Today, Asian American Christians find the language of our faith exploited to attack the language of our heritage. It's time we took action.
By Lucas Kwong
F
or a stretch of my childhood, I spent Tuesday nights poring over a language I never spoke. My mother speaks Cantonese; my father grew up switching between Tagalog and Toisanese. English is the only language we share. Nonetheless, I learned how to write characters—proper sequence of strokes, please—and pronounce them, sort of, in Cantonese.
Eventually, my boredom, not to mention frustration with endless assignments, became undeniable. Realizing their son was more interested in music, my parents allowed me to make my exit from Chinese school so I could spend time on piano. Even then, learning to play Chopin struck me as a painfully stereotypical Asian pursuit, but I practiced in hope of learning Beatles songs and jazz chords. By high school, I was fumbling through Jimi Hendrix on the secondhand Fender Stratocaster my mother bought me for my fourteenth birthday. Through music, I found a God beyond restrictive ways of thinking, like an obsession with grades or only one kind of worship style. Dropping out of Chinese school showed me there was more than one way to be Chinese; spending my newfound time playing the music I wanted to play, with my church’s support, showed me there was more than one way to be a Christian.
Ironically, dropping out and focusing on music also led me to appreciate why Chinese school exists in the first place. Music has always preserved what is human, what reflects the image of God, in the face of dehumanization or pressure to conform. I learned this lesson through falling in love with early rock 'n' roll and absorbing how Chuck Berry defined himself in Jim Crow America. I also learned this through hammering out Little Richard’s “Kansas City/Hey Hey Hey Hey!” for my pastor’s birthday, and seeing him respond with appreciation rather than with an exorcism. In focusing on the language of music, I gained perspective on why passing on Chinese felt so urgent to the previous generation. Assimilation threatens to crush what God has always blessed as good: the many forms of human expression, be they languages or guitar licks.
Today, the idea of such a God is under threat. Christian nationalism, in the words of sociologists Samuel Perry and Andrew Whitehead, “idealizes and advocates a fusion of American civic life with a particular type of Christian identity and culture.” In place of a body “from all tribes and peoples and languages,” Christian nationalists like Sen. Marsha Blackburn insist on “America First.” In denominations like Patriot Church, pastors talk not of bringing Christ to all, but of forcing America to Christ. In Taking America Back for God, Perry and Whitehead unpack the racialized implications of this dogmatic patriotism: “Christian nationalism favors the in-group, which is presumed to be white.” As innocuous as nationalism might sound, particularly for those who associate it with Dr. Sun Yat Sen, devotion to the nation-state today privileges one way of being Christian, one way of being an ethnic minority. In other words, it privileges submission to white supremacy.
Indeed, Christian nationalism today means anti-Asian hostility. Graham Brookie, director of the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensics Research Lab, observes in an article about the Lab’s analysis of anti-Chinese tweets, “[Politicians] are the main amplifiers [of anti-Chinese rhetoric] . . . That is what drives stigmatization.” According to the DFR Lab report, self-described “proud Catholic” Rep. Paul Gosar single handedly popularized the term “Wuhan virus”; Presbyterian Mike Pompeo’s use of the term “resulted in an 800 percent increase in the phrase [on Twitter]." Indeed the senators who try to ban Chinese graduate students and blame China for the extent of the outbreak are all outspoken believers. Predictably, Christian nationalist views now strongly correlate to “finding nothing racist about calling COVID-19 the 'China Virus.'” Sadly, the correlation may increasingly define Democrats as well: Joe Biden, whose acceptance speech was peppered with references to God, faith, and the Bible, came under fire during the election season for an ad that accused Trump of “rolling over for the Chinese.” A leaked DNC memo adopts similar language as a key talking point. Tobita Chow, director of Justice is Global, observes that hawks on both sides of the aisle frame the US-China relationship in terms of a “new cold war.”
The God who loves all his image bearers would surely oppose encouraging contempt for our ability to express ourselves in whatever language we please. Nonetheless, Christian nationalists do exactly that, while their churches say nothing. Senator-elect Bill Hagerty, whose Twitter account featured almost twice as many anti-Chinese tweets as Donald Trump’s for the first eight months of 2020, is a member of St. George’s Episcopal Church. The church’s rector, Rev. Leigh Spruill, has issued a “statement on systemic racism.” Yet he has issued no statement on Sen. Hagerty’s incessant declarations that China “gave” the “Wuhan virus” to America. Are Asians welcome at St. George’s if they must speculate whether Sen. Hagerty’s or Rev. Spruill’s sentiments prevail? And are we to remain silent as pastors like Rev. Spruill give their passive consent to increasing the risk of hate crimes?
Demanding accountability need not amount to performative outrage. It was because John the Baptist understood his audience’s dignity that he urged them to bear “fruit in keeping with repentance.” In other words, he expected humane behavior from human beings. To shy away from his example on the basis of this politician or that church leader's influence is to lose sight of their humanity—not to mention the humanity of those hurt by their rhetoric and (in)action. It is, in short, to presume that these people are incapable of ethical behavior. Ultimately, passivity substitutes exclusion for expression, comfort for conviction.
As long as politicians slander China, and as long as churches remain silent, Americans of all ethnicities and creeds will receive the impression that the gospel promotes an existential conflict between “godless” Communist China and “godfearing” (white) America. The “fruit” of that impression will either be disgust for religious hypocrisy or zeal for holy war. The latter response may entail literally using the name of Jesus to terrorize our Buddhist neighbors. In more horrific instances, it may entail stabbing a toddler. To reduce the likelihood of such stomach-turning acts, and dispel their association with Christ, we must confront those who enable it.
To this end, I’ve written an open letter addressing the nexus of Christian nationalism and anti-Asian racism. It calls for repentance and substantive change from politicians and church leaders. While it is meant to be signed by Asians of any creed or nationality, as well as allies of any background, it is written in the voice of Asian American Christians. We owe this transformation to our own ethnic communities, to non-Christians repelled by sanctified bigotry, to COVID victims whose recovery has been obstructed by the politics of fear, and to children wondering whether there is only one way to be Asian, one way to be Christian. Providing them with an answer requires demanding that self-identified Christian politicians, and the churches that support them, reject the language of racism and begin speaking the language of that “heavenly country” to which we all belong. Otherwise, we may one day find that we have lost our mother tongue.
You can find Against Christian Xenophobia at againstchristianxenophobia.com, www.facebook.com/xenoseimi, www.instagram.com/xenoseimi, and www.twitter.com/xenoseimi.
Photo by Christian Mendoza on Unsplash
Lucas Kwong is a writer, musician, and assistant professor of English at New York City College of Technology. He's written at eschatontwist.substack.com, The Institute for Christian Socialism’s Bias Magazine, Public Books, Journal of Narrative Theory, and Victorian Literature and Culture. He is also assistant editor for New American Notes Online. His music can be found at brotherkmusic.com. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife.