ASIAN AMERICAN BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION

By Janette H. Ok

Excerpt from The New Testament in Color

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eading the Bible as Asian Americans is not often something we are consciously aware of or actively pursue when we approach the Scriptures. Especially for those of us who have been seminary trained, studying the Bible with integrity means laying down our own biases as much as possible in pursuit of a faithful hermeneutic. As noble as this endeavor sounds, the pursuit of a “pure” hermeneutic ignores one of the most fundamental principles in biblical interpretation: we can never fully leave our cultural lenses behind. The questions we ask, methods we adopt, and processes we use are all formed by and within cultural frameworks. In this excerpt from her chapter, “Asian American Biblical Interpretation,” in The New Testament In Color, Janette Ok shows how our unique experiences and identities as Asian Americans can help bring fresh eyes to the ancient text of the Scriptures. In doing so, we will shed light on truths embedded in the Word of God, and be better equipped to apply the Word with clarity and precision to our Asian American contexts.

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What does it mean to engage in Asian American biblical interpretation, and who gets to engage in it? Tat-siong Benny Liew rightly cautions that the very question of “‘who’” and/or ‘what’” runs the risk of being exclusionary and essentialist, and attempts to delimit and define will inevitably be challenged and contested (What Is Asian American Biblical Hermeneutics?).

That said, it is important to distinguish between biblical interpretation produced by Asian Americans from Asian American biblical Interpretation (Park, “Korean American Biblical Interpretation,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Bible in Korea). One does not engage in Asian American biblical interpretation simply by being Asian American, just as one does not engage in feminist or womanist interpretation by virtue of being a woman. Rather, Asian American biblical interpretation explicitly and intentionally approaches biblical texts not only by means of exegesis but also through diverse and overlapping Asian American experiences and histories. It uses an interpretive framework of Asian heritage, migration experience, American culture, and racialization to generate further conversation and insights about the meaning and/or impacts of biblical texts. It engages in interdisciplinary research that interacts closely with Asian American studies and often includes theological, postcolonial, ideological, liberationist, and intersectional approaches to reading the Bible. Asian American biblical interpretation is committed to reading with, for, and about those who have been minoritized due to their Asian identity, while also offering them critique. It proposes a way forward toward greater justice and equality for Asian Americans.

From a confessional perspective, Asian American biblical interpretation has the potential to do what I describe above in response to the concrete needs and gifts of Asian American Christians in ways that both reflect the complexities of Asian American Christian identity and approach the Bible as Scripture. By Scripture, I mean how God actively speaks to us through the Bible, which witnesses to God’s faithfulness to God’s people over the ages and reveals the ways God is present and active in our world. Scripture guides, exhorts, rebukes, nourishes, empowers, shapes, and transforms the church. However, while Scripture is primary and foundational for understanding the will and character of God, the meaning behind it is not self-evident. That is, we rely on the Holy Spirit for revelation, and we interpret Scripture using reason through the lenses of tradition and experience. Contextual biblical interpretation is thus critically important for understanding Scripture.

Ecclesially oriented Asian American biblical interpretation is potentially one of its strongest contributions because such interpretations remain “on the ground,” while also being rooted in sociohistorical and theological contexts of the biblical texts (Pascal D. Bazzell, Urban Ecclesiology). It uses theory and interdisciplinary and intersectional ways of engaging texts that are not divorced from Asian American lived experience. It pushes against the normativity and centrality of dominant White, patriarchal, colonial, and Christian nationalistic ways of being and reading. With such perspectives in place, the unique vision, concerns, and challenges of Asian American Christians will remain marginalized as cultural and foreign tokens within churches, seminaries and universities, and the guilds of biblical studies, as well as among Christians in the United States at large. When done in connection with the church and Asian American Christians of various stripes, including those who identify as evangelicals, Asian American biblical interpretation gives voice to the rich traditions of resistance, liberation, community, and spirituality that have nourished and sustained Asian American ecclesial and parachurch communities (Meena Venkataramanan, “Asian Americans Are Changing the Face of Evangelicalism”). It has the potential to form Asian American students, ministers, and readers to develop greater capacities to think theologically and interpret the Bible critically as they consider and respond to the ways the gospel relates to their lives.

Asian American biblical interpretation stands in solidarity with other communities of color in the fight for racial justice, while seeking the interests of their own ethnic groups and the broader collective interests of Asian Americans. It takes on the critical hermeneutical task of helping Christian leaders, ministers, preachers, and teachers bridge today’s issues and problems with the world of the Bible and its readers while forming disciples of Christ.

To engage in Asian American biblical interpretation is to bear public witness to the ways Asian Americans understand and live out the gospel and God’s concern for justice for all who are marginalized and oppressed (Lee, Doing Asian American Theology). Asian American biblical interpretation ultimately concerns itself with the flourishing of humanity and the world, with a particular focus on people and communities who have “ethnic and/or affective ties to both sides of the Pacific” and whose sense of identity “exceeds the limits of national borders and narrow understandings of political territoriality and citizenship” (Ho, “Complex Heterogeneity of Asian American Identity”).

Asian American biblical interpretation is an ethnically, ecumenically, and methodologically diverse phenomenon that resists exhaustive definition, even as it seeks to define itself (Koh, “Asian American Christian Theology”). It is a dynamic approach to reading the Bible that sees Christian faith as the motivation to embrace one’s ethnic and racial identities and histories and “do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with our God” (Mic 6:8, NRSV adapted). It has activist, coalitional, pan-ethnic, and cross-racial roots in the pursuit of equal rights and justice for Asian Americans and other minoritized groups in the United States. It finds its grounding in the understanding that particularity and contextuality matter to God, and rejects the ideology of colorblindness. As Asian American biblical interpretation takes up more discursive space within academic circles and formative space within churches, it must continue to make room for minoritized voices within Asian America and Asian American Christianity and invest actively in cross-racial solidarity. In doing so, Asian American biblical interpretation reflects the complex, diverse, and heterogeneous identities and histories of individuals and communities who matter to God and who expand what it means to be the people of God.

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Taken from The New Testament in Color edited by Esau McCaulley, Janette H. Ok, Osvaldo Padilla, and Amy Peeler. Copyright (c) 2024 by Esau McCaulley, Amy L. Peeler, Janette H. Ok, Osvaldo Padilla. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com

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Janette H. Ok is Associate Professor of New Testament at Fuller Seminary and an ordained pastor at Ekko Church in Anaheim, California. She also serves as a senior fellow for Fuller’s Asian American Center. Her research interests include 1–3 John and 1 Peter. She also studies the formation of early Christian identity, with an emphasis on Asian American, intersectional, and feminist approaches to biblical interpretation and engaging research from the social sciences. She is the author of Constructing Ethnic Identity in 1 Peter: Who You Are No Longer (2021) and coeditor and contributor to The New Testament in Color: A Multiethnic Bible Commentary (2024). She has contributed to numerous edited volumes, including At This Time: Dialogues in Theological Education. Janette brings over 25 years of ministry experience to the classroom and is passionate about forming wise leaders for the church.

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