Impractical, Not Profitable, But Not Bad
I think the president should be an atheist,” my sixteen-year-old cousin said plainly over the breakfast table. She is my cousin from my wife’s side of the family, who is Indian American — Hindu Brahmins — steeped in politics and well aware of problems at the intersection of church and state, or at least mosque, temple and state.
She was responding to my question of what would make a great president. It surprised me that she viewed atheism as the foremost and presumably a desirable requirement for political leadership, particularly as her devout Hindu father sat at the table across from me, a Korean American Christian.
Yet, I think I understand what she’s getting at. Religion and spirituality are personally good things, but in politics and real life, they seem to be what economists call inefficiencies. And we’re too pragmatic to tolerate these persistent inefficiencies, aren’t we? We value stoicism and precision. Religion, while perhaps not the opiate that Marx considered, can simply be dismissed as impractical for many of us. We were raised on criticism and discipline (arguably, a religion of a different sort), which leads to the question: What place does something so impractical as faith have in Asian American life?
Pragmatism has a cost as well, which is also to say faith and spirituality are not all bad. Life and love cannot only exist on spreadsheets. It’s possible the richness of our spirituality, while not always efficient, could deepen the ways in which we Asian Americans express ourselves. Asian spirituality tends to emphasize the individual meditative and self-control aspects (it’s little wonder the individualistic American consumerist culture latches onto piecemeal religious practices), but do Asian Americans enrich the greater community compelled by our faith? Asian Americans have always been viewed as wonderful technicians, professionals and creatives, but when do we inspire the nation by our acts of compassion and justice?
I wonder if Asian America could produce someone who exudes confident and competent leadership in the spiritual sense. Does our penchant for the practical and profitable lend itself to the formation of an Asian American version of a Martin Luther King Jr., or a Mother Teresa, or a Mahatma Gandhi? A Bono or an Albert Schweitzer? Asian Americans are spiritual in the privatized, mind-your-own-business sense, but have we the conviction and strength of character to alter the public landscape because of our beliefs?
I’ve found faith and spirituality a compelling dimension of Asian American culture and life requiring further exploration, not because atheists or theists need to be convinced otherwise, but because faith has yet a meaningful role in private and in public. The answer is not simply to toss our faith aside, but to understand where we can integrate spirituality in our own lives and in the lives of others in inefficient, yet significant ways.
David Park is a blogger, new father, and seminary student in Atlanta, Ga.
Man, you are so much better than that other yahoo they had writing before. Great post and good questions. Keep it up!
Dear David Park”
An exemplary and wonderful insight.
But, and this is a major but, not an atheist but or even an agnostic one, I question the idea of a “religious” OR “spiritual” leader of APA origin in the context of POLITICS.
That is precisely the point where, today, some neo-Christian “scholars” appear to have found Biblical conjunction with neo-Zionist politizations.
The result: an ongoing genocide and a continued fracturing of sects and cults and “Gods” and “God”-invokers who kill and maim and torture and make a mockery of everything human that aspires.
Koreans already have their Moon man as well.
No, a true religion would abstain from bloody politics and economic oppressions.
And MLK’s eminence is less “faith”-based than it is/was based in the infamy of slavery and oppression, the latter still ongoing.
As for the inimitable Gandhi, he “embraced” ALL religions, and was, essentially, a master politician who turned the strictures of colonial oppressors onto themselves.
And Marx WAS correct in his view, although I would add the observation that said opiate has largely, historically, been turned into rationalized inhumanity to humankind, throughout history, from literal sacrifices and auto-da-fes to today’s bloodless bloodlettings of atomic and “smart” bomvs.
Note ye well the attendant proclamations of “faith” in respective “Gods.”
Frank Eng
P.S.: And this week’s mindless slaughter of innocents in that Unitarian/Universalist church in Tennessee? Was that an act of a man of “faith”?
In response to your observation about the nexus between pragmatism and faith, what would you say is the depth of purchase of theologies of prosperity within Asian American communities of faith? Those theologies focus on faith as a means of generating material “blessings” for the individual…usually as the result of a combination of prayer and lots and lots of giving to the church. I’ve seen some evidence of it in my own ministry context (I’m an Anglo pastor in a congregation transitioning to being primarily 2.0 Korean), but would be interested in your insights.
http://www.belovedspear.org
Frank — fair enough, in politics, i agree. it’s necessary for empire and its preservation to be separate from religion in the institutional sense. they make for poor bedfellows. i was perhaps more on the lines of suggesting that religion plays a part in calling politics to account for things which cannot be quantified as capital / labor inputs and/or outputs. in essence, i don’t think king or gandhi could have accomplished what they did without their respective faiths. if we commit only to the economics of the material, we will have no ideals which make us most human (or if you prefer, reflective of the divine). but all that to say, i see your point and concede that the gods of war are cheap and disposable gods. i’m suggesting that we allow God to be above that fray, but not altogether otherworldy, if that makes sense.
David — there are a lot more people in the blogosphere much more qualified to get into that than me, but I can attest to your observation. You are right to point out to the problems of the underlying theologies which culturally have some socio-historical vestiges with shamanism and all. it also does not help with televangelists and cheap prosperity gospel theology is the common presentation for many immigrant communities in the US. there is a growing disenchantment with this in the subsequent generation, but it also means a drop in prayer and giving to the church, so there becomes a tension in how exactly to make that transition theologically. but i think a good starting point is to ask questions on the connections between provision and worship. the growing movement of new monasticism is very helpful in this sense, but it has yet to surface in asian american church circles (at least to my knowledge). hope that helps.
Messrs. Park & Williams:
I am presumptuous, indeed, to inject these “secular humanist” thoughts here, but, nudnik quidnunc I continue to be, I can’t resist the temptation, apologies to Oscar.
Perhaps, the Devil makes me do this.
First, the 19th-Century “missionaries” evoked the class of “rice-bowl Christians,” and whythell not? After all, most of those “converts” were near-starving.
Second, history is rife and replete with the bloody sagas of “religions” gone mad with either “power” OR perks, like the UNholy Roman empiricists of Roman or Eastern Orhtodox persuasions, and I don’t exclude the popinjay likes of the contemporary “clergy.”
That said, I stand totally respectful AND a bit in awe that you both appear to be open, honest, AND altruistic, a combination fraught with vulnerability, not to mention exploitation.
Personally, I believe that mine own “nexus” with the “Almighty” is something strictly between the totally insignificant and the Almighty.
Those who require intermediary must speak for themselves.
Frank Eng
P.S.: Of course, the very word “psychosomatic” bespeaks the consummate “melding” of that which is “of the flesh” with that which is of “the Spirit.” Mayhap, they are One and the same?
P.P.S.: Mr. Park, please wake me up when a Gibson or even a Graham pounds his pulpit and demands “justice” of the Caesars. The Bennetts have long been self-compromised. There HAVE been rabbi in the synagogues who HAVE spoken the truth to “power,” and there appear, even, to be “moderate” scholars of Islam who are denouncing the extremes of “jihad.” But, sadly, even those who would not squash a bug today are “out” on the hustings and violent in the streets.
P.P.P.S: And, irrelevantly but still pertinently, note well today’s postings by someone who, fatuously and condescendingly, proposes to lecture “Asian” “homosexuals” about their “condition.” And also, in the past, has evinced awesome denunciations of those who are not “white” but at least “yellow”? Ah, Jim Erbes, you have found a landsman. In an “Asian,” at that.
Wow, Frank. you win. where did all of that come from?
particularly before modernity, it is difficult to discern whether or not religion was driving the empire bus. so, while your critique of the inevitable corruptibility of religion is a widely accepted one, historically, it is honest to say that from the theologies espoused in their respective religions (christian or not) they were misguided. certainly that critique may apply even today, but to assume that only the religious were corrupt is a bit much, don’t you think? even if you label me as vulnerable and exploitative, i mean, come on…why try to vilify? i’ve only written this first article after all. i can do a fine job of that myself, given enough ink and paper.
here’s the point though…even if you accuse the religious of manipulating people into conversion by feeding the starving, wouldn’t you still agree that our concsciences still need to be pricked by someone who has the good sense to feed the hungry? don’t get me wrong, i agree with you that self-righteousness is not tantamount to righteousness, but there is such a thing as righteousness, right? i mean, at least the possibility?