For much of our history as Asian Christians in America, we’ve allowed our definitions of good, great, and best to be defined by the majority culture.
I’m reminded of the 1998 movie, American History X. In a dinner table scene, Dad (Willam Russ) bemoans a perceived affirmative-action takeover—both in his son’s new reading curriculum and its spillover into his workplace as a fireman.
“It’s everywhere I look now…All this stuff about making everything equal. It’s not that simple. Look, now you got this book, Native Son. What happened to the other books in the course? They’re not good anymore because ‘Mr. Two-PhD’ says they’re not good anymore? Now you gotta trade in great books for Black-books?…Talk about my job. I got two Black guys now on my squad who got their jobs over a couple of White guys, who actually scored higher on their test. Does that make sense? Yea, sure, everything’s equal now, but I got two guys, watching my back, responsible for my life, who aren’t as good as two other guys who only got the job because they’re Black. Not because they were the best.”
We can easily spot the fallacies of this argument. The social climate has drastically changed in the last quarter of a century. Affirmative action is not a handout, but an attempt to level the playing field in an altogether rigged game. In a sense, it’s a secular attempt to redefine what it means to qualify something as good.
But can we spot the fallacies as easily when we evaluate our theological presuppositions? Can we easily spot the fallacies of majority culture’s definition of goodness when it comes to Christian literature, ecclesiology, and theology? Right down to the books we read, the songs we sing, and even our view of God himself.
Do we really know what’s good, or have we mass-adopted someone else’s definition of the word?
My Own Journey
When I graduated from a Reformed seminary during the mid 2010s, I took great pride in my theological development when my White colleagues referred to me as a, “good dude… a solid Reformed guy.” What I’ve come to learn, reading between the lines, is that the term “good dude” extended far beyond my adherence to the Heidelberg Catechism, or my beliefs on the sovereignty of God. My goodness, theologically, came with the “wink-wink” agreement to accept majority culture theologians as the standard of orthodoxy, while every other theologian was subjected to the scrutiny of being “contextualized,” “secondary,” or worse yet, “radical.”
John Calvin had good theology. James Cone was radical.
Billy Graham was a saint. Martin Luther King Jr “wasn’t even a Christian.”
John Piper is solid. Barbara Brown Taylor is sketchy.
I have since been reevaluating what I consider to be good, while at the same time, unmasking some of the cultural self-reproach I may have been harboring since childhood. It’s a process that’s been as healing as it has been discerning.
My church leadership read a book called, The Other Half of Church, by Jim Wilder and Michel Hendricks. We learned a lot from it and I’m glad we read it together. But I wouldn’t say it was a good book. There were some good points and there were some not-so-good points. There were also some points that fell flat because we recognized that it wasn’t written with us in mind.
For example, when Wilder speaks of his conversion experience, he describes it as a “mixture of hope and excitement. I also felt a presence like a warm and emotional light…I could feel that Jesus was excited about what had just happened between us.”
Hope. Excitement. A warm and emotional light. His conversion experience would become the foundation for the rest of the claims in his book.
For many of us, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Our conversion experiences weren’t filled with hope and we certainly didn’t think Jesus was excited about the possibilities of what just happened between us. Our conversion experiences could be best described with words such as, “guilt,” “shame,” and “repentance.” The gospel was a remedy for a look of disapproval from the Father. Reverend Gene Joo (Exilic Church) recalls, “When I think about God, I rarely think of him with a smile on his face.” Our conversion experiences, our views of God the Father, rarely come with a smile. At initial face value, a God who smiles seems irreverent, almost goofy.
So why do we feel the pull to label things as good when our experiences were not included in the content’s creation?
A Way Forward
For Asian American pastors and leaders, a wholesale acceptance of the goodness of majority culture authorship and standards is catastrophic. We will spend our entire leadership careers trying to squeeze the rounded peg of our theological experiences into a majority-culture square hole. This is akin to a left-hander who is given right-handed scissors and spends their whole life in confusion, wondering why the scissor isn’t cutting the paper. The result is frustration, discouragement, and even spiritual self-gaslighting. Something must be wrong with me.
Our churches and ministries operate from a very unique adaptation of Asian American culture. We carry with us remnants of the practices of our immigrant churches while at the same time, we attempt to navigate around its pitfalls. We decipher, maneuver, reform, and reevaluate EVERYTHING as we learn to accept our gospel-birthright as children of God and communicate that truth to our members.
Naturally, what we consider to be good should stem from what is most applicable to our specific ministry contexts. I’m personally grateful for theologians like Soong Chan Rah, Daniel D Lee, Alexander Jun, Alia Joy, and Daniel K Eng, for podcasts like Off the Pulpit and The Bamboo Pastors Podcast, and for books like Faithful Ministry Through Chinese Churches in America and A Letter to the Asian American Church, for they bring insight and affirmation while continually pushing theological boundaries towards a healthy expression of faith in an East Asian context. These are good resources, if not the best resources for our communities.
Practically, when I preach and use a quotation from an Asian American author or theologian, I make sure to always include a picture of him/her. I like to believe this is my small, but tangible effort in normalizing Asian American goodness as it’s being redefined for our congregation. These efforts are intentional, with the hopes that future generations in our congregations can see themselves as the standard, not the exception.
The gold medal men’s basketball game at the recent Olympics in Paris sheds some light on this future reality. The country rejoiced when Steph Curry nailed his final three-point shot over two Parisian defenders to seal the gold medal victory for the United States. Social media practically burst into flames in awe.
But twenty years ago, a moonball 3-point shot while fading away would be met with ridicule and criticism at all levels of the game. “That’s not a good shot.” But Steph Curry has revolutionized the game. Now, it’s one of the best and most exciting plays in the sport. Many would argue that it’s still not a good shot, but for Steph Curry, it is. He has redefined the definition of a good shot, if only for himself. I envision a near-future when our own moonball shots would be celebrated and valued for redefining good, great, and best, if not for the majority culture, then at least for ourselves and for our faith communities.
Photo Credit: Jean-Daniel Francoeur