Asian American Spirituality
April 20, 2008
The hidden gift of a complex community
This is the first monthly column on Asian American religion and spirituality, written by me, a Christian pastor.
I can just hear the comments now. From anti-church people: “The church has been a tool of the oppressor. Why give some Jesus-loving bible thumper any air time?” From conservative Evangelicals: “Great, you finally talk about Jesus, and you get some hippy liberal from San Francisco.” From other traditions: “Um, what about us?”
This is pretty much a no-win because religion and spirituality are essentially an individual expression of one’s connection or non-connection to the divine. There are no right or wrong answers, only experiences. With experiences, we get passion, conviction and disagreement. We also get silence.
In a bold move or lapse in judgment, AsianWeek thought it time to talk about it, and they got some schmuck to agree to do it. I’m looking forward to it.
Here’s the thing. Just as all of us hated being the only Asian American in the room when Lunar New Year rolled around, and we were expected to speak for all Asian people about the origin of fortune cookies, I would ask the same nuanced lens be placed upon the discussion of religion and spirituality. Each of us may be able to describe elements of the Asian American experience, but when it comes to the particularities, each of us can only speak for our own journey.
Even for those who may not be particularly “religious,” it cannot be denied that Asian American spirituality has largely been ignored in the discourse about Asian America. In both positive and negative ways, Asian America has been affected by religion and spirituality. From the Presbyterians that cared for striking Filipino farmworkers in the ’40s to conservative Evangelical Chinese churches protesting gay marriage to Asian Americans at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and their decade-long fight for justice, this is a conversation that must be had.
So, let’s start talking. The first step is for you to help me decide what to talk about. Feel free to e-mail me (breyeschow@gmail.com) or leave a comment on my blog (reyes-chow.com). Ask a question, make an accusation or just tell me how cute my kids are, and you’ll help determine the content of this column.
Until next month, peace be with you.
Bruce Reyes-Chow is a Presbyterian minister and the pastor of Mission Bay Community Church in San Francisco.
The views expressed are his and his alone, and do not necessarily represent the views of his church, his family or the crazy guy standing on the corner wearing the sandwich board. Though Bruce does respect his right to wear said garment.
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14 Responses to “Asian American Spirituality”
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Great move, AsianWeek.
Welcome online, Pastor Reyes-Chow.
Sounds good to this agnostic, even though I have long inveighed against “organized” religion, meaning the overarching social, anti-condom AND anti-abortion but ignore obvious societal ills crowd, and very especially, the political, the “theo”neocons who helped, crucially and centrally, this sad excuse of an administration into power and genocidal destruction, with worse still possible to come, in view of Nancy Pelosi’s push for ANOTHER “blank check” of 174 billion for Bush.
While figures like Bill Bennett actually come out calling, jocularly or no, for political assassination, and “evangelicals” knock on doors to proselyte, WHERE are the “leaders” in “religions” to speak out against the fundamentalists and FOR the nonrepresented “majority” of the respective constituencies?
Yes, I know, there ARE courageous pastors, like Wright, and groups like the Unitarian/Universalist?, the American Friends Society for sure, who quietly give constant witness to THEIR faith in substantive ways, some Jesuits? and, now, Pastor Chow, right here in Central California.
First question: How does one Christian address another, like those reported in the “orthodox”? espatriate Russian variety in Sacramento that spawns lethal homophobia?
I DO agree, fervently, that “faith” is, at heart, a private and quiet place in one’s own “spirit.”
And you, sir, sound like an eminently reasonable and respectful individual, who deserves respect.
Frank Eng
Pastor Reyes Chow,
I will share my story and hope to bring more followers to Jesus Christ my Savior.
I was born in Cambodia and suffered under Pol Pot as a kid. We were sponsored to the US by Presbyterian Church and attended the church as a kid. Through many struggles big and small, prayers always seems to get me through. I always had this pressure from my sponsors to attend church every week. During my teenage years though, I moved from the faith. I did not like praying anymore, but rather let the chips fall as they may. I feel as if it was cheating to pray. To use a higher power to assist in everyday chores. I didn’t want A’s in school anymore, I just wanted to be the average kid. I also stop going to Church because I did not appreciate the pressure to commitments. I also did not enjoy socializing with other church members. My message to Jesus basicly was, let me live my life. I wanted to see what I can accomplish on my own without your help. The only thing I need you to do is catch me when I fall.
Living without faith, my life started to change. I was always angry and it was always somebody else fault. I disrespect my parents. Everything became black and white.
About six years ago, just as I was being proud of my accomplishments without faith. I had a good job that I didn’t think I could loose. Bought two houses and leased them out. Bought a new SUV and had a beautiful baby girl. I felt secure and nothing could go wrong.
And then it starts, first I would start getting nails in the tires of my SUV. Then nightmares of huge serpents entering the house. Then I had a change in upper management at work. All of a sudden I was on the wrong side of the fence and was forced to quit my job. I tried another job for a few months but could not get promoted. I opened a discount store, but it became a drag. Then Hurricane Charlie took out the two houses. Everything just fell apart. I landed hard and Jesus did not catch me. I went on a soul finding mission, lost and abandoned. As I was talking to my dad in the dining room one evening, he suggested that I go back to Church.
I reply that I would go back when my heart feels right, not running back to church because everything is falling apart.
That evening my 2 year old daughter saw something on the wall in the dining room. She shouted in Chinese that Great Uncle was crying on the wall. My wife was terrified and told my mother. They both urged my daughter to go sleep. I went up to the wall and made a very mean face and said ” I don’t know who you are, but leave my daughter alone.”
The next morning I ask my daughter about the image on the wall. She told me that Great Uncle was crying on the wall. I asked her why he was crying. She said “ouch, ouch.” I asked her where. She said that his hands and feet had blood. She pointed to the palms of both hands and also both feet. I asked her where were his hands, and she opened both hands to form a cross.
I ask her if Great Uncle was Jesus and she said “no”. I went and pulled up an image of Jesus online and showed her, she said yes Great Uncle is Jesus. She also said the two little angels were with him. She calls the angels his kids.
The next evening I rolled her stroller to the same spot and see if anything came up. She looked at the wall as if something was there. I asked her if Jesus was back she looked at me and smile and said “no.” I truly believe he came for me and did not abandoned me. I am so grateful.
I have learned that without him, I am truly worthless. Without him I cannot accomplish anything lasting.
My wife and daughter has been going to church ever since. My life is finally come back together and I will start going back again more often. My heart is full of faith and I prayed often now. Not just for what I need, but for the whole world to coexist in peace.
Dear Huang Fong:
I am glad you’re saved.
And your little two-year-old has to be a darling.
But, so long as “Christianity,” from the Vatican to the Austin intellectual precincts, continues NOT to speak out, at least from the “top,” AGAINST warmongers and war profiteers, of ANY persuasion or conviction, I shall demur from “joining,” much less acclaiming.
I, for one, find the Mahatma’s example as shining as the Christuses’, and I do NOT intend ANY contumely here, only that someone else’s “saviour” may be every bit as worthy of respect, if not adoration , including the Gautama and the founder of Islam and the grandfathers of Judaic wisdoms and holiness. None cancels another, and none can be singular and exclusive.
And, continuing congratulations and AMENS to your prayers and hope for peace, EVERYone.
Frank Eng
Frank and Huang - Thanks for jumping in! You both have entered into some of the great debates in the Christian church today. Is Jesus “THE” way or “A” way? What determines what is a good Christian? How do we talk about faith? Hopefully I’ll be able to add to the discourse in helpful ways. Peace - Bruce
Dear Frank Eng,
Thank you for all your kind thoughts and encouragements. My lovely daughter is five now.
My relationship with Jesus is a very personal one. Nothing other humans and organizations can do to suppressed that. As long as they are human, they will not be able to overcome all temptations. We can only forgive those who trespass against us as Jesus will forgive all of our trespasses.
Thanks again Eng, wish you much peace and happiness.
Lots of Asian-American churches out there but face it folks, most of them promote traditional reactionary christian values, my own church included, given that the slant of most AW articles cringe at that sort of viewpoint. Search for christian music on YouTube and Asians are all over the place.
awarthurhu, Yeah you are right. In fact, I may post something about why some Asian American values and conservative Christian values mesh so well. Thanks!
. . . that CNN panel, with or without your lovely Michelle Malkin.
. . . that CNN panel, with or without your lovely Michelle Malkin.
Damn.
Forgive the “blasphemy” here, but these fingers and this machine keep frustrating me.
Tbe above two entries were the closings of my thoughts in re “awarthurhu” and his contributions, such as they are or were, to this “discussion.”
What I tried to note about his comments, was that, once more, he has zigged when one expects zag.
He has, openly, acknowledged apostasy to his own church, so, in this view, what is it that he actually “believes” or has “faith” in, other than one more time around in the carousel for the “gold ring” of schievement and the perks and privileges of “success.”
I really thing the guy is a case of multiple personalities, and one who has yet to “integrate” himself.
It’s HIS prob, not ours. And all of us will survive his wanderings and meanderings.
Well, most of us. Some of us?
Frank Eng
P.S.: I note, pswing, with some bemusement that well-heeled media specimens aren’t much better than thee and I, and that EVERYone needs at least one copyreader, as in those who today say “tow” the line, when they mean “toe,” as in the starting point of races, and not as in tow that barge or heave that bale, apologies to Porgy.
Sheesh.
Give the old poot time, and, with luck, he may yet get it right.
It’s “lift” that bale and NOT Porgy, but “Showboat” and Jerome Kern’s deathless “Ol’ Man River” as intoned by Paul Robeson. What lyrics. Get a little drunk and you lands in jail. And many of us get “tired of livin,’ but scared of dyin’,” well, scared of dying at any rate.
Ah, the artists in our midst, then and now, what would ANY of us do without them?
Thanks for keeping me on top of things, Frank ;)
- P.J. Swing
Dear P.J. Swing:
May I hitch my li’l ol’ “red wagon” to your young star here for a sec? Well, a few ‘graphs?
Anent typos and misprints and misspellings and such, there ARE those who believe that spelling and punctuation and grammar and syntax automatically elevate them into the ranks of those who actually “think” and rationalize.
I won’t name names here because some of them get apoplectic and go into what Gore Vidal called “hissy fits”? as William F. Buckley was wont to do on-screen in supposed “debates” between grown “men”?
Whatever, I was rhapsodizing before dreamland last night about the obvious fact of faulty memory in re such as lyrics from wonderful “shows,” and still can’t decide whether Kern’s lyric was “sick” of livin’ and scared of dyin’. But the essence remains, whatever the specific word.
Which leads to the obvious: the MESSAGE is the “medium,” NOT the lingua franca of the time or usage.
The fact that some of us think their beliefs and persuasions are more believable or persuasive than someone else’s simply because HIS are, in common acceptance, “literate,” i.e., “educated” and conforming to the model promulgated by his betters, is, in fact, a non sequitur of the highest order.
Simply because syntax and grammar and spelling and punctuation are NOT either reason OR logic.
Whether “hot” or “cool,” and whether elegantly and lovingly crafted as in doctoral theses, with proper footnotes properly notated and referenced, the test is the thought, the idea, the MESSAGE, between communicator and communicant.
Furthermore, the ultimate test is the VALIDITY of said thought or idea.
Not that proper spelling and punctuation, and grammar and syntax don’t have their “proper” place, but that “place” is irrelevant beyond the validity and the relevancy of the thought or idea, HOWEVER it may be -stated.
Finally, you hope?, it is this belief and position, that there are even MORE methods and modes of human communications, especially those that are nonverbal, many of them more CONVINCING, such as “body language”? and maybe even a slight raising of ONE eyebrow, as in, REALLY?
So chase those semicolons and those redundancies and those errant misrecollections and, especially, those egregious misstatement of “facts,” such as they are or should be — Hillary actually threatened to wipe out an entire nation? Oy vey! Couldn’t she just push them into the adjacent seas? — but try to have fun in so doing. I’m sure you’re not overpaid. Hint, hint, Ted Fang.
And, when you miss a comma or a cap-whatever, always remember, you are swinkin’ away at the ONLY English-language APA publication in this English-only, please, land. And that ain’t frenchyfied patoots.
Frank Eng
P.S.: You’re no doubt too young, but may I commiserate you in the fact that you, likely, did NOT get to see AND hear Lena Horne in her final “one-woman” show onstage, wherein, I kid you not, she managed to turn pop songs into impassioned storming of operatic heights of both tonal AND melodic consequences. Never heard Robeson on stage, but “Show Boat” may still be available on DVD.
Great art, too, has little to do with “larnin’ ” and/or the common wisdoms of the insittutes. And their dollar-values have even less to do with it, do with it.
Huang,
Thanks for sharing your testimony. Obviously, I had no idea you were a fellow believer! I was really encouraged by what you shared. Again, thanks!