Watch this video with Dr. Young Lee Hertig to hear the story of what happened there on the grounds of Fuller Theological Seminary:

Good thing they’ve recorded the presentations for all to benefit, and all to build upon the good work that began. [aside: we cannot rely on oral tradition to share the wealth of knowledge & experiences!] And, when the video and audio recordings are available, it’ll be at www.isaacweb.org . For a more detailed written (typed) report summarizing the event, you can read that here.

The title obviously struck a nerve, and provoked a good number of mis-readings and reactions, even though it was clearly spelled out in that very blog post that Danny did not think he was a sell-out:

I don’t really think he’s a sell-out; I believe Chan is living faithfully to what GOD has called him to be.

Does that mean the question was mis-stated in the first place? Maybe not. There is a rhetorical device called a hypothetical question where a question may be posed, even though the answer is already known as a definitively absolutely “no.” It’s used in the Bible, you know. Paul posed the question, “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” Of course not! Is he a sell-out? Of course not!

In Danny’s apology, he clarifies and re-iterates that he celebrates Francis’ calling to minister to all peoples:

I applaud Francis Chan for his faithfulness to GOD’s call on his life. Clearly, his life and ministry has blessed the church; I hope he continues to speak and minister to all groups of people.

Those of you who are regulars to my blog, or have heard of my work in parachurch realm, may have a question in the back of your mind that you may not have asked out loud but might have been thinking. Over the past decade, I’ve been networking with next gen Asian American church leaders & parachurch ministry leaders, first as a avocational hobby, then formally via L2 Foundation, and more recently connecting next gen Asian American pastors via Leadership Network.

And, yet, for all my professional career life in working in that Asian American church world, I personally do not regularly attend a next gen Asian American church, nor am I a member of one. (For the record, my church home is currently ROCKharbor.) Does that make me a sell-out, too? Or is it just one more perplexing inconsistency in my very complicated unconventional life?

ohhhh.. what would I give to get 100+ comments … (;

The presentation. This presentation consisted of 59 PowerPoint slides. If I ran thru them Lessig style, no big deal, but I dwelled on many of them, skipped a few, and lost track of time. Meaning, I think I went long– I did go longer than I had planned to. As I debrief here, it dawned on me that since I first built this presentation in September 2007, I’ve added on more slides to cover frequently asked questions. Now after (maybe) 5 iterations, I’ve only added more and more slides — didn’t remove any. No wonder I went long! If I were to take Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 rule of Powerpoint, get it down to 10 slides, I maybe could summarize it as:

1. The opportunity is huge and urgent to reach more Asian Americans. The population will double in less than 50 years.
2. Churches naturally have a life cycle like any organization. From time to time, church must adapt to cultural changes to revitalize, or else.
3. Ethnic Asian churches have adapted to several models of multi-generational multi-lingual churches to accommodate both Asian-language speakers and English speakers.
4. We’ve got so much more to offer. On the whole, in comparison to other racial groupings, Asian Americans are the most educated and have highest earnings. These resources have yet to be fully activated for Kingdom purposes.
5. Healthy churches grow AND reproduce.
6. In the past 10 years, there’s been an exponential growth of new churches effectively reaching next generation Asian Americans.
7. New churches doing church a new way are found all over the United States. It’s not just a “West coast” phenomena.
8. We still need more new English-speaking Asian-led churches to reach the next generation, and the unchurched majority.
9. Ask not how can we keep “them” in church. Ask how can we reach more people for Jesus.
10. It takes all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people.

The group. About 20+ attendees, comprised of both seminary students and a handful of church leaders from area churches. Rarely do I have the opportunity to talk about the work I do and tell the stories of next gen Asian American churches, and to have an audience so interested (or it seemed to me.) Most of the time, people give me blank stares or their eyes roll back.

So, being with a rapt audience mesmerized me. I even saw 2 old friends (okay, acquaintances) I hadn’t seen for years. Best question of the night: “What do you mean by ‘Asian American’?” Several questions were along the lines of “Have you seen a church that…” My answer to that is veering more and more towards: there are all kinds of churches, and anything is possible for those who believe. And, have strong leadership, freedom to experiment, and the conviction of God’s leading.

The potential. There are seemingly few people I’ve found in all my years who are thoroughly thoughtful about how to live out our Christian faith as next generation Asian Americans. Few that are interested in discussing the long unaddressed issues of Gospel and cultures. If we don’t critique ourselves, and both Asian and American cultures, who can? It’s all too common for Christian of Asian descent to either use faith as a reinforcement for a moral lifestyle or to assimilate into mainstream culture of a “generic Gospel.”

Where I hope the conversations will go is beyond the walls of academia. I know of (and respect) a growing group of professional theologians and scholars who are working in the academy to wrestle with Asian American theologies. Keep your eye on this: some heavyweights are available to go on tour. There’s rumored negotiations to bring it to Fuller Seminary. (!)

I’d love to see thoughtful conversations flourish among the masses too. Plenty of Asian American Christians, as they’re prominence is obvious on many college campuses. To be fair, these conversations about faith & culture do happen in face-to-face gatherings once-in-a-while off-the-record. These conversations can also be had online in the open, using blogs, twitter, tokbox, chat rooms, conference calls. Break the isolation and rid the ignorance. This is readily available for non-techies and techies. The success of Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and Google (to name a few) shows how internet has given voice to the average Joe computer user.

Let’s keep the conversations going. Let’s open it up. Let’s take it online. Let’s connect. Conversations change the world. It’s the way to take ownership of our faith, our heritage, and for our generation.

The video is shot in real-time conversation between 3 persons, which is way more visually interesting than the typical interviewer-interviewee dialogue. [the video's shot in black-and-white, no need to adjust your monitor]

I’ve put the 6 video segments together in this playlist for contiguous convenient viewing. [aside: why I like Keller more than Piper]

This series of 6 video segments was shot at the 2008 leadership conference for The Gospel Coalition. The video was recently released last week on YouTube and has a few 100s views. I’m anticipating the view count will go into the 1,000s soon. [update 11/8 - view count for part 1 is over 1,500, with viewing of next 5 parts declineing in count]

What would you like to ask Ed Cyzewski? Add a comment below, and since the blog tour is here today, he’ll respond!

Here’s my exclusive interview with Ed Cyzewski –

djchuang >> Having studied theology and thought about it a lot, I’m so glad that you’ve noted other ingredients that shape our theology besides the Bible, namely, tradition, God, and the global church. Some people say they have “no creed but the Bible.” What would you say to them, since I don’t think they’d read your book?

Ed: I’d tell them that my book is even better than the Bible… Sorry, couldn’t resist. I’d ask them where they got the idea that the Bible is their only creed. Did they think of that themselves, completely on their own, or are they part of a tradition supporting that view? This supposedly “high” view of scripture comes from tradition. So we can either act like our traditions don’t affect us, blinding ourselves to their influence, or we can recognize that doctrines and beliefs have been passed down to us and shape who we are, moving on with that awareness. The reality is, we’ll have a clearer understanding of scripture when we recognize the factors influencing how we look at it, taking them into account and perhaps opening ourselves to fresh perspectives–that may end up being even more biblical–outside our own traditions that have heretofore been guiding us.

djchuang >> I’m most interested chapter 10 in the book’s about the global church. I find that much of systematic and historical theology has been done in the Western world. What perspectives could church leaders outside of America give to the American church, as church attendance is plateaued and proportionally declining?

Ed: I wouldn’t profess to be an expert in global theology, but I’d say theologians outside America have a lot to teach us about balancing theology with social action and the place of the Holy Spirit in the church. I think theologically Conservative American Christians have a hard time integrating these two aspects because they fear losing their biblical foundation. After all, they may say, liberals supposedly abandoned the Gospel for social justice, and the charismatics are chipping away at the authority of scripture since they believe God’s Spirit is speaking and working today just like the times of the NT. I know I have a lot to learn from Christians outside of the west in these two areas. And if we can address these two areas, we may find out ways to effectively connect with our communities and to minister in the power of the Holy Spirit.

djchuang >> As an Asian American with bi-cultural background, I think it’s obvious that the multiethnic / multicultural context of the United States could be more of a context for a more racially and ethnically diverse theological discussion. Sadly, 11:00am Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour in America. What would it take to change that?

Ed: I’m a big fan of simple church. I understand that may not work for everyone, but in my own case, I needed to start over with church on a blank slate. I think Organic Church by Neil Cole is one of the most helpful books on ecclesiology out there, but then I’m betraying my simple church/low church bias. Anyway, if we take Cole’s more mission-minded approach that makes it possible for Christians to leave their churches and do their theology out where they minister, we’re taking the first step of getting Christians out of their homogenous circles. And while it’s not a sure thing, I’m hoping that once we’re going out to minister, we’ll start doing more theology in the mission field and we’ll also become a more diverse church. I saw this on some small scales when I lived in the Philadelphia area. Now I’m living in Vermont, which is just about as white as it gets, so my exposure of late to matters of diversity is nil!

However, the internet is probably our best hope for greater diversity accross racial lines when talking about theology. Accessibility is essential, and having blogs and other web sites from theologians different from myself is a tremendous blessing.

djchuang >> Based on the feedback you’ve received from this book, what do you think would be an ideal follow-up book?

Ed: There are two study guides that are meant to be follow up books. So far I’ve received a lot of positive feedback from people who find my take on contextual theology helpful. In light of that, I think it’s a pretty natural step to pick up the Bible Study Guide since it walks readers through the exact method I talk about in Coffeehouse Theology. The other is the Contemporary Issues Study Guide which looks at some of today’s pressing issues with an approach rooted in contextual theology.

Having said that, I think the next step for me after helping Christians with contextual theology, is helping my own tribe, American Evangelicals, sort through who we are, what our message should be, and how we can be the hope for our world. If we know something about our theology in this context, we now need to talk about how we offer the hope of the Gospel to those around us. With so much talk about hope in this election, I just don’t see enough of it coming from the church. So my next book will dig into what it means to be Evangelical today and how we can stop shooting ourselves in the foot by dividing, judging, etc. I ended Coffeehouse Theology with a challenge to unite around the Gospel message that God the Father loves us, God the Son saves us, and God the Spirit empowers us. I want to help Evangelicals unite around that message and help us live in its truth and power. If all goes well, I should be able to say more about it soon!

Thank you, Ed, for the great interview! How do you think your experiences, context, and community has shaped your theology?

You can read the book’s introduction online. The blog tour continues on Wednesday the 15th at Scott Berkheimer’s theopraxis.net.

The blog book tour starts today, runs through most of October and spills over to November! Ed will stop by here at djchuang.com on October 13th. 1st stop at kingdom grace. I’ll dig into the book more by then, and raise more of the unexplored culture aspects of theology, particularly about the mostly missing multicultural perspectives and explore a bit on the bi-cultural perspectives of Asian Americans. (cf. complete list of bloggers where the tour will visit)

The introduction to Coffeehouse Theology: Reflecting on God in Everyday Life is online courtesy of Theooze:

CONTEXTUAL THEOLOGY: UNDERSTANDING OURSELVES, UNDERSTANDING GOD

… Rather our culture—who we are and our values—becomes both our greatest strength and largest obstacle in theology. Culture can be a strength because it serves as a tool when we use our understanding of culture to study God. Think back to the Beatitude’s example: Christians in the U.S. tend to spiritualize the message of Jesus because we understand the pride so prevalent in today’s culture. Yet, every culture has weaknesses, too. God is so much more than what we can see by ourselves. So while addressing the pride of our culture in the Beatitudes, we can easily miss out on God’s concern for the poor and the blessings he sets aside for them.

Like internetmonk, I dislike arguing. Some people like arguing and do it for sport with no hard feelings or after taste. It’s been my experience that most people get their feelings hurt when intellectuals do battle. I’m tired of remarks that begin with “some things that I disagreed with” [caveat: click thru for context b/c I pulled this quote out of context to illustrate my tiredness with 'disagreement'] or “that does not mean that I endorse everything“… maybe it’s my wishful thinking, but I’d think that very few people agree and endorse 100% of what someone else says or writes. Do most people have a different default mode?

Believe you me, I was not oblivious to the blogosphere’s buzz about the Desiring God conference with Piper, Keller, Driscoll, and others. Roger Overton has a nice link list of summaries to the conference [ht: faithmaps]. And, CT did note that “Piper does scare some people.”

The blogosphere sure reacted to Piper’s critique on Driscoll’s cleverness. Yes, and, I see that it has already played itself out, with Driscoll quenching the rumors [ht: reformissionary via faithmaps] in what he called the bloggerdom, quickly and valiantly for the sake of unity. And, Tony Jones reacts to Keller’s brief remarks about Emergent’s impact, to which Keller clarifies a distinction between evangelical orthodoxy vs. orthodox Christianity. Is this getting too nuanced for you too?

Jumping tracks, and checking in with the red letter words of Jesus, he’s on record for saying both “For whoever is not against us is on our side” (Mark 9:40) and “He who is not with me is against me” (Matthew 12:30). Ken Collins wrestles with this apparent contradition, by interpreting the statements in context. I prefer the former, a more open stance to those who seek to follow the historic Jesus, rather than articulating an exactingly precision of 4-point, 5-point, or 7-point Calvinism or multi-faceted dimensions on atonement theories. Personally, I don’t draw my boundaries as broadly as the National Council of Churches, or even Emergent (though I’d like to be on friendly terms with those in the Village), and not as narrowly as the Reformed brethren (aka ‘humble orthodoxy‘).

This kind of vocal disagreements over theological precision is patently discouraging to observers and outsiders, even disgusting. Perhaps we should review & practice Faithmaps’ 2002 exhortation on developing a praxis of theologial disagreement and part 2.

“It’s gaining popularity, and there is the potential there to change the entire landscape of what Protestant Christianity looks like,” said Jeffrey K. Jue, assistant professor of church history at Westminster Theological Seminary in Glenside and an academic critic of the emergent movement. “It’s not just a new form. It’s not just window dressing. They’re talking about something more radical than that.”
:
“My opinion… is that the intellectual depth of this movement is really lacking,” Jue said. “… The concerns that the movement has are quite valid – how to address 19th- and 20th-century evangelicalism in a contemporary context. But do we start all over?”

Sounds so “Jeff”. Knowing of my affinity for the emerging church, he was kind to mention it to me personally, face to face, and express concern and care for our friendship. I thanked him for doing that, and reassured him that I do not mind public discourse and dialogue about differences of convictions, persuasions, and perspectives. In fact, I think it is healthy and fun to have differences out in the open. Not everyone can handle that. And, it was kind and gracious of him to pay for breakfast too.

My friends do not have to agree with me 100% on everything to be a friend. Not even 50%. My friendships do not crumble on a few differences or disagreements.

[update: Jeff Jue's article, What's emerging in the church, was published in Reformation 21 (online magazine of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals), for his full treatment, thoroughly footnoted. Also published as "What's Emerging in the Church? Postmodernity, The Emergent Church, and The Reformation," Themelios 31:2 (January 2006): 20-39. The opening paragraph is his description of an encounter with me; 01/26/06 - Jeff adds a cynical comment about emerging church]