eMusing Series: Doing Pastoral Work In The Big Apple

Part Two - Thinking Through The Identity Issue Among Asian-Americans

Pentecost 2003 - John L.Ng © Copyright 2003

The Assimilation Experience in America

Recently, Iris Chang, author of The Chinese In America, wrote in the New York Times (May 21, 2003) that the SARS epidemic has renewed an antipathy toward Asians in the United States. Anti-Asian sentiment in America is well documented. One night in 1871, in an anti-Chinese riot in Los Angeles, 21 Chinese were shot, hanged or burned to death. In 1882, the U.S. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act that suspended immigration and excluded Chinese from citizenship by naturalization. Two months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, more than 100,000 Japanese Americans, mostly U.S. citizens, were interned in concentration camps. In 1982, Vincent Chin was beaten and killed by several white factory workers. Mistaking him for Japanese, the factory workers blamed him for their loss of jobs in the automobile industry. Vincent's assailants were sentenced to three years probation and fined $3,780. A few years ago, Wen Ho Lee was accused of spying. Since then, the U.S. government has dropped all but one of the 59 charges brought against him. Many suspected that Wen Ho was racially profiled. In past decades, Asian-Americans have complained of hitting a professional glass ceiling. Many were denied promotions because they were Asians. On a personal note, in 1987, I became the first non-white leader appointed to the national office of my denomination. Several national church officers argued that I should not hold a national position because I was Asian. After I entered office, a denomination board member said to me, "So you're the Chinaman who got appointed."

Although racial discrimination is real, each generation of Asian-Americans finds its identity through assimilation in America. I grew up in New York City's Chinatown in the 60's where my race was openly affirmed by my family. We lived on a street next to neighborhoods of Blacks, Italians, Jews and Puerto Ricans. Many of my school friends were from these non-Chinese neighbors. Although our race was glaringly different, we were comfortable and accepting with one another. My friends and I insulted each other with racial slurs yet genuinely liked and enjoyed each other's company.

Not all Asian-Americans experience assimilation the same way at the same time. Each group goes through it at a different rate and to a different degree. Some are generations ahead and others behind. My children grew up in the 80's and 90's, in several places and not in Chinatown. My wife and I reminded them of their rich racial heritage but also nurtured in them a healthy self-esteem apart from race. As adults, my children are socially more adjusted in non-Chinese settings than I was in my denomination's national office. Some years ago, a church elder introduced to me his mother, who was in her eighties at the time. She spoke only English and let on that she really did not know how to cook Chinese food. My children, in their grade school years at the time, and this elderly woman, though sixty years apart in age, were at a similar stage of cultural assimilation.

To be sure, our assimilation experience impacts our personal identity. In fact, there is an intricate relationship between identity and assimilation. Their definitions are helpful. Identity reflects an emotional association we have with a particular community. Assimilation emphasizes the actual adherence we have to a dominant society (Handbook for Asian American Psychology, 1998, pp. 291-292). To find belonging and acceptance, we must identify with a community of people with whom we enjoy a shared orientation. To live and work meaningfully, we must also assimilate into a dominant culture whose ideals and values are gaining dominance in how we live and think.

Attending Church and the Need to Belong

Although most Asian-Americans live in non-Asian communities, those who are Christians still attend traditional immigrant Asian churches for the most part. However, this typical scenario may be changing. Two of the largest Asian-American congregations in New York City are technically not Asian churches. The Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church is a traditional white Protestant church located on an upscale thoroughfare in Manhattan. In recent years, its attendance has exploded to several thousands. About one third is Asian-Americans. The Redeemer Presbyterian Church is a recent church plant. Its worship services of more than two thousand attendees meet at several locations in Manhattan. More than half of them are Asian-Americans. The migration of Asian-Americans in large number to these "non-Asian" churches has caused quite a stir in the city.

It is too soon to tell what is happening with Asian-Americans in these churches. However, several observations have emerged in recent dialogues among clerics. Obviously, these observations do not fit everyone. Reasons vary with individuals. Each observation applies to some and not others. But, as a whole, they are helpful in understanding this recent phenomenon of church shifting among Asian-Americans.

One, many Asian Americans are church-damaged. Asian-Americans are a minority in the traditional immigrant Asian churches. They feel the pain of discrimination when they attend church. Very few have a leadership voice. Many choose a churchless Christian faith over being subjected to social disparity. The dynamic ministry of these "non-Asian" churches seem to attract many church damaged, churchless Asians. Two, many Asian-Americans' identity is no longer tied to race or church affiliation. They live and work in non-Asian environments. Their friends and associates are mostly non-Asians. They work and play more comfortably in non-Asian settings. If they still attend traditional immigrant Asian churches, their sense of belonging is nil. The transition of these Asian-Americans from smaller and less dynamic Asian churches to larger and more dynamic "non-Asian" churches is natural and casual.

Three, many Asian churches lack effective non-immigrant spiritual leadership. Much of ministry, such as preaching and teaching, seems irrelevant. Many find worship and Bible classes boring. These starving Asian-Americans gravitate toward these "non-Asian" churches because of their effective preaching and teaching. Four, enough Asian-Americans are nominal Christians. Their involvement in church has been passive and inconsequential. The size of these larger "non-Asian" churches seems to provide a safe haven of anonymity. These Asian-Americans are usually the last ones in and first ones out. Fifth, like many in society, these Asian-Americans are urban nomads. Because of school and work, they do not live in one place long. Their affinity to relationships and institutions at best is temporary. Since their stay in New York is nomadic, their commitment to church is transient. These churches allow them to attend with little demand for meaningful participation or long-term commitment.

Issues in Doing Church Work in the Asian-American Community

We can learn to do more effective church ministry from this resent phenomenon of church shifting among Asian-Americans. I have some unfinished thoughts in response to the above five observations.

Cultural Sensitivity

It is probably true that many Asian-Americans struggle with self-esteem and self-identity, and perhaps even with self-hatred, because their identity is not validated in church or society. Our sense of identity has to do with our sense of belonging. It reflects our emotional association with a community. If we do not feel we belong, we just may not know who we are.

Cultural sensitivity in church ministry has to do with appreciation of our differences and acceptance of those who are different. My children's ages range from 26 to 17. Two were born in New York City but grew up in California and Colorado and two were born in California but grew up in the suburbs of New York City. Not for a moment do I pretend to understand or approve their social values and habits, taste for music and friends or perception of church and parental authority. Yet I can honestly say that I appreciate and accept them as they are. But I have to admit that I do not appreciate and accept all my congregants the way I do my children. This is wrong. Many Asian Americans are church damaged because the church leadership has not shown appreciation and acceptance. To gain back a generation of church-damaged Christians and to avoid damage to a new generation, we must practice cultural sensitivity. Appreciation for our diversity and acceptance of our differences ought to be the pretext of all church work. How else will this generation of Asian-Americans and the next know who they are and where they belong.

Social Awareness

There are several Asian churches with more than a thousand attendees in New York City. Their size ought to give them a powerful presence. But for the most part, they are almost invisible to the non-church Asian community. Just as the church is invisible to that community, that community is also invisible to the church. Unchurched and not-yet Christians often see the church in a negative light. The church is known only for its intolerance - it is against gays and abortion, drinking and smoking, dancing and premarital sex (or sex altogether).

Since I became more socially involved with congregants in our Manhattan church plant, I have come to realize that there is a whole Asian world in the city apart from the church. There are Asian nightclubs, websites (my teaching assistant counted more than 15 sites), periodicals and celebrities. In a city that never sleeps, Asian Americans work and play in all that New York has to offer in daylight and in the dark. Those churches that are most effective in ministry are those that are socially relevant. They do ministry with a realistic understanding of their social contexts. Their pulpit still speaks for personal holiness and against moral promiscuity. But it is done with sensitivity, compassion and grace, trusting that the transforming presence of the Holy Spirit will be evident in the changed lives of those who believe. To do ministry well, we need to be aware of and understand the social contexts in which Asian-Americans live, move and have their being.

Spiritual Relevance

Once upon a time, I could get away with a sermon that had good exegesis and lucid construction. Preaching to an urban and diverse congregation today, being exegetically sound and theologically correct will not do. I need to be more ontologically relevant by telling God's story in light of their stories. When preaching students ask me to recommend commentaries for their library, I tell them that I seldom buy commentaries anymore. Most commentaries, I explained, are researched treatises, full of propositional statements but empty of experiential realities. Instead, I read and listen for stories. Everyone has a story. God has a story, people across the sacred pages have stories, my congregants have stories. Our relationship with God is an interweaving of our stories and God's story. Those preachers and teachers who are spiritually relevant live and tell their stories well. Beyond propositional theology, they tell a good story. Many Asian churches do not attract Asia-Americans because they lack attractive non-immigrant spiritual leaders who can tell God's story with our story well. I rejoice that so many Asian-Americans have gone back to God in these "non-Asian" churches. But there are still a large unchurched number. I think the Asian churches have an opportunity to reach these unchurched Asian-Americans. To regain the Asian church's attractive relevance, we need to raise up a few gifted church leaders who can tell the story well.

Religious Dynamics

Some time ago, several missions professors invited me to their weekly lunch discussion. Our question that afternoon was What is a Christian? Our inability to consensus an answer made us realize how difficult that question is in a culturally diverse community. There are two conventional answers. One says: A Christian is someone who attends church regularly, prays and reads the Bible, lives a moral lifestyle. The other says: A Christian is someone who does not drink and smoke, does not dance or use profanity and does not dress immodesty. Both lists insist on certain minimal essentials that define a Christian. They are static and make no provision for dynamic changes and social expressions. They also reflect a cultural bias. Like St. Paul's warning in Colossians 2. 20-23 against ascetic legalism, this kind of religion seeks to keep others out more than invite people in. Those who do not fit in are marginalized. Many Asian-Americans are in the periphery of the traditional immigrant Asian churches because they do not conform to the traditional notion of religiosity. To do ministry effectively, the church has to recognize a spiritual process where unity is not yet (Ephesians 4.13). Christianity is dynamic. Each person is at varied stations of spirituality and expresses his/her faith differently. It is not easy to define what is Christian in cultural pluralism. To be sure, a Christian is not someone who conforms to a minimal standard of behavior. Rather a Christian is a person who has a meaningful relationship with God in Christ, and whose life is in holistic and progressive transformation.

Ministerial Creativity

There are many ways to do church ministry in the Big Apple. The cultural diversity of the Asian community insists that they are many means to love God and work in his church. To do ministry among the Asian-Americans, both the traditional immigrant Asian churches and the "non-Asian" churches have their own unique place in New York City. To be sure, not every Asian-American can or will attend a "non-Asian" church. The Asian churches are given a transitional opportunity to reach many of these not-yet-churched individuals with the gospel. To seize this opportunity, the Asian Churches need to live large by making allowance for creativity in ministry. Bold and unconventional ministries ought to be encouraged, not criticized with suspicion and jealousy. Above all, the Asian churches must raise a new generation of gifted spiritual leaders. Parents have to offer their sons and daughters to God for church ministry, not as a sacrifice but as a privilege. The present church leaders must also be secure enough to create a nurturing place for leadership development for this new generation. (More about this issue in the next article.)

As long as there are Asian-Americans in New York, there is a need for Asian churches. Most Asian-Americans still find a sense of identity among Asians. However, the churches' vitality in ministry will depend on how well the churches respond to the diverse cultural and social needs of Asian-Americans.