SOLA Network had the privilege of speaking to Dr. Daniel K. Eng, assistant professor of New Testament at Western Seminary. He is an editorial board member at the SOLA Network and is the author of the commentary on James in the forthcoming New Testament in Color.
Daniel spoke to Hannah Chao, editor at the SOLA Network. They discussed how Asian American churches tend to view the academic/seminary sphere and how to encourage more Christians not to see such a big divide between pastors and lay people.
Their conversation also included:
- Understanding your own cultural lens and personal experiences when viewing Scripture
- Reframing the conversation around pastoral vocation
- The challenges of Bible illiteracy
We hope you are blessed and challenged by their conversation.
Watch the interview on YouTube, listen to the audio on Podcasts, or read the transcript below. Please note the transcript has only been lightly edited and may contain spelling or grammatical errors.
Hannah Chao: So, Daniel, you’re well-known in academic circles. With this conference meant to equip the local church, how do you see the academic and pastoral paths crossing during this time?
Daniel K. Eng: I think as Asian Americans, we’re really good at valuing education. I think we’re also good at just taking what people give us. I remember when I was in seminary, there were times when I felt like what we were talking about in the classroom didn’t fit my ministry contexts. There was a time that my professor would say, “Oh, you all you do is just walk into the deacon meeting and tell them we want this,” and like I can’t do that. The deacon is Uncle so-and-so, they founded the church, he’s my dad’s age—I can’t do that with them.
And so I think a lot of times for Asian Americans, when we go to seminary, we go thinking that we’re going to already have to swallow the meat and spit out the bones. And so there’s going to be things that it’s just not going to help us at all. And there’s something even things where we’re, we’re when we’re studying the Bible … there’s things that we realize doesn’t resonate with us and is being seen with a very western white American lens.
And so I think, I think one of the things that this conference is helping us do is to say, “Hey, we have a voice, and there’s particularities that we have,” and we get together. I’m actually spending time with people who are otherwise in other circles and I probably wouldn’t hang out, but have become good friends in the circles. And so I think we’re in a place where a lot of times we’re crossing the theological divide, and maybe even political divide.
And yesterday I was chatting with one person who’s Southern Baptist, one person who’s Presbyterian, and I’m like, these guys wouldn’t hang out otherwise, but we there’s things that unite us. And there’s things that we’re saying, “Hey, we have, we have a voice, and we have particularities that we want to, that we bring to the table”
As an educator, one of the things that I’m committed to doing is helping us see that we have lenses that we bring to the Scripture. And so I’ll give you an example. I’m a [book of] James Scholar. And when we look at James, I’m encouraging people to look at it through the way James framed it for us.
James says, “to the 12 tribes of the diaspora.” Those are people who are outside of their ancestral homeland. And when I read that I hear immigration, I hear marginalization, I hear racism, I hear refugees. I know something about that, and let’s talk about that.
And so when James says, “Consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds,” what kind of trials do you think they’re going through? Because they’re minorities, because they are different than those around them. Maybe because they’re different because they’re Jews. Maybe they’re different because they’re Christians. But when we bring our lens to that and say, “Okay, these are things that stand out to us and might be different than things that stand out to white people,” that shows that we have some particularities that we come to. So I’m always talking about culture, the culture during Bible times, and modern culture as well. And how and how we need to be able to understand how the Bible fits into both of those contexts.
Hannah Chao: So in seminary, Asian Americans seem to be overrepresented as students, but oftentimes underrepresented as faculty. What do you think Asian Americans can do, and what are the potential dangers of if that continues?
Daniel K. Eng: We’re really good at deferring to the experts—that there’s a distance between us and them, whatever the experts are. We send our kids to, to the best piano teachers or the best SAT tutors and things like that. And I think we approach the classroom that same way. And so I think there’s a reluctance for many Asian Americans to think about academics and to think about being a scholar and being a teacher because they don’t see themselves in that way—we don’t see ourselves that way. There’s a distance.
And so I’m still getting comfortable with the idea that I’m here to serve the students and to equip them, and so on. But in the end, I don’t want us to be like that third servant in the parable of the talents that when Jesus talks about this in Matthew 25, where it’s like, “Hey, I was afraid, and I didn’t steward what I was entrusted with.” And so I want us to be able to say, “Okay, what are the things that we can offer?” And to say, “Can we find places where we can steward that well?” And so academics might be something that we can bring. Academics might be a place where Asian Americans can have a voice and have and contribute to the church.
So another thing that we’re realizing is that because of a value in education, a lot of our churches are still requiring a master’s degree from seminary. A lot of churches outside the Asian American circles are not. There’s starting to be this general distrust of seminaries, but also saying, “Well, we have our own training programs.” So if there’s if there is a disproportionate amount of Asian Americans in the student bodies, I think that gives us opportunity to say, “Hey, can we have contextualized teaching as well?”
So for example, in church history classes, are we talking about the history of the Asian American church? Are we talking about that? I don’t remember in my church history class, even talking about the African American, historically black church—forget about the Asian American church. And so if we’re gonna be, as you say, over-represented, then can we start asking, “Hey, are there places where we can receive training that’s been more contextualized to where we are?”
SOLA Network: So you’re talking about deferring to experts. And I feel like I see that a lot even in local church bodies, “What pastor’s gonna come? Is there an elder here? We can’t do a prayer meeting without an elder.” How do you talk to Asian American churches in trying to shift that culture to say education is important, but we don’t need this experts-only mentality.
Daniel K. Eng: I say one of the things that we need to remember is the universal priesthood, which is what the Bible teaches us. Every believer, every follower of Jesus is a priest, is someone who can minister. And so that might start with little things.
Like if it’s a birthday party, you don’t have to ask the pastor to pray. Come on, you can all do it. I mean, there’s just little things like that. I feel like that’s, that’s like an Asian church thing, isn’t it? I think we need to move our paradigm that way and just remind each other, “Hey, you can minister to me, I can minister to you.”
I think another thing is stewardship and being able to know what your gifts are, and be able to use that to serve others. I think there’s a certain amount of hesitancy and reluctance, especially for the gifts that are more prominent in people’s eyes. But I want to move people in a way that helps us all understand, “Hey, you’re gifted with this, maybe you’re gifted with teaching or administration or leadership. How would you steward that to serve other people?” And don’t think of it as promoting yourself. And of course, there’s times that you are tempted to promote yourself. We might feel that temptation, so check yourself, at the same time.
You have something to steward and the Lord has given each of us a certain amount or certain gifts to us to serve others. How are you using that? Are you using that within your circles? One thing that we’ve been talking about at this conference is: Can you contribute where you are? And so, Pastor Cory [Ishida] talked about this last night. He said, let’s say you don’t fit with the vision of your leadership. Do you just move on? And he said something really profound (and I guess this shouldn’t be so profound), but if you can still contribute, if you can still be part of that, and be that hand or eye, then be faithful and persevere.
SOLA Network: In terms of academics, right, like, kind of our American education system is largely built on paying for access to information and then taking a test and then getting a credential. And I think this new internet generation, they’re kind of challenging that a lot. How would you say the shift of what education is for and what higher education is about? How is that kind of shifting right now for you?
Daniel K. Eng: I think we need to move out of the paradigm that education is the dissemination of information. For me, my goal in the classroom, and I’m still working on this because I’m still developing as an educator, my goal in the classroom is to teach students how to think and give people an opportunity to try things. And so there’s questions that we get in the classroom, in papers, and assignments where I don’t know if they have a safe place in their churches to ask some theological questions.
I’m like, this is seminary. Let’s talk about it. Let’s work this out together. And we’re not going to get all the answers. That’s not the point. The point is that you are able to have a sound way for you to work through your questions whether that’s with books, whether that’s with resources, or whether that’s in community.
My hope is that students are able to walk away with more information, but I want them to be able to say, “Okay, I have this new question now. In my own relationship with God, in my family, in my ministry, this is my plan. I’m going to research this or investigate this; I’m going to discuss it with the right people. Let’s dialogue about this so we can, we can get closer.
What I hope students walk away with is that they are able to think critically, be able to process and be able to know how to investigate and think through things. And so that comes traditionally from books and resources, but it could also come from community. I think we need to be able to be discerning and to have sound approaches to how we’re looking at truth and how we’re looking at what the Bible says, and how we look at what our ministries are teaching.
So my goal as an educator is to really equip students and give students the opportunity to wrestle with things and to try ideas in a structured safe environment so that as they move to their churches, their Bible studies, the mission field, their counseling, that they’re able to minister to others and continue to build the church.
SOLA Network: As somebody that was a pastor before, I feel like historically pastoral ministry was a calling, right? But now we have this interesting age where pastor as career is very possible. I remember in my Bible college, a lot of people talking about, “Oh you plant a church, and then write a book, and then you go on a speaking tour, and before you know it, you’re Steven Furtick.” How do you talk to students about that mentality of a pastor’s “career”—how do you deal with that?
Daniel K. Eng: So the first thing is that we need to rethink the way we talk about vocation. We talk about calling, and we use calling because it sounds pious, and it sounds godly. And another thing though is that people can’t argue with you. They can’t disagree with you about calling. And so that’s it’s kind of like a discussion ender when I say, “I feel called to do this.”
But what’s normative in Scripture is that people aspire to do something. And so Paul says, If you aspire to be a church, overseer, this, these are your qualifications. So sure, there might be some people who might have like a Moses kind of burning bush experience or a Paul on the road to Damascus kind of experience. But that’s not normative. And the more seminary students I talk with, the more they’re like, “I don’t really have a calling.” And I’m like, “You don’t have to, it’s okay.”
We have all these other people in Scripture. We talked about someone like Timothy, who was nurtured in the faith, was mentored, and became a church leader. He doesn’t talk about this dramatic calling.
But Paul does talk about aspiring to something like church leadership. And that’s something that you can work on. He gives a list of qualifications, and you can work on those things. And so I think in our churches, one of the things that we need to be moving towards is identifying people and saying, “Hey, I think you do really well in vocational ministry.” So, sometimes people say, “Oh, hey, you’re good at speaking, you should be a pastor,” but I would love it If people start saying things like, “Hey, you’re good at administration. I think you do really well in full-time ministry. I think you do really well in the mission field because of that.” Or, “you’re good at listening. How could you use that to serve the church and encourage people to aspire and be qualified.” And so when Paul gives us qualifications, a lot of those are character-based, and disciplines and habits. And so we can work on being qualified.
I think another thing is that, I would say is that vocation is not permanent. You could move on to something else, and that’s okay. There’s few things that are permanent as we follow Jesus. One is following Jesus. The other is who you’re married to. But vocation is not one of those things. So if you’re in a career now, and you’re moving towards something, you could decide, “Hey, I want to go in another direction, and that’s okay.” Or you could say, “Well, I feel like the way that God’s opening doors and the way that things are moving, I want to try this now.” And that’s okay. And so I think if we kind of unhitch this idea of this mystical calling, I think things become a lot more straightforward.
Hannah Chao: The last thing I always ask is, is there something that we didn’t cover but that you would like to share based kind of on the themes that we’ve talked about?
Daniel K. Eng: I think the church, especially the American church, has this crisis of biblical illiteracy. We kind of had general ideas of what the Bible says, but people seem to be less knowledgeable of what even the text says. So I would encourage everyone to continue to be in the word, continue to study the Scriptures. And there’s so many things that become clear as we understand what the Bible says. As we move forward as we move on with that, that brings us to places where we are able to love God more, grow closer to Jesus, and to love other people.
Another thing I would say is that we need to become better at exegeting ourselves, not just the Scripture, but exegeting ourselves, knowing what our tendencies are. And that could be culture, it could be temperament. But the more we know ourselves, the more we realize, “Oh, hey, I have a tendency to do this, or I’m gifted at this, or I struggle with that.”
I think that makes us more effective at loving God and loving others when we know ourselves. And it might seem selfish, right? There’s personality inventories you can take, and there’s books to read. But in the end, I think what serves the followers of Christ well is knowing yourself well, and those are all tools that you can know yourself better as you see how that relates to how you’re serving God, how you’re serving others.
So one of the things I do in the classroom is encouraging students to, “Hey, think about your culture. What kind of culture do you come from? I’m not just talking about ethnicity—I’m talking about like the culture in your house, or the culture in your workplace. How are you shaped? And does that affect the way that you see scripture? Does it affect the way you see God? Does it affect the way you minister to others?” Self-awareness really goes a long way in being a follower of Jesus.