asian americans

Josiah R. Daniels 1-09-2024

Jonathan Tran. Graphic by Tiarra Lucas/Sojourners

Tran won’t settle for simply critiquing racial capitalism or popular anti-racist enterprises that steer clear of economics. Tran believes that Christian theology offers an alternative story to the economy of racial capitalism, an alternative that finds its locus in what he describes as the “divine economy.”

Image via Gage Skidmore/flickr.com

A decade ago, a critic accused me of writing a book about a “nonexistent” threat from the religious right. One reviewer called my work a “paranoid rant,” while another detractor wrote my “alarmist” views were “exaggerated and implausible.”

In The Baptizing of America: The Religious Right’s Plans For The Rest Of Us, published in 2006, I had warned that a well-financed and highly organized group of religious and political leaders was seeking to impose their narrow extremist beliefs and harsh public policies on the United States, even as our nation’s population was increasingly multireligious, multiethnic, and multiracial.

the Web Editors 8-12-2016

This week Asian-American women leaders at American University in Washington, D.C., released a video of local Asian Pacific Islanders reading a letter of solidarity in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The collaborative letter was drafted online last month as Asian Americans across the country responded to the shootings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, black men killed recently by police officers.

Kevin Sakaguchi 10-29-2013

Sombre Model Looking Away. Courtesty Claire McAdams, via Shutterstock

On Oct. 13, Asian Americans United published an open letter asking the church to reevaluate its behavior toward its Asian brothers and sisters. The letter demands that the evangelical community listen and respect a community that has generally been overlooked or disregarded. Central to this issue is identity.

When we begin to divide or alienate communities through our behavior based on race, we are additionally dividing the identity of Christ. However, if we return to the core of what being Christian entails, we are reminded that we are not our own and find a new calling to community. 

With whom do you identify? In a nation, with over 75 percent of its population nominally claiming the label Christian, asking whom we identify with is an important question. It is a challenge but a daily necessity to reflect on our character and ask if we are truly representing Christ.

Kathy Khang 9-27-2013

So, here is the dilemma. Do I think so highly of myself to think that Warren’s apology and reference to an email is actually about me? That is ridiculous. I know there were others who emailed him. But for the sake of argument, let’s assume Warren is talking about my email, which I re-read. I never say “I am offended.” I had a lot of questions because I wanted to understand. I wanted to hear and open up dialogue because I didn’t understand Warren’s logic, humor, or joke. I really didn’t understand why Warren’s supporters would then try to shut down those who were offended (and I include myself in the camp of those hurt, upset, offended AND distressed) by telling us/me to be more Christian like they themselves were being.

There is no “if.”  I am hurt, upset, offended, and distressed, not just because “an” image was posted, but that Warren posted the image of a Red Guard soldier as a joke, because people pointed out the disconcerting nature of posting such an image — and then Warren told us to get over it, alluded to how the self-righteous didn’t get Jesus’ jokes but Jesus’ disciples did, and then erased any proof of his public missteps and his followers’ mean-spirited comments that appeared to go unmoderated.

I am hurt, upset, offended, and distressed when fellow Christians are quick to use Matthew 18 publicly to admonish me (and others) to take this issue up privately without recognizing the irony of their actions, when fellow Christians accuse me of playing the race card without trying to understand the race card they can pretend doesn’t exist but still benefit from, when fellow Christians accuse me of having nothing better to do than attack a man of God who has done great things for the Kingdom.

Johnathan Smith 1-17-2011

In his "I Have a Dream" speech, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Edward Gilbreath 1-12-2010
Racial reconciliation among evangelicals is one of those slippery topics that come and go based on which national leader is currently jazzed about it.
Kathy Khang 11-19-2009
In the eight years I worked specifically with Christian Asian American college students, I knew that my gender would get in the way.
Eugene Cho 6-05-2009

Welcome to the month of June. Did you know that May is considered Asian Pacific Heritage Month? Don't worry, most folks don't know or care either.