We Mend with Gold: A Guest Post by Kristin T. Lee

As the daughter of immigrants, Kristin T. Lee aims to bridge the divide between family, church and identity in this thoughtful analysis of Asian American Christianity. Read on for an exclusive essay from author Kristin T. Lee on writing We Mend with Gold. 

A daughter of the Asian American church wrestles with faith, exile, and belonging.

As a church misfit, I’ve done my share of wrestling with God and with belonging, but one problem I’ve never had is being comfortable. Wait—being comfortable is a problem? Indeed, it is a weakness of the American church, particularly in the Protestant tradition where we can ditch one congregation for another when we dislike what we hear from the pulpit or who shares a pew with us. By self-selection, we often end up siloed in homogeneous spaces, among people who believe like us, look like us, and pray like us. It feels safer that way. It’s certainly more comfortable.

When faith and church get too comfortable, stagnation congeals and calcifies. One way to break loose from that snug but spiritually suffocating stagnation is to draw near to people who have a very different experience of church, of life, and of God and listen to their viewpoints. This can feel risky or painful! But close encounter—truly seeing and hearing another person—allows for friction.

Friction makes us consider: Maybe there’s another way to look at that issue. Friction makes us pause: What’s going on inside of me that I reacted so strongly to her statement? Friction makes us alert: What is God doing in this situation?

Friction is a gift, if we welcome rather than resist it.

It is with friction, tension, stretching, and pressure that we are shaped, honed, and molded to become more like Christ. That’s how a lump of clay becomes a stunning vase in the potter’s hands. This dynamic process allows us to grow—because it’s kind of boring to be stuck as a lump of clay.

While all of us have aspects of our identities or personalities that may feel marginal, we also bring some form of privilege to the table—privilege that we may not recognize without self-examination. James Cone writes, “What is invisible to white Christians and their theologians is inescapable to black people.” Race is certainly not the only dimension of privilege, but Cone’s statement reminds us that if we stay in our bubbles and echo chambers, we will miss out on profound theological truths that those with different life experiences can teach us. But we have to have the humility to listen and draw near, not for the sake of ‘helping others’ but because “your liberation is bound up in mine,” in the words
of Lilla Watson.

This is why I hope my book, We Mend with Gold: An Immigrant Daughter’s Reckoning with American Christianity, will be a gift not only to the Asian diasporic community, but also to non-Asian Christians who may rub up against its pages and encounter some friction. Let the sparks fly. Feel the warmth of new fires glowing in your heart, enlivening and expanding your understanding of your own history as well as your experience of God. 

We need one another. Together, we can dislodge one another from comfortable ruts and encounter the fresh aliveness and enormity of God.