the anti-Viper campaign many leading Asian American pastors, seminary professors, and lay leaders weighed in through letters to Zondervan and blogs. The conversations were often heated as many inside and outside the emerging Asian American evangelical community debated the seriousness of Deadly Viper.
Zondervan received increased pressure to respond as secular and Christian media such asChristianity Today and Sojourners covered the controversy. Their decision to pull the curriculum left some bewildered (“what’s the big deal?”), but most Asian American evangelicals were delighted, surprised, and relieved. There is no trace of Deadly Viper on Zondervan’s website [http://zondervan.com]. The images are gone. The co-authors and publishers have repented and vow to be more culturally sensitive. Zondervan’s staff are now required to read Rah’s book. Harmony appears to have been restored.
So this is a good time to reflect on the incident. I’m particularly intrigued by the question of Asian American representation. What disturbed me most about Deadly Viper was not the stereotypes, but the lazy manner in which the authors and publisher adopted popular representations of Asians. Perhaps evangelicals are naive about the social and political power of images. Unlike their mainline Protestant cousins, they are new to the politics of racial representation. But it goes deeper than that. Iconoclasm and interiority are at the heart of evangelical spirituality. After all did not God say to Samuel “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7, NIV)? The outward appearance is not essential to evangelicals. They are willing and able to strip away “outdated” cultural accretions in order to remain fresh and relevant. For many, including myself, this makes evangelicalism appealing. Thus contemporary evangelical music mimics pop songs. Evangelicals worship in buildings that look like modern movie theatres and office parks, not cathedrals.
Yet the evangelical strategy of seeking broad appeal by casually co-opting popular culture backfired for Deadly Viper. By not doing the homework about how media and pop culture constructs Asian stereotypes, Zondervan reproduced representations that were rooted in a racist worldview. Many helpful studies would have helped writers and artists avoid such negative images. Robert G. Lee,Orientals: Asian Americans in Popular Culture (1999), Henry Yu, Thinking Orientals: Migration, Contact, and Exoticism in Modern America (2001), and Colleen Lye, America’s Asia: Racial Form and American Literature, 1893-1945 (2004) come to mind. Hopefully, the Deadly Viper incident will encourage American evangelicals to destabilize the Western colonial impulse to speak for the Asian American “subaltern.”
Another issue that concerns me is the question of Asian representation itself. Prof. Rah, like many younger Asian American evangelical bloggers [see, for example, http://nextgenerasianchurch.com] have discovered Edward Said and orientalism. They have latched on to an idea that both explains anti-Asian racism and provides an antidote to the “model minority” path of “selling out” the Asian American soul. The common enemy is the privilege and power of white dominant institutions to represent Asians. By appealing to orientalism, emerging Asian American evangelicals have found a voice in an American racial discourse locked into white-black binaries.
However, appealing to Said’s version of orientalism alone is problematic. Indeed, not all the stereotypes in Rickshaw Rally or Deadly Viper are oppressive distortions. Nor were they all constructed by Western colonial power. In fact, Bruce Lee’s introduction of martial arts to Hollywood helped create a more positive, albeit stereotypical, image of Asian men. Saying “no” to white power leaves unanswered the question of Asian representation.
Indeed, the simplest solution for overcoming distorted Asian representation is to erase all traces of Asian-ness. I suspect many assimilationists and color-blind advocates would be happy with this approach. But if we don’t attend to the question of Asian representation, there may be nothing Asian American to represent in American evangelicalism. So what is it about Asian culture and image that Asian American evangelicals can say “yes” to?
I have two suggestions. First, Asian American evangelical church leaders and theologians ought to embrace a more pluralist and generous reading of orientalism. J. J. Clarke’s proposals in Oriental Enlightenment: The Encounter Between Asian and Western Thought (1997) is helpful in this regard. Without denying the oppressive conditions that reproduce its worst features, Clarke suggests that orientalism “cannot simply be identified with the ruling imperialist ideology, for in the Western context it represents a counter-movement, a subversive entelechy, albeit not a unified or consciously organized one, which in various ways has often tended to subvert rather than to confirm the discursive structures of imperial power.” (9) In other words, the West’s Asian gaze serves to not only dominate the East, but also to critique the West’s act of domination. So can we find something in evangelical discourse about Asian “otherness” that critiques Euro-centricity? Maybe not. But at least we should be open to the possibility. By embracing a more generous view of orientalism, it allows us to talk about Asian representation.
Secondly, Asian American evangelicals need to engage both Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s “strategic essentialism” and Homi K. Bhabha’s “linguistic multivocality.” Both identify the Western production and implementation of binary oppositions such as center/margin, civilized/savage, First/ Third worlds, West/East (orientalism), North/South, capital/labor, and enlightened/ignorant as the colonial “original sin.” In The Location of Culture (1994), Bhabha argues that destabilizing these binaries opens the door to more complex inter-cultural “interactions, transgressions, and transformations” than binary oppositions can allow. The resulting hybridity and “linguistic multivocality” can reinterpret political and cultural discourse and therefore “dislocate” colonization. For Asian Americans, Bhabha’s strategy means that all the diverse Asian American voices must be heard in order to destabilize orientalist representations of Asians (Lisa Lowe also suggests this inImmigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics [1996]). Therefore the perspectives of ethnic immigrant, fifth generation, pan-ethnic, multi-racial, gay, evangelical, Catholic, Buddhist, Hindu, etc. Asians Americans all must be given room to flourish.
In her classic essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (1988) Spivak coined the term “strategic essentialism,” which is a temporary solidarity for the purpose of unified social action. Orientalism and other binary oppositions “essentializes” or stereotypes people. While recognizing the danger of “essentialism” she believes that there is still a need to speak on behalf of a group using a clear image of identity to fight opposition and to recover and represent the “subaltern” voice. In the United States, it means that Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders, Southeast and South Asians, who have not historically shared the predominant East Asian American experience, still ought to provisionally unite under an Asian American umbrella to overcome racial discrimination and other injustices.
I’m tempted to label Bhabha’s approach yin and Spivak’s yang. Both are necessary parts of the process of creating Asian American representations that more accurately reflect our realities or aspirations. Unifying the diverse Asian American evangelical community is necessary for a common cause such as protesting Deadly Viper. But the beautiful diversity within the Asian American evangelical community must also be embraced as a way to move beyond stereotypical representations. It’s not easy because most of us still unconsciously harbor stereotypical representations of ourselves and others, yet never discuss them openly. Unfortunately, the temptation for many Asian American evangelicals is to “leap-frog” the question of representation.
So how then shall Asian American evangelicals represent? Let’s encourage mainstream evangelical institutions to provide space for Asian Americans, in partnership with others, to create new images. A few mainline seminaries (Princeton, McCormick, and Pacific School of Religion) have created Asian American programs. But no evangelical seminary has developed such a program (some have Asian language programs). Unless there is a mass movement of Asian American evangelicals into these mainline Protestant seminaries, evangelical seminaries will be the next arena where Asian American representation is debated and created. There is evidence that evangelical seminaries are beginning to respond to Spivak’s warning that “to refuse to represent a cultural Other is salving your conscience, and allowing you not to do any homework.” Asian American consumers of evangelical theological education must decide for themselves whether it is worth their effort to struggle to create Asian representation within these settings.
The other option would be to create better Asian representation within Asian American organizations. Will Asian language seminaries and immigrant congregations be the sites for creating cultural representation in the future? A few such as Logos Evangelical Seminary are trying. But it remains to be seen since most Asian American evangelical organizations still model themselves after Western Christianity. Our efforts at the Institution for the Study of Asian American Christianity (ISAAC) [http://isaacweb.org] are precisely for this purpose – to create a better representation of Asian American Christians than is currently available. The recent publication of the Asian American Christianity Reader [http://aacreader.com] is our initial effort to encourage Asian American representation. Not many of the Asian American anti-Viper evangelical leaders have paid much attention to the Reader. But at some point, for the sake of the next generation of Asian American evangelicals and the wider church, I hope that they will also embrace the call to create Asian American representation.
I believe Andy Crouch’s call for Christians to be “culture makers” especially applies to Asian American evangelicals (see Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling [2008]). In order to secure a future where Asian American evangelicals are able to fully participate in the Church and contribute to the common good, we must not only protest damaging representations, but also create new ones in theology, history, ministry, worship, and artistic expressions.
- Timothy Tseng • December 4, 2009
Posted by timtseng63 on December 4, 2009
http://timtseng.net/2009/12/04/the-deadly-viper-incident-how-then-shall-we-represent/
