Seeking Reconciliation after Deadly Vipers

November 11, 2009 // 4 Comments »

Posted in Asian-American Christianity, Church, Race, Reconciliation

It’s been a week after the Deadly Viper controversy and much dialogue and movement has happened. Moving toward reconciliation Mike Foster & Jud Wilhite have posted their conversation w Asian American leaders as well as Soong-Chan Rah. A conference with Zondervan was also conducted which included Ken Fong weighing in. This is definitely bigger than Mike & Jud or Zondervan could have ever anticipated.
What more is needed? Well. Much. Much. More. It’s beyond Mike & Jud but Deadly Vipers has certainly been an undeniable catalyst for change. If anything it will serve as a great case study in marketing on many levels including conflict resolution through social media.
Let me first say that I appreciate the many non-Asian voices that have added not just their voices to this important conversation but the steps to sincerely seek deep reconciliation and the faith to move towards the vision of a better ‘country’.

I think the question that many Asians bring up is, “Do White people get it?”
“Will they ever get it?”

This is about all of us and not just demonizing the “White Privilege” of Caucasian men. I am capable of insensitivity, prejudice, and worse. Our church is far from perfect. Our church bumbles and stumbles our way in the ministry of reconciliation but we’re committed to engaging in both conversation and actions – even if we know we’ll fall short. But we’ll keep trying because we know that the ministry of all things reconciliation is not an option but part of our discipleship. – From Eugene Cho

In race matters as well as in real relationships, we’re never going to get anywhere unless we step into the world of another person who is different from us. Becoming like Christ means we willingly step into another person’s reality just. I say this often, I never realized how ‘Chinese’ I was until I married my Italian-German wife. I thought I was more Italian than Chinese growing up in Brooklyn but living with my non-Chinese wife has forced me to confront things about myself. This is how I begin my response to Chinese leaderships that think to be an multi-ethnic church is merely the task of the American born in their church. Not that I think this should or shouldn’t be the goal of ethnic/immigrant churches but becoming a multi-ethnic church will challenge us in ways we cannot begin to imagine and typically fail to acknowledge. It’s a ‘nice’ thing to dream about. Unless we’re willing to step out, reinvent our ways of thinking and have our social consciousness challenged it will always remain a dream. We like being around people just like us. Once we’re doing life on life with those different than us be it their skin color or socio-economic status or something else will we really taste what Christ came to do – deep reconciliation. I have to ask church leaders, are you really committed to building ethnically rich dynamic gospel communities or clusters of likeness where we have lots in common and oh yea Jesus too…

Anyways there’s been some great movement amongst Asian American Leaders about what we need to do next. I had a great tokbox session last week with some great voices including headsparks (Dan So), elderj (Joshua Settles), djchuang, jadanzzy (Dan Ra), NextGenerAsian Church (David Park) including Eugene Cho and Bruce Reyes-Chow who popped their heads in now and then. We discussed identity formation for the next generation of Asian Americans in the church and we want to follow up from that conversation with “Asian American Women and the Church”. What an appropriate next step.
So if you’re around this Thurs 11/12 10p ET / 7p PT tune in on TokBox. I’ll post details on that soon.

Non-Asian Responses to Deadly Vipers
Skye Jethani: Hidden Racism?
Jonathan Brink: Confronting the Enemy Within
Ed Cyzewski: How White Christians Can Deal with Racial Insensitivity

Other
DJ Chuang: How a Conflict Played Out in Social Media

Seeking God in Deadly Vipers

November 5, 2009 // 6 Comments »

Posted in Asian-American, Race, Reconciliation

I need to say something but struggling to put together the words I think would be helpful regarding the escalating Deadly Viper controversy initiated by Prof. Soong-Chan Rah about the book Deadly Viper Character Assassins: A Kung Fu Survival Guide for Life and Leadership. Deadly Vipers has entered into a much bigger conversation than the authors and publishers (Zondervan) could have ever imagined challenging the message they desire to communicate. The book itself at first glance didn’t bother me too much. It wasn’t really on my radar until ProfRah called it out. In fact the book was first published in 2007 but it seems like the authors Mike and Jud kick started a campaign to grow the community this year. I had briefly met Mike Foster this year at The Idea Camp. I’ve always been a fan of his projects from Ethur to XXXChurch. I believe he loves Jesus.

I think I’m more bothered by indifference and many of the comments that say this isn’t a big deal and people are just over reacting. Is this where faith leads us? Why do we operate on the shallow end of such a deep and rich faith? Now the term racial reconciliation is kinda tired and reconciliation itself tends to not get any deeper than an apology. I think God has in mind much much more. But it’s hard and costly.
We’re called towards oneness.
Our vision is shalom – That’s not kumbaya around a campfire.

We all bring our own set of lenses into things. It’s difficult to know how people will receive what we say and do even if we mean well. We can’t ignore how we affect others especially a whole culture. I wouldn’t quite call Deadly Vipers outrightly racist but it’s appropriation of Asian images and stereotypes in its marketing is in my opinion destructive. Soong-Chan Rah highlights Deadly Vipers offenses that you can read about here.

I witness the injustice caused by stereotypes and racism on a regular basis working in immigrant communities. Stereotypes and racism created ethnic enclaves like Chinatown and continues to perpetuate them. It drives people and whole communities towards isolation and mistrust. Stereotypes do hurt and perpetuate the worst not the best in people or culture.

It’s naive to think that we’re past racism. I was enraged one day in the playground when slightly older non-Asian boys used racist language with my 3 yr old son. I kindly asked the boys to never use that kind of language again. I admit I began judging when I found that the boys were part of a group of church families getting together in the park. Where do they learn that from? Though my son may not have fully grasped what had occurred it made me feel like I’m still not really fully ‘American’ or like everyone else. On another note, my week started with an NBA commentator saying “Nice dunk by the Chinaman” about Nets, Yi Jianling. That was just weird and unnecessary.

Real conversation needs to take place beyond blogs and twitter. I don’t think the ‘dialogue’ on ProfRah’s blog was helpful but I’m thankful that Mike Foster and Jud Wilhite seem to be moving in the right direction. They’ve issued an apology on the Deadly Vipers blog and the most disturbing part of the Deadly Vipers marketing to me was the video posted on facebook which has been taken down by the time of this post. A real conversation is set to take place soon and I hope to post the results on this blog soon. I just want to say here that I love you guys. Really I do. I’m not writing to rip on you guys or judge you but to do what I can to bring real reconciliation and advance the kingdom. I want to see the beauty and power of Christ shine through you and the cracks of our brokenness.

Real conversation and change needs to happen with the publishers as well.  I’d like to see Zondervan think deeper beyond target markets. This isn’t the first time this publisher has shown insensitivity to Asian culture. We’ve been through this before.

So let’s go deep and get the conversation going for real change. If we really want to see a different tomorrow that’s in line with God’s idea of the future established by Christ we need to go deep and make sacrifices. We’re all broken and in need of second chances. This is where Christ gets to show us something we would have never expected and build his Church his way.

Some thoughtful responses:
Daniel So/Headsparks: “Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before”
Eugene Cho: “deadly vipers, mike foster, jud wilhite, soong-chan rah, chuck norris, joyluck club, angry asian man, wanna be ninjas and everyone else”

Dave Ingland: “Don’t Disrespect Me Because I’m Asian!”