The Inaugural Session of the Asian American Biblical Interpretation research group at IBR 2020 Boston

Milton Eng

, East Coast Project Director for ISAAC, and I are delighted to announce the inaugural session of the newly constituted Asian American Biblical Interpretation research group at the annual meeting of the

Institute for Biblical Research

(#IBRAABI) and the Society of Biblical Literature in Boston, November 2020.

Our first session features plenary papers and a panel discussion with

Russell Jeung

(San Francisco State University),

Amos Yong

(Fuller Seminary), and

Janette Hur Ok

(formerly Asuza Pacific University, now Fuller Seminary). This first session focuses mostly on East AsianAm contexts but will expand in succeeding meetings to include Southeast Asian, South Asian and Pacific Islanders.

We invite all IBR members and friends to attend. The research group mission statement and the session programming is below. Many thanks to

Carmen Imes

, IBR Research Groups Coordinator, and

Lynn H Cohick

, IBR President, for their enthusiastic support.

_____________________________________________

Inaugural Plenary Session for IBR/SBL 2020 (#IBRAABI2020) in Boston

Theme: Setting the Table: Asian American Studies, Evangelicals and Biblical Interpretation

Milton Eng, William Paterson University, Presiding

Max J. Lee, North Park Theological Seminary, Presiding

Welcome and Announcements (10 min)

Russell Jeung, San Francisco State University

Asian American Studies and the Development of Asian American Theology (30 min)

Amos Yong, Fuller Seminary

To the Seven Churches in Asia: An Asian (American) Apocalyptic Hermeneutic after Pentecost (30 min)

Janette Ok, Fuller Seminary

Asian American Biblical Interpretation: Evangelical Engagement and Critique (30 min)

Discussion (20 min)

These papers will be available on the IBR website after October 25th under the Research Groups tab at www.ibr-bbr.org (IBR Member login required). Attendees are encouraged to read the papers in advance though drop-ins are welcome. During the session, presenters will summarize their papers in ten minutes allowing for twenty minutes of discussion. Non-IBR members are welcome to attend. For further information, please contact Milton Eng (miltoneng@verizon.net) or Max Lee (mlee1@Northpark.edu)

_____________________________________________

Research Group Description: This new research group (#IBRAABI) provides a space for Asian American evangelical scholars to engage with, critique, integrate and indeed pave new ground in current approaches in Asian American Biblical Interpretation. The fact that the majority of Asian American Protestants remain evangelical makes their voices even more imperative. “Asian American” is understood in its broadest sense to include East, Southeast, South Asian and Pacific Islander Americans.

Asian American biblical interpretation by its very nature is interdisciplinary. Thus, sessions will include invited guest theologians, historians, sociologists &scholars from other disciplines to inform our research.

Asian American Biblical Interpretation more broadly has come of age in recent years. Publications continue apace with works as recent as the encyclopedic T&T Clark Handbook of Asian American Biblical Hermeneutics (2019). In addition, Asian American biblical scholars have now attained the highest &most visible positions in the academy including presidents &deans of seminaries, the presidency of the Association of Theological Schools &even most recently the highest office in our premier guild, President of the SBL.

Yet, most of such scholarship &representation has come from non-evangelical or mainline theological schools. Evangelicals are less represented (see Chloe Sun, 2019). #IBRAABI hopes to fill in the gap on representation in this burgeoning field, explore how it connects with shared issues of concern with African American, Latinx American, and other ethnic American biblical intepreters, and explain why this work is relevant to the mission of the church at large. #AAPIHeritageMonth

Will Start to Blog Again... I Think!

Illustration Credit: Gemma Correll (public domain)

Well, the photo says it all. As the Spring 2017 semester comes to a close:

When giving finals, I was the early bird (who schedules finals at 8am? especially Greek!)

When grading finals, I was the night owl (why do students upload papers after midnight?)

When submitting the final grades, I slouch over as the permanently exhausted pigeon (there is no rest for the faithful!) 

But PTL!, I'm done. Now I can start my research summer, put this crazy semester behind me (and it was nuts... can I retire before North Park does another 10-year ATS accreditation report?), and hopefully get back into blogging again. I will start off slow and find a regular rhythm later to talk about the most random things concerning Paul, early Christianity, and the church today. Glad summer is here! MJL

Paul as Pastor

Last week, I was at the Evangelical Covenant Church's Midwinter 2017 Conference. With fear and trembling, I was asked to teach on the topic of leadership in the New Testament, and I ended up preparing a message entitled: "Paul as Pastor." It became a tougher topic to address than I thought because Paul does not really use the word “leader” in any of his letters. 
    The words for “leader” in Greek are ἄρχων (archōn) and ἡγούμενος (hēgoumenos), translated “rulers” and “leaders” in your Bibles, and refer to secular leadership but not church leaders, with the exception of Hebrews (13:7, 17, 24). Instead of the word “leader,” what Paul does is discuss various leadership roles or pastoral activities using other terms like: 

I’ve arranged these 12 terms for pastoral leadership into 4 semantic domains or umbrella categories. 

1) The Preacher •  minister / servant (Greek διάκονος or diakonos) •  preacher (Greek κηρύσσων or kēryssōn) •  evangelist (Greek εὐαγγελιστής or euangelistēs) •  teacher (Greek διδασκάλος or didaskalos):	2) The Pastor •  overseer (Greek ἐπίσκοπος or episkopos) •  elder (Greek πρεσβύτερος or presbyteros) •  mentor/imitation (Greek μιμητής or mimētēs) and spiritual father/mother (Greek πατήρ or patēr; μητήρ or mētēr) •  shepherd /pastor (Greek ποιμήν or poimēn) where through the Vulgate/patristic writers we get the Latin word pastor •  slave/servant of God and the church (Greek δοῦλος or doulos)
3) The Prophet •  prophet (Greek προφήτης or prophētēs) x apostle? (Greek ἀπόστολος or apostolos): But apostleship was a unique office to the 1st century church alone.	4) The Priest •  priest or priestly minister/servant (Greek λειτουργός or leitourgos) •  administrator (Greek οἰκονόμος or oikonomos) of the mysteries/sacraments (Greek word μυστήριον or mystērion). μυστήριον is translated sacramentum in Latin

    But let’s call the semantic domains something like the 4 ministerial roles, offices, even ministerial “functions” or responsibilities of the Christian leader. I call them the 4P’s of church leadership. Leaders 1) preach, 2) they pastor or shepherd or care for the flock, 3) they prophetically challenge the church and discern what God is doing in our midst,  and 4) they do their priestly duties, administering the sacraments, standing in the gap between God and suffering, but much more. So 4P’s: preacher, pastor, prophet, and priest, but it is arguably the role of the pastor or shepherd which functions as the core and unites all the other roles and responsibilities of leadership.

    I'm thankful that so many pastors, Christian leaders, former students, colleagues and friends at Midwinter appreciated the morning session I taught. Paul sometimes gets a bad wrap among scholars as too authoritarian. But this is really a modern pet-peeve. The solution to bad authority in the secular world is not no-authority in the church but the right use of authority that edifies and redeems. In fact, the more I study Paul, the more I am convicted that he was a premier pastor of the church whose teachings and practices can inform and form our present-day ministerium to become faithful servants of Christ and His body. 

    I am thinking that eventually this session can evolve into a small book on Paul as Pastor. We shall see. I have to finish my other book projects first. In the meanwhile, one of the most helpful resources on a pastoral theology remains the one written by the late Thomas Oden. His Pastoral Theology (1983) is a classic and still the best on the topic: 

Still the best work on a pastoral theology
available for the scholars, pastors and leaders
RIP Thomas Oden

Postscript: It pains me to blog so little (probably 1X a month) but until the ATS Accreditation report for North Park is complete, I'm swamped with work. The seminary needs its 10 yr accreditation so we can't fumble the ball on this one. Likely I can blog much more regularly again when we reach the summer and end of the academic year. MJL

Back in Chicago after a Month in Jersualem

I returned to the States after a glorious April month in east Jersusalem at the Ecolé Biblique et Archéologique Française (or EBAF, for short). I'm still processing my experience in the midst of pushing forward on the intellectual boost I received on my research project from well-spent time in EBAF's library. My trip had a multi-faceted missional character and I hope to blog about my experiences in the months ahead.
   First and foremost, it was a tremendous opportunity to get a huge breakthrough in my writing. I'm grateful that I could bust through some conceptual and exegetical roadblocks to my project on Paul and the Epicureans while at EBAF.

Front Reception Area of the Ecolé Biblique et Archéologique Française (EBAF)
Photo Credit by Max Lee © 2016

   Second, not only was my post-doctoral studies a researcher's dream, as a seminary professor who teaches with the mission of the church always in the forefront of my work, it was a teacher's dream as well. I took thousands of photos (10,000+) that I plan on incorporating into my powerpoint slides that I use in my courses at North Park Theological Seminary. I can finally replace other scholars' photos of the Holy Land with my own. Vocationally, it was just inspiring to live, breathe, and see firsthand the archaeological and historical sites where much of the biblical narrative took place.

Finally, after years of waiting, I visited Qumran, the home of the Dead Sea Scrolls
Photo Credit by Max Lee © 2016

   Third, pastorally, I am grateful for the warm welcome and reception I received from the Palestinian Christian community. I visited both Nazareth Evangelical College and Bethlehem Bible College and heard first-hand the challenges that Palestinian Christians face trying to live out their missional mandate to be peacemakers (Matt. 5:9) in a volatile political climate where secular Israelis, orthodox Jews, Muslims, Messianic Jews, and Palestinian Christians are in conflict and experience personal frustration at the reconciliation process. It does not help that while many evangelical Christians in North America are keenly aware of Israeli politics, they nevertheless are unsympathetic to the suffering of their fellow Palestinian Christian brothers and sisters in the church. I'm hoping, after my trip, the doors will be open to sending some North Park seminarians to Bethlehem Bible College for field education and study on the peace process in Israel/the Palestinian Authority.

Bethlehem Bible College in the Palestinian Authority where Arab Christians
receive a theological education in preparation for a life of ministry
Photo Credit by Max Lee © 2016

   Fourth, personally, I'm grateful that my family could join me during my last week in the Holy Land and we could visit, survey, pray, read God's word, and hear the Lord speak to us as we went to Caesarea, Nazareth, Mt. Carmel, the Sea of Galilee, Tiberias, Ein Gedi, Masada, Qumran, the Dead Sea, Jersualem again, and several other sites throughout Israel and the Palestinian Authority. In many ways, this family time felt more like a spiritual retreat than a vacation. Praise God for that! Amen!

My sons Zach and Jonathan posing in the Mediterranean Sea near Tel Aviv
Photo Credit by Max Lee © 2016

Louder than a Bomb: Ground Zero for a Pastoral Theology

From February 13-March 13, 2016, the family and I were on pins & needles watching my oldest son Zach Lee (stage name: exzachlee; pronounced "exactly") compete in Chicago's annual poetry slam Louder than a Bomb sponsored by Young Chicago Authors.  Zach is co-captain of Whitney Young High School's slam poetry team and this year, he and the team went further than they ever have, moving from the preliminaries to the quarterfinals in the group competition, and Zach reaching the semi-finals in the individual ("Indy") bouts. 
   For those who follow me on twitter, I have been tracking #LTAB2016 and posting photos, videos and commentary on some of the poems I have heard and seen performed by some very talented young men and women with lyrical skill and cadence. As I shared in my tweets, LTAB is ground zero for voicing the angst, frustrations, and passions of urban youth. Among the poems recited, I heard from those who were hurt over dysfunctional relationships with mothers, fathers, step-parents, and grandparents. Others shared their frustrations with cheating boyfriends, or their anger over racial prejudice and the violence of their neighborhoods, and exasperation over the cultural slurs people fling at one another in ignorance and sometimes fear. As I heard one poem after another, some with an artistry and rhythm that shined with poetic brilliance, I was struck by how well each performance articulated and described the brokenness of our sinful world. 
    What was missing was hope. The strength of LTAB is how the artists express with truthful candor the ugliness of life and how wickedly people can act. But it was hard to see a glimmer of light in the midst of such darkness, nor find a redemptive moment in the midst of anguish and pain. 
    Zach, to his credit, wanted to share a poem which spoke to hope and redemption even in the face of hardship. His piece focused on what good word the Bible has to share in the pit of human struggle. He did not make it to the finals, but below is the video of his semi-finals performance held at the Metro theatre on the north side of Chicago. I hope you are encouraged and blessed by his witness.

Many thanks, by the way, to Park Community Church who posted this video clip on their youtube channel. Soli Deo gloria!

Reflections on Urbana 2015 (Part 2: Ethical and Theological)

In my last post on Urbana 2015, I shared my personal and pastoral reflections on the messages and seminars I heard at the conference. Then as I started this post, I realized that I needed to preface my comments with a primer on the relationship between justice and missions (part 1 and part 2) otherwise whatever I say here will appear random. Now we are back full circle as I share some ethical and theological notes on #Urbana15 held in St. Louis this past December 27-January 1. 

In front of the America's Convention Center in St. Louis
where most of the Urbana 15 plenary sessions and seminars were held

    Ethically, there was much ado raised over InterVarsity's support of #blacklivesmatter at the Urbana 15 conference. Before I comment on the challenging messages by Michelle Higgins and Christena Cleveland, I simply want to say: how could InterVarsity not address #blacklivesmatter and especially in the context of what happened in the city of #Ferguson and the tragic death of 18-year-old #MichaelBrown? My son is 18... my heart just hurts for the family of Michael. Take a look at the map below.

Ferguson is only 12 1/2 miles away from where #Urbana15 was
meeting (a 20min drive)... how could IV not address #blacklivesmatter
when its missions conference was so nearby?!

Ferguson is located in the suburbs just 12 1/2 miles northwest of where Urbana15 was being held. It would have been apathetic at best (and hypocritical at worst) for InterVarsity to hold a missions conference in St. Louis and not address the mission and suffering that was taking place in its immediate vicinity. I would even say it was InterVarsity's moral imperative not to ignore what was happening in a locale only a 20-minute drive away.
     I simply want to say here: Thank you InterVarsity for your courage, moral resolve, and prophetic commitment to engage in missions, including justice for the marginalized and persecuted, not just in hard-t0-reach nations worldwide but also here within our own North American borders and local neighborhoods. If not addressed, InterVarsity would have been like the priest and Levite who walked passed their beaten brother in Jesus' famous parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37). Thank God they stopped and they challenged all of us to consider what we can do help our fallen neighbor. 
    Secondly, I wanted to name the evangelical angst around #blacklivesmatter, that is, "guilt by association." Since there are a diverse number of groups that participate in the #blacklivesmatter marches, sit-in's, and demonstrations, and some evangelicals are wary about being associated with the activities and message of said groups, there is a general reluctance by evangelicals to support and join in the protests. And while I understand the angst, I also think there is a lost opportunity. Let me illustrate.
   My son recently participated in the Polar Peace March on a very frigid Chicago day to protest the growing violence happening in our city. The march took place over the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. According to Zach, there were so many diverse groups, and he doubts that anyone thinks each of them held the same belief system or shared the same identity. They were united around a common cause, but among them were concerned neighbors, mainline denominational churches (especially the UCC), some evangelical Christians like my son, community leaders, and even high schoolers who came just to get their community hours checked off their graduation requirements (not the best reason, but just being honest here).  
    People who attend protests often understand that their fellow participants come from all walks of life, and that we all do not necessarily share the same identity as those around us. It is the cause that is rallying us together. And if evangelical Christians in large enough numbers join African American churches who march to end urban violence, our participation can win us some influence with the organizers on how we want things done to keep the demonstration both peaceful and prophetic. Would we not want our presence to have a sanctifying effect on the movement? Don't we want to learn from our fellow participants and let God use them to bring us to a holy and sacred moment of repentance, transformation, and commitment?
   Again I understand the angst around not wanting the gospel message to be misrepresented, but if we stay on the sidelines, won't our inaction also misrepresent the gospel?
    Finally, I want to offer some challenges to both the listeners (including myself) and the speakers (also including myself, but I obviously did not speak at Urbana though often I preach or teach in varied settings). To the listeners first, I would plead: let's be thoughtful, compassionate, and self-critical when we hear something we don't like from whomever God has annointed at the time to speak, always ready to hear the message, and slow to fault the messenger for not saying things perfectly. God help us if every prophet or preacher of the gospel has to use perfect words of eloquence and wisdom instead of depending on the Spirit's power (1 Cor. 2:4). 
    Many people were offended by Michelle Higgin's apparent slight of the anti-abortion movement among evangelical Christians. I myself am against abortion and support the church's non-violent efforts to end its practice (barring exceptional circumstances). But the context of Michelle's remarks was her spirited challenge to evangelical Christianity that there are approximately 300,000 Protestant churches in the United States, and if just a third of these churches would adopt one of 100,000 children who are in foster homes, Christians could wipe out the need for a foster-care system altogether. 
    It is an understatement to say that this was a good word from Michelle. I think her point, but not articulated clearly in the cadence of her quick admonitions to the church, was that Christians ought to campaign for the lives of foster-care kids as much as they picket the abortion clinics. Let's do both. These are not competing missions. 
    It is therefore troubling for me to see how some listeners let one point (Michelle's criticism of anti-abortion activism), probably articulated too succinctly and therefore prone to misunderstanding, derail them from heeding an otherwise powerful message about ministering to those who are in our proverbial backyard, neighborhoods, and local communities. Call it an ethics of listening to God's word, but I never let the mistakes of the messenger stumble me from hearing the truth of the message. 
    But now to the speakers, and this is not exclusively directed to the speakers of Urbana15 but to anyone who identifies him or herself as an evangelical Christian and preaches on the pulpit, in the classroom, at a conference, or elsewhere. To them, I would also say: let's be careful to watch both our words and our theology, so we don't unnecessarily generate misunderstanding and leave ourselves vulnerable to the hurtful label "liberal." Okay. I admit I just opened a can of worms. Let me see if I can reel them in one by one with the next couple of paragraphs.
    Here, I will share anecdotally. When I was listening to Christena Cleveland talk about the study done by social psychologist Keith Payne, I lamented at hearing how Payne's experiment showed: black men are far more likely to be identified as holding a gun (even though they were actuallying carrying a tool) during a split-second decision because people are generally socially conditioned to think of African American men as "dangerous" in a North American context. I thought: Really? No way? That is unjust. I would hate living in a country where instinctively, just because I was Asian, people thought I was dangerous and assumed the worst of me.
     But as Christena continued and shared the message that the gospel means there is no longer 'us' and 'them' but just one family who does the will of God (Amen to that!), she also used the social trinity or the doctrine of perichoresis as a model for the unity of church. In my head, my mind was going: "yes! yes! yes!" and as soon as she mentioned the social trinity, I went "oooh... that's not going to sit well with some." 
     The social trinity - or pointing to the triune relationship of the Father, divine Son, and the Holy Spirit as a model for how the church can be united - is controversial to say the least. Many theologians in the Reformed tradition, for example, would argue against it and say that God is simply not One in the same way the members of the church can be one. To be honest, I would agree with the Reformed camp on this one, but that is a different story. My point would be that there are so many other biblical texts and doctrines on which a person could argue for the breaking down of barriers between people (e.g., Ephesians 2:14-16), why pick the doctrine that would push away many theologically-trained evangelical leaders who would see the social trinity as a red flag to... dare I say it... a "liberal" theology? 
    In one sense, this should not be an issue if the listener gave the speaker a greater charity. I, for example, thought: "Well, I'm not a fan of the social trinity, but I hear you Christena! Preach on! I'll just think about Galatians 3:28-29 instead of turning to the social trinity as the basis for being one within the church." But the reality is: evangelicals often shut out the message if they think the messenger is not orthodox or conservative enough. 
    As one who is academically trained, I get frustrated by this predilection to shut down and not give the speaker a greater benefit of the doubt. As a scholar of color, I get even more frustrated that orthodoxy is often defined by a Euro-American majority within evangelicalism. But I also feel the duty as a theological educator (still committed to American evangelicalism) not to let my frustration get the best of me. 
    I have to labor hard to create a safe space for those whose cultural location is different from mine so they can hear my story and consider my justice concerns. To do this, I have to anchor my message within an exegetical and theological framework appreciated by my dialogue partners. It's much work and call me naive, but I still believe that most God-fearing Christians, if they can see the biblical basis for taking action, they will.