In Kristin T. Lee’s upcoming book, We Mend with Gold: An Immigrant Daughter's Reckoning with American Christianity, she shares compelling and relatable stories from her upbringing in Asian and Asian American Christian communities, highlighting how these well-intentioned communities often internalized Western perspectives on Christianity. She also describes the harm that can emerge from an unquestioning acceptance of Western standards applied to Christian faith, and outlines ways to unlearn those perspectives, for both individual and communal liberation.

Following are Kristin's responses to a few questions from me about her work:

Paul Youngbin Kim: There is so much good in Asian immigrant churches. Yet, as you describe throughout the book, some of the very things that are good can also inflict harm. Can you share an example of this?

Kristin T. Lee: Asian immigrant churches express God's love in many extraordinary ways, but they are not immune to social and environmental influences. Since many immigrants have had to work extremely hard to survive in a new land and escape financial precarity, adults in immigrant congregations sometimes place outsized importance on ensuring that the youth excel in their academic and extracurricular pursuits. These traditional pathways to stability, especially getting into an elite college, are often seen as the pinnacle of obedience and an expression of virtue.

While the pressure this puts on the youth is weighty enough, it can become doubly so when success in the world gets glossed with Christian language, such as “It’s a sign of God’s blessing” or “Your excellence is a good witness to others.” When youth who excel in school get celebrated while others are overlooked, it can send the warped message that God, too, places........

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