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 high value on academic achievement, and conversely, that those who struggle with conventional success have moral failings, are less cherished, or don’t belong. This is heartbreaking. The message of the Gospel is actually the reverse: that all are welcome and treasured in God’s family, especially those who are seen as unimportant in the world.

PYK: I was intrigued by your “Relevant Theological Questions” list in Chapter 5. These are such important – and challenging – questions for Asian and Asian American communities to wrestle with. In particular, this question jumped out at me: “What does it mean to handle microaggressions and overt racism in a Christian way?” Could you briefly answer your own question?

KTL: The best way to respond to microaggressions and overt racism is so situation dependent. (A tip: online comment sections are not the venue for these kinds of conversations!) But there are some guiding principles to consider. First, any response must honor the humanity and the image of God in each party. If we succumb to hatred, condemnation, or shaming, we also allow bitterness and judgmentalism to corrode our own hearts. Second, any response ought to be relational and invitational. We keep the door open for repentance in the perpetrator by showing them the harm they’ve caused and inviting them to make things right. If they refuse, that’s on them. But we don’t preclude that possibility by scoring cheap rhetorical points at their expense. We won’t turn the tide of racism in this country by winning arguments, only by changing hearts.

And lastly, even as we maintain a loving and hopeful posture, we stand firmly against the perpetuation of racist views or actions. We take action to ensure the victim is protected and restored. We don’t minimize the wrongdoing just to palliate the perpetrator’s feelings.

As a caveat, it is easier for me to say this as a privileged Asian American woman who has been protected from the worst racism. For those who have been so harmed by racist people or policies that extending a gracious response feels impossible or damaging, it’s wise to hand the baton to someone else to fight for justice and to take care for yourself in peace. Either way, we must stay rooted in love.

PYK: As someone who has internalized many Asian cultural values, such as the emphasis on not challenging social norms, I admire your boldness: You don’t shy away from critiquing salient Asian cultural values! I was especially struck by your discussion around indebtedness. Could you explain why indebtedness as a cultural emphasis can be detrimental to relationships? I was always taught that a sense of owing something to another being and honoring that person through repaying what is owed is an important way to deepen interpersonal connections.

KTL: To be clear, a sense of interdependence and mutuality is important for developing healthy relationships. But a system of indebtedness can become legalistic and rob us of understanding God’s freely-given grace. When acts of service are done out of obligation rather than out of love, they lose their power. I’ve seen tit-for-tat exchanges of presents that are more about saving face than wanting to bless the recipient in a meaningful way. I can’t be the only one who has done a favor for an acquaintance in order to free myself from any sense of further indebtedness to them, rather than to deepen ties.

There are times when a sense of obligation and duty to family or to society can lead us to an admirable course of action, such as caring for elderly parents or serving in the public sector, but ultimately, whether that’s done out of resentment or out of joyful purpose makes all the difference.

PYK: For those readers grappling with their immigrant experiences and how the experiences connect to their Christian faith, what advice would you have? What is one concrete step that they can take today?

KTL: Read my book! Just kidding. I think learning Asian American history is so important for contextualizing our individual immigrant experiences, and learning history in general is essential for understanding our relationships with others, societal institutions, and power dynamics. It helps us question and critique the power structures that were responsible for things like the Chinese Exclusion Act and Japanese American internment during WWII–forces that continue to inform unjust policies today. That might sound like a strange step in terms of deepening our faith, but faith isn’t meant to stay individualized and restricted to a personal relationship with God. Rather, our love and devotion to God is meant to transform our relationships with others, including speaking up in solidarity with the poor and oppressed in today’s world. An understanding of history helps us identify more clearly where we’ve gone wrong in the past and who we should be advocating for in the present.

Kristin T. Lee is a writer whose work has appeared in Christianity Today and Sojourners, and a primary care physician serving Boston’s Chinatown community. Her passion is highlighting literature written by Asian and BIPOC authors via book reviews and reading groups on Instagram: @ktlee.writes.

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