What’s Going on in Asian American Christianity?

In this podcast, you’ll also hear Daniel, who trains Asian Americans for church leadership and others for ministry to Asian Americans, explain:

• The challenges Asian American Christian leaders face when serving in non-Asian majority contexts;
• The diversity within Asian American churches;
• The history and growth of Asian immigration to the United States; and
• How Asian American believers are influencing the broader U.S. evangelical movement.

Read a Portion of the Transcript

Leith: Talk to us about why cultural identity is important for all Christians to consider. And how does that relate to how diversity is important? How do these things connect?

Daniel: Cultural, racial, family, religion — all that’s important for us. It’s important, because we want to bring all of ourselves to God — for us to know ourselves and to offer all of ourselves to God. Offer all of ourselves to be reconciled with the gospel, all of ourselves to be transformed by the gospel, and all of who we are to be taken up for kingdom work. For that to happen, we need to know ourselves to be able to do that.

Now if we don’t know who we are, what ends up happening a lot of times is we assume that these things are just normative. They’re not things that impact our faith. One of the things that I’ve learned in missional theology is … that we’re actually in a context. Lesslie Newbigin and other people actually realized all the missiological tools we learned from all the oversees missions applies to America. The fact that we are in a context, and these things can actually enhance or distort our faith. In that way, if we don’t know our context, then we can be totally captive to our context as well.

So just for the sake of understanding what the gospel is and to make sure we’re not being co-opted by cultural context and cultural influences, it’s important to know our cultural identity. In another way, knowing ourselves actually helps us to see our neighbors as well. I think that’s important. In that sense, I think culture identity and knowledge and aptitude is important.

Share the Love

If you enjoyed the program, please rate it on iTunes and write a brief review. That will help get the word out and raise the visibility of the show.

Today’s Conversation is brought to you by Fuller Theological Seminary.

Daniel Lee is the director of the Asian American Center and assistant professor of theology and Asian American ministry at Fuller Theological Seminary. Ordained in the Korean Presbyterian Church Abroad, he has served in pastoral roles in both New Jersey and Southern California. He was previously a chaplain and a field staff member for Servants Ministry in Virginia. Lee is author of the book, “Double Particularity: Karl Barth, Contextuality, and Asian American Theology” as well as several articles. He holds a B.S. from the University of Virginia, an M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, and an M.Th. and a Ph.D. from Fuller Theological Seminary.

Leith Anderson is president emeritus of the National Association of Evangelicals and pastor emeritus of Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. He served as NAE president from 2007–2019, after twice serving as interim president. He served as senior pastor of Wooddale Church for 35 years before retiring in 2011. He has been published in many periodicals and has written over 20 books. Anderson has a Doctor of Ministry degree from Fuller Theological Seminary, and is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute, Bradley University and Denver Seminary.