There’s a dearth of public, strategic giving from Asian Americans. We can lead the way.
By DJ Chuang
W
hen aggregated together, Asian Americans have the highest educational attainment and highest median family income of any racial ethnic group in the country.
According to a 2020 Pew Research Center report about Asian American eligible voters, we have an annual median household income of $105,000 and 50 percent have a bachelor’s degree or more.
Many Asian Americans live below the poverty line and have serious financial and social needs. Contrary to the model minority myth, not all Asian Americans are doing well.
However, based on the data, there are also Asian Americans with more privilege. Many of us are blessed with an abundance of education and wealth, with greater capacity to make a difference in America and the world.
We aren’t there yet, but we’re on our way. Jesus would nudge us or actually push us to the extreme. Consider his poignant words spoken to the rich young ruler: “Jesus looked at him and loved him. ‘One thing you lack,’ he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me’” (Mark 10:21).
That is us. We are rich and young. Someone with an average income of $50,000 already ranks among the top 0.31 percent richest in the world.
A person’s abilities and opportunities to become wealthy ultimately comes from God, and it is to God whom we respond with our abilities--including our financial abilities.
A good number of people have made the Asian American Christian Collaborative possible by being generous with their time and talents. But, until we are also collectively generous with our money, we will remain stalled in our generation’s response to God’s call for making a difference in the world--or, as Steve Jobs said, “a dent in the universe.”
Public, Strategic Giving
Asian American Christians have financially and sacrificially supported the church and missions, but there is a greater witness when we also give to causes outside of traditional Christian ministries.
Public philanthropy models generosity and heightens awareness of community needs so more people can benefit and contribute. Due to Asian cultural values, many Asian Americans’ philanthropic giving tends to be done quietly and privately.
Unfortunately, private philanthropy or anonymous giving does not encourage others to be generous. Role models for public philanthropy can catalyze a multiplier effect. Though cynics may be suspicious of the motives behind such generosity, the positive results demonstratively overshadow any questionable motivations.
So what would it look like to have Asian American Christian role models for philanthropy? In the secular world, generous Asian Americans have formed nonprofit organizations such as Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy. In American Christianity, there’s an annual conference called The Gathering, where high-net-worth Christian donors learn from each other about strategic philanthropy and giving joyfully.
After working in Christian philanthropy for more than ten years, I haven’t seen a community of strategic philanthropy among followers of Christ in our Asian American tribe. Can you imagine what a community like this could do if we opened the floodgates of generosity from Asian American Christians? It would overflow into even greater impact for our nation and world. This community could generate conversations about Asian American Christian philanthropy, and create role models for generosity.
Cultural Challenges to Giving
For churches and pastors of all ethnic backgrounds, the subject of money is uncomfortable. But there are particular challenges in talking about money in Asian and Asian-American contexts because of the strong influence of Confucianism. Pastor Raymond Lombard, who has trained pastors in China for decades, explained to China Christian Daily:
This is what he found through interacting with basic-level pastors: when pastors talk about money, they feel difficult, and shy…. The Bible talked about money and sacrifice openly, and pastors need to face sacrifice and fund raising correctly, and to educate and execute appropriately, otherwise it is very hard to develop churches. The Chinese Churches have comparatively more conservative theological traditions, and formed an idea “the poorer, the more spiritual”; people should serve without pay and that is believed to be the demonstration of “living with faith.”
Jesus Christ talked often about money. Fifteen percent of everything Jesus taught was about money and possessions—more than his teachings on heaven and hell combined. Sixteen of the thirty-eight parables address how to handle money and possessions. In the Gospels, an amazing one out of ten verses (288 in all) deal directly with the subject of money. It follows that pastors must talk about money to their flocks too.
My friend and colleague Chris Willard said it well: "Being generous is being godly." We need to make a tighter, more explicit connection between money and spirituality. Chris’s book, Contagious Generosity: Contagious Generosity: Creating a Culture of Giving in Your Church, is a great resource for this.
Knowing how to manage wealth and be generous is vital to being godly and Christ-like. Generosity with time, talents, and treasures is a better indicator of Christian maturity than religious devotion and Biblical knowledge. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” Jesus taught (Matthew 6:21). Churches and pastors must teach about money and wealth because Christian maturity is stunted without the joy of generosity, freedom from the cares of this world, and profound witness to a watching world. One author said it well: “Generosity is the new apologetic.”
We can celebrate and rejoice with Asian Americans whom God has already inspired to be extremely generous. For example, the largest single donation in the history of Biola University was a $12 million gift from Alton Lim, a Chinese American immigrant who gave as an expression of thanksgiving for God’s guidance and provision in his life.
Alton Lim’s son, Daniel, explained, “God has blessed him financially, and he wanted to find a tangible means to return back to God what is originally his. He acknowledges the fact that… every penny he’s ever had in his pocket belongs to God. As he puts it, in his later years now, he wants to be able to do something tangible to express that.”
Effective Christian and secular philanthropy is already fueling scholarships, academic education, and research on health and technology. There are more opportunities yet to be explored. What if high-net-worth followers of Christ strategically invested in long-term gains for God's kingdom that may not be measurable in quarterly reports?
I once heard a speaker exhort that a lack of money is not our problem; we need the vision to dream bigger.
This article was adapted from DJ Chuang’s book, Multiasian.Church: A Future for Asian Americans in a Multiethnic World.
DJ Chuang currently works as a strategy consultant for the .BIBLE top-level domain registry. He is also a blogger at djchuang.com and podcaster at erasingshame.com. He resides in Orange County, California.