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AsianAmergence

Posted May 1, 10:10 AM | 2 comments | by Editor | Link

With the recent gathering of folks to discuss a shift in the focus of Emergent Village, it is an appropriate time to talk about one of these smaller “villages” that are emerging from with(in/out).

Asian-Americans live unique lives in constant tension between reluctant submission to white America and seeking approval from generally self-sacrificing parents who work long hours for our benefit. From being considered the “Model Minority” by the dominant majority, to relational tension with other minorities, our parents desire one thing for us: to seek success. But in our relatively young history, finding success usually meant being bought into the standards (or confines) of the dominant majority. This has also bled into our practice of Christianity. But we did not just copy white Christianity, we mutated it in our own image in some ways. For example, Koreans are known for their praying out loud corporately, or their devotion to morning prayer. However, we’ve taken western theology and turned it into a beast (yes, worse than it already is) as it married well to our cultural inclinations (that’s for another post). We see that white, Western Christianity’s dominance has been detrimental in many ways to our collective faith experience. How we respond, from this point on, is critical to restoring the beauty of the Gospel in fresh new ways for Asian-Americans.

Over the last year, we have been a part of a small, but growing, contingent within the larger Asian-American Christian community with a desire to re-imagine the beauty and complexity of the Asian-American experience as it relates to a life in the way of Jesus Christ. Several of us “AsianAmerGents” (figure that one out!) from Atlanta, California, and Texas have found a helpful ally (as not all of us are self-described Emergents) in Emergence Christianity and the artful practice of spiritual deconstruction. Participating in our local cohorts and finding friends through blogs and networks, we began conversations with the question, “What does being an Asian-American Christian look like?” That lead to questions like, “Why have we uncritically accepted white American evangelicalism?” We share in the spirit of what Emergent Village is doing and what Emergence Christianity is doing in our context of Asian-American Christianity. Asianamergents are not seeking to separate themselves from the larger American quilt. We are seeking to create a healthy, organic “ecclesio-system” for which Asian-American Christians can experience a more honest multi-culturally contextual Christianity.

As Asian-Americans struggle to keep their faith, originally created by fulfillment of social needs found in churches, we asianamergents want to imagine a Christianity that is generative, unapologetic of our cultural complexity, and honest about our lives and our faiths. We are glad to know that those within Emergence are partners along the way.

—David Park, Danny Yang, and Dan Ra
(We are very aware of the fact that we’re all males. We’re working on it!)

If you’d like to connect with other AsianAmergents, please contact Dan Ra at jadanzzy@gmail.com or @jadanzzy on Twitter.

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