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If you’ve been following Barack Obamamania, you may have seen Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s latest speech. I think he’s quite the communicator and offers some profound insights, but I can’t say I quite agree with a lot of what he says, or the arrogance he sometimes projects.
What caught my attention was his discourse on Black liberation theology. Wright’s passion, and the narrative behind it is quite powerful. Which of course makes me wonder if there is any type of corresponding Asian theology that we can speak of with such pride???
The Chinese immigrant church has been booming in Toronto that past decade. I’ve had ‘white’ pastors tell me a number of times how enamored they are with the life they find in the growing Chinese church. They also ask when the Chinese church will start reaching back out to the rest of culture.
All the while, I know many 2nd generation Chinese Jesus-followers are a bit embarrassed by the mostly ‘ethnic’ church that they’re a part of. They’d love to reach out to others, but can’t get passed the initial ethnic barriers. Is there a story in the Chinese or Asian context with which we can uniquely proclaim as the Black church does?
I know there must be one, my seminary even offers courses specifically on Chinese theology and spirituality. I can’t say I’ve heard much in my time in Chinese church circles though.
I do know that when great oppression meets the liberating Gospel of Christ, revivals are often stoked. This of course is a huge part of the narrative in the black church. It’s also an integral part of the church in China that is exploding, which everyone seems to be raving about these days.
As for Chinese or Asian Christians in the west, I can’t say I hear a unifying story being shouted from the rooftops.
I’m sure part of it is due to a cultural inferiority complex along with some model minority issues, but someone please educate me on this one before I make something up… is there a uniquely Asian theology we should be cherishing? Or is there really a need for one?
I just finished Anthony Weston’s “How to re-imagine the world”, a wild little book about reawakening radical imagination for social transformation.
Weston’s strengths are definitely in the realm of futuristic/ideation which completely jives with me.
He pitches a few ideas that are aching to be implemented like sports for the homeless, turning military bases into retreat centers, cutting the work week in half, preemptive peace, sun-baked roads that generate electricity, and creating floating cities to name a few.
Some quotes I highlighted from the book
Radical imagination begins with a move beyond complaint and resistance, beyond reactive tinkering or hunkering down or cynical accommodation. The first big move is to an alternative picture of how things could be instead.
Truly generative, inventive, new thinking requires risk-taking and is iteself a discipline. Mental stretching and twisting, conceptual self-provocations, going two steps too far – we need techniques, in short, to shock or seduce our ideas into unexpected and suggestive re-arrangements, freezing up space and generating raw material for the constructive imagination.
How can we make life more ecstatic?
Along with battling poverty we need to ask why we tolerate radical inequality at all. In many African tribal societies, even a single homeless person is felt as a disgrace by all. How did we get where we are?
We know too little of the natural world to come to love it.
Who would Jesus bomb?
A couple sites Weston recommends worldchanging.com and globalideasbank.org
…but she is my mother. ~ St. Augustine.
That’s how I’ve felt about seminary quite often.
The overblown tuition, the seduction of academia and professionalism, the regurgitation of thought, the staleness of the classroom environment, the creative vacuum, and the incredible chasm between how things are, and the way you know it ought to be, in a place like this.
But she is still my mother. She is still a part of my journey. She has still taken me far enough to think the thoughts and ask the questions that I have today.
Not all classes were lame, and some professors have profoundly challenged me. ie. my last prof. had a third of our classes off-site, gripped my heart when he shared, and gave us books that he loved while telling us to write about what we hate about them. I wish more of my classes were like this.
I’m still trying to recall what I’ve learned that I’ll actually use… but, thank you Tyndale Seminary for helping bring me this far, giving me a space to think and grow, and an environment where some relationships were actually nurtured. It’s a ridiculous luxury to be able to sit around and ponder the things of God.
I’ve still have some bitterness I’m sure I’ll get over, but I can’t deny it’s been a privilege and an honor that I don’t take lightly. Thank you to so many of you who have patiently supported me.
…thank God it’s over.
Photo by jayw
After six years of seminary, I’m finally done.
And now I’m sick.
But as soon as that’s over, it’s going to be a whole new chapter in our lives.
