Advancing Asian American Theology: Collaborative Manuscript Development Workshop
David Chao | Director, Center for Asian American Christianity | Princeton Theological Seminary
Isaac Kim | Associate Pastor | Joy Christian Fellowship
Karis Ryu | Graduate Student, Religious Studies | Yale University
Sameer Yadav | Associate Professor, Religion | Baylor University
The proposed workshop aims to convene a diverse group of faculty and graduate students (along with a minister) from theology, history, and ethnic studies to critically review and contribute to the development of a manuscript titled Asian American Christian Theology: An Introduction and New Perspectives (under contract with Wiley Blackwell). Authored by Dr. David Chao, this manuscript challenges and revitalizes the academic discipline of Asian American Theology. The workshop’s objective is to refine the manuscript so that it robustly addresses contemporary challenges and reflects the complexities of Asian American identity and Christian belief and practice. It aims to move beyond essentialist tropes, instead engaging with contemporary social issues such as racial justice, mental health, and economic inequality. Through scholarly critique and interdisciplinary discourse, the workshop will enhance the manuscript’s academic rigor and relevance, turning it into a seminal resource for scholars, practitioners, and community members.
Keywords: Asian American, Christianity, Theology
Burmese American Christians: Unlocking their Hidden Stories and Contributions to Asian American Theology and Religion
Timothy Tseng | Professor, Christianity and Asian American Studies and Director, Asian American Christian History Institute | Fuller Theological Seminary
Joseph Cheah | Professor, Religious Studies and Theology | University of Saint Joseph
David Thang Moe | Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer, Southeast Asian Studies | Yale University
Confucian and Daoist ideas are significantly oversimplified as typically applied and understood within mental health and social activism. Concepts such as filial piety, harmony, and collectivism are often described in static, unchanging terms, such as in discussions of psychotherapy cultural competence. As a result, recommendations and approaches for Asian-American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) populations are at best, blunt and over-prescriptive and at worst, reinforce negative stereotypes of populations as simplistic, conforming, and emotionally-impoverished. This working group will bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars with research expertise in Chinese history and philosophy, cultural psychology, and sociology, as well as applied expertise in clinical psychology and social activism with AAPI groups. Through monthly meetings over the course of approximately 1.5 years, the working group will produce at least 2 products: one scholarly and one public-facing. We also anticipate the generation of additional ideas and potential for future collaborations.
Keywords: Burmese American, Christianity, Ethnography
Ethnic Churches and Racial Attitudes: A Comparative Study of Chinese- and Vietnamese-American Congregations in Houston, TX
Bianca Mabute-Louie
Graduate Student, Sociology
Rice University
This research project interrogates the extent to which religion shapes the racial attitudes of Asian American Christians. Christianity influences the ways Asian Americans adapt to the U.S. and their involvement in ethnic churches shapes their perceptions of race and racism. This project interrogates how Chinese- and Vietnamese-American Christians, two of the largest Asian American groups, employ cultural-religious explanations in their conceptualizations of racial discrimination, racial boundaries, and anti-Blackness in this comparative congregational study. Overall, this study aims to contribute to the scholarly conversation on race, religion, immigration, and politics, with public implications on immigration, Asian American civic engagement, and broader movements for racial justice.
Identity, Community, Belonging: Imagining the Creation of a Postcolonial/Asian American Kachin Christian Community
Htoi San Lu
Graduate Student, Religion
Vanderbilt University
This dissertation examines theological, ecclesiological approaches to Christian community, identity, and belonging from an Asian/American and postcolonial feminist perspective: specifically examining how the Kachin Baptist community in the U.S. constructs their ethno-nationalist religious identity in changing geopolitical contexts. The Kachin are an indigenous, minoritized ethnic group who began to migrate from Burma/Myanmar to the United States in the 1950s. Divisions within the U.S.-based community emerged between 2011 and 2014, a period marked by intensified militarized conflict in Burma which resulted in thousands of civilians killed and more than 100,000 Kachin displaced. Kachin immigrants and resettled refugees in the U.S. have debated intensely about the contours of their community: differing about alliances and loyalty (to Kachin churches in Myanmar). I argue these divisions are best understood by examining the influential role of American Baptist missionaries and the Burmese sociopolitical context beginning in the 19th century to the present.
Keywords: Baptist, Christianity, Churches, Diaspora, Immigration, Kachin
Korean Indigenized Trauma-Informed Spirituality, Ritual, and Practice for Women and Femmes in Diaspora
Christine Hong | Associate Professor, Educational Ministries | Columbia Theological Seminary
Seo Choi | Shaman and Founder, Alpha Sisters Publishing
Sue Kim Park | Associate Dean, Contextual Education and International Partnerships and Assistant Professor, Contextual Theology | Columbia Theological Seminary
Rev. Sunghee Han | Supervisor, Clinical Pastoral Education | Wellstar Health System
This project will create practices and rituals for negotiating and understanding suffering, pain, healing, and creation through a transnational Korean indigenous spiritualist feminist lens. Through peer-guided, interreligious roundtable discussion and study in six monthly in-person meetings and one four-day retreat, we will read, discuss, and create across our three areas of expertise: Christian practical theology, Korean Shamanism, and spiritual health care. Our work will culminate in the creation of a set of original healing rituals and practices that incorporate an understanding of Christian practical theology, Korean shamanistic ritual, and trauma-informed care for Korean women in the diaspora. This project will consider how our resources might accompany women who have experienced harm through their experiences with the Church. We hope such a resource can be used alongside different religious resources used by other AANH-PI people to continually challenge, in anticolonial ways, different diasporic colonial Christianities.
Keywords: Korean American, Christianity, Shamanism, Health Care
The Origins of the Silent Exodus Myth: Korean American Evangelical Oral Histories in the Greater Los Angeles Area
Justin Tse | Associate Professor, Religion and Culture (Education) | Singapore Management University
Linda (Yun Ja) Kwak | PhD Student, Theology | Boston University
Chanhee Heo | Postdoctoral Research Associate, Religious Studies | John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics (Washington University in St. Louis)
Ellen Zhou | MA Student, Pastoral Care and Counseling | Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary
This working group will conduct an oral history of the origins of what Asian American evangelicals have mythologized as the “silent exodus” in the Greater Los Angeles Area. The term originates from a front-page article that Los Angeles Times staff writer Doreen Carvajal published on May 9, 1994, concerning what the “silent exodus” by which Korean Americans in Los Angeles Koreatown referred to the opening of English-language ministries in Koreatown churches, as well as new English-speaking multi-ethnic congregations in the Los Angeles suburbs. We seek to conduct an oral history of the term “silent exodus” and examine whether it can be traced to historical events in Koreatown in the early 1990s, including the 1992 Los Angeles uprising.
Keywords: Korean American, Christianity, Oral History