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Soong-Chan Rah: Another Angry Asian Man?

Reading “Prof Rah’s” The Next Evangelicalism is like gargling with salt. It stings in the throat but at the same time clears the sinuses of the stuffiness and congestion of poorly thought-out racial dialogue. Sure, we like to talk about color-blindness, and melting pots, and model minorities, but do we know what we’re really saying when we talk about these things? Surely the Church – that glorious multicultural reality – is exempt from these faux-pas assumptions… Or is she? Perhaps a little deconstruction is in order – and maybe that aint such a bad thing.

“White evangelicalism” is the term Rah uses – yes, it glares – and this has been creating a perfect storm in the blogosphere as more and more bloggers, writers, and thinkers aggressively engage the concept – no doubt the repercussions of his book – and more and more people are getting offended by the term. Mostly Caucasians. So do we dismiss Soong-Chan Rah as just another angry asian man with degrees in theology?

Hang on, don’t do that, until you understand where he’s coming from. What Rah is doing is breaking out of the “coy asian” mode and thank God someone is doing it. He’s leading the way for a new social engagement amongst Asian-American Christians and he’s kicking it off with a shout. Sometimes a strong corrective is needed to shake things up a bit. The Black church had Cone. The South American church had Gutierrez. It’s about time Asians had a voice. And I suspect a coy, shy, unassertive, overly diplomatic asian is just not gonna cut it.

In response to this, “Prof Rah” writes:

“What’s interesting to me, however, is that when Asian-Americans break out of that mode/mold, we are labeled as angry and confrontational… A few years ago I was at a gathering of some prominent Asian-American leaders. I said that in the black community there is the recognition of the differing role of Malcom and Martin. We don’t seem to have too many Malcoms in the Asian community. (I’m not sure we have a whole lot of Martins either, btw). But maybe we need a few more Malcoms in order for the Martins to be heard.”

So I’m starting to suspect that Rah is accomplishing for the Asian church what Martin and Cone and Gutierrez did in their respective contexts. He’s putting us on the map. This certainly seems to be the case as I observe the slowly changing dialogue and tone in the wake of his books release.

In the end, is the dialogue still necessary?

Is it worth going to battle constantly over the race issue? The labeling, being called “social gospel” as a disparaging term – is it worth our time? I myself have vacillated between an extreme polemical stance on the one hand, to compliantly accepting the role of the “model minority” on the other. On the one hand I’m a sell-out, on the other hand, I’m frightening people away. But in the end I pray that the dominant culture doesn’t hear Rah’s words as just angry asian ranting, but more so as prophetic charge. For I venture to say that even the Old Testament prophets were deconstructionists in their time, showing the wrong where there was thought none, showing the injustice where it was unperceived, showing the guilt where it was not so explicit.

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