This posting grew out of the actions of the Executive
Committee of the Presbyterian Missions Agency Board regarding the incorporation
of a group outside of the oversight of the PMA. But it is not about that group,
or the issues surrounding it. I have already written about several of the 1001 Worshiping
Communities which I believe were formed with a disregard for biblical
Christianity. On the other hand the men whose actions, regarding new worshiping
communities, are being investigated, seem to me to be faithful Christians. I
cannot say more than that because I have no knowledge of the events. On the other hand I was first surprised and then
troubled when I saw one name on the list of members of the Executive Committee,
that is Mihee Kim-Kort a Presbyterian
Teaching Elder.
Kim-Kort is familiar to me
because she started following me on Twitter. I did not know who she was, except
she seemed nice as well as progressive. I followed her back which is usually
(not always) my normal reaction. But with her name appearing on the Executive
Committee list I started reading some of her material. She does bring to the
PMA a particular view about racism but she seems to equate evangelicalism and
biblical evangelism with racism and colonialism. I believe she has an extremely
contemptuous and demeaning view of Asian evangelicals. And here I am using the
definition of Asian evangelicals as those who hold to an orthodox view of the
Christian faith.
In an article, “Killjoy
Prophets, Asian America, Evangelicalism (Part 2),” written by Mihee Kim-Kort, Suey Park, and Emily Rice,
Asian evangelicals are seen as being used by white evangelicals to further their
own culture and privileges. Kim-Kort and other two authors write:
“The double-pronged
missionary work abroad and in the US reinforced this evangelical culture – the
music, the Jesus-language and just-prayers, and narrow theological view of humanity and God. In the US the impact
of evangelicalism on Asian Americans served to essentially “white-wash” the
communities so that their ministries mimicked white evangelical communities to
a tee. This forces us to question whether or not becoming Christian is
synonymous to becoming white.” (Italics mine.)
While there is and has been
racism among both liberal and conservative Christians, it is not the driving
force of evangelism, rather the call of Christ on the community and individual to
go to the nations proclaiming Christ Jesus is the impetus. The complaint in the
essay seems to be that too many Asians have become evangelicals. The writers
hold up the statistics offered by Erica Liu who quotes Chang and states, “On
many campuses, Asian Christian gatherings have even become a standard part of
the undergraduate social experience. Not only have evangelical groups
succeeded in bringing Asian Americans in their fold, but they have made them
into one of their strongest groups of evangelizers.”
The number of Asians
attending Urbana (a missionary gathering that many young people attend) and the
number of Christian Asian groups on the Berkeley campus are part of the
statistics used. The writers bluntly state “In other words, conversion is a
tool of exceptionalism,” and go on to state, “Whether the conversion happens
here or abroad it is analogous to (religious) colonization.”
Kim-Kort
and the other authors suggest that the solution to Asians being assimilated
into white Christian Evangelism is something called “Hybridity.” Quoting Kim Grace
Ji-Sun, they write, “The way hybridity operates is by shifting “the
conceptualization of identity because identity is no longer a stable reference
point. It creates a new paradigm in which liminality, instability,
impurity, movement, and fluidity inform the formation of identities ….”
Yes,
there is racism among those in the white evangelical community, and it is a
racism that needs to be addressed with repentance, but that is seemingly, not
the focus of the essay. Kim-Kort and the other writers are in fact singling out
a particular group, Asian evangelicals. Their Christianity, their love for
Jesus is being questioned. Their view of God, is seen as too narrow. Their
motivation is questioned as is their intentions. The writers are themselves intolerant
of the faith of others. They are intolerant of Asian evangelical Christians.
So
I was troubled when I saw Kim-Kort’s name among the list of the members of the
Executive Committee of the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board. There are rules
broken that have ethical and institutional consequences, there are also
attitudes that have eternal consequences. Intolerance towards those who are
brothers and sisters of Jesus pokes holes in both unity and mission.
The
pastor who said the words that brought me to Christ (he didn’t know it) was intolerant
of Asians. That was a long time ago and I pray he repented. One of the strong
mentors in my life as a teenage Christian was an Asian Christian. He held a
Navigators study in his home. That was so long ago, I don’t remember his name,
but I do remember his kind face and his love for others and for the word of God.
If we are in Christ we have an identity-Christ
is our identity—for those who belong to Jesus there is nothing more—we are
hidden in Him.
5 comments:
“The way hybridity operates is by shifting “the conceptualization of identity because identity is no longer a stable reference point. It creates a new paradigm in which liminality, instability, impurity, movement, and fluidity inform the formation of identities ….”
Given that that sentence is written in neither English nor Korean, but in academese, it seems obvious to me that she has been brainwashed by the white liberal indoctrinators at whatever institution of lower learning she attended. She needs to throw off her attempt to be a white liberal intellectual, and become a Christian instead.
David Fischler
Woodbridge, VA
I think "Brainwashing" is way too strong and disrespectful of a term. But it is curious that she used postmodern philosophical and Freudian terms, both of which are decidedly Caucasian and European frames of reference.
My own bi-cultural background do however attest to the confusion that exists in American Evangelicalism between what is the Biblical Gospel and what Kipling sarcastically called the "white man's burden", or the "manifest destiny" of Christian America as it moved West and destroyed the Native American societies and stole their land.
We do need to be sensitive to that, and allow other cultures to interpret the Gospel in their own language.
That is the miracle of the incarnation after all, that God chose a human body and a human language and a human culture to invite us in to the glories of His Kingdom, His language, and His Culture. We should anticipate that when He speaks Korean, or Arabic, or Portuguese, that it will sound foreign to us. That we will only truly understand each other when we are both standing in the Kingdom and seeing the World from the Kingdom's point of view rather than our own.
Jodie Gallo
Los Angeles, CA
Jodie, manifest destiny & the white man's burden were wrong ideas and are certainly not Christian concepts. Also they are not concepts embraced by evangelical as much as they were embraced by 19th century liberal protestants who believed the world was progressing toward the good of the Kingdom of God. The two great world wars wiped most of that away.
Culture needs to be reckoned with-Paul was as a Jew for the Jews and a Gentile for the Gentiles. However he never changed the Biblical understanding of God or salvation to accommodate anyone's culture. And we must not either.
I still remember when our Presbytery met at the one Korean church, their culture was very evident, but their pastor preached the pure gospel. It was so clear and good, so very biblical, many of us asked to have it put on the presbytery web site which it was. That is what Christianity should be like.
And by the way that particular church has a wonderful ministry to a Native American group in Nevada. God works in amazing ways.
Jodie - I'm not sure brainwashing is too strong a term. You might be right.
But there is an aspect of group behavior wherein people adopt vocabularies that tend to obscure meanings, that tend to exclude everyone outside the group, that condition what can be said (- i.e. the language itself contains embedded presuppositions that both consciously and unconsciously limit what can be said), that end up being so over used as to become trite, empty, boring - even excruciating - to those familiar with it.
It is a kind of guild speak - similar to that used by doctors, lawyers, psychologists, etc. to keep out the undesirables even when the actual content of their statements requires no specialized knowledge to understand.
In this case the vocabulary has been developed in academic (and academic theological) circles to keep non-academics out of the discussion, while trying to influence decisions that affect them profoundly.
Having said that, I also have to say the observation in your second sentence is brilliant.
Your point is well taken. I guess the difficulty comes when it is a question of whether the Gospel is itself being altered to accommodate dominant cultural preferences or whether it is legitimately being interpreted in a different setting.
You are absolutely right that Christians have often gotten this wrong - exporting a particular cultural bias as if it were somehow synonymous with Christianity. We have done this in numerous ways - at the same time, the transmission of the Gospel has been done very well in others.
In a way, the same thing has happened in our churches in the US / West. We have often embraced as Christians, things that are cultural only - only to absolutize them as if they were Christianity.
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