3 Lessons For The U.S. Church From An Asian American Ministry Leader in Atlanta
Gold Spa, one of three Atlanta-area massage parlors where a 21-year-old shot and killed eight people, including six Asian American women.
Religion Unplugged believes in a diversity of well-reasoned and well-researched opinions. This piece reflects the views of the author and does not necessarily represent those of Religion Unplugged, its staff and contributors.
(OPINION) Eight lives lost. Six Asian American women killed. Three Asian American spas targeted. One killer.
In the midst of all of the brokenness in this situation, it’s pretty easy to glance over the fact that the killer was a baptized member of a reformed Southern Baptist Church. In the midst of the controversy of the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department Spokesman saying that the killer had “a really bad day”, it’s easy for us to forget that the killer himself confessed to committing these crimes to “eliminate temptation” from his sexual addictions – as if the women he killed were a temptation to be managed instead of fellow image-bearers to be respected.
As an Asian American and Christian ministry leader in Atlanta (who also identifies with the reformed Baptist camp on many doctrines), I find myself mortified by all of this. I feel caught between my grieving Asian American brothers and sisters and many of my apathetic evangelical friends.
So what can American Christians learn from all this? Are there any lessons here to be learned at all? Here are the three big takeaways that I recommend for the U.S. Church:
1. Name and claim the sin of racism
I get the sense that many of my evangelical brothers and sisters (both White and non-White) want to make these killings about anything and everything but racism. Some of the red herrings I’ve seen on social media so far:
“But didn’t the killer himself say this wasn’t racially motivated?”, “But what about human trafficking and prostitution?” and “No Christian would ever do this; there had to have been mental health issues”.
Also, didn’t we just have a national reckoning on racial injustice with Black Lives Matter? Why do we have to go through these uncomfortable conversations all over again because of something some deranged White dude in Atlanta did?
While all of the above concerns may have some element of truth and while it’s true that the killer did not confess to a racially motivated hate crime (not that a criminal’s defense is always 100% truthful), here’s why the Church should still err towards caution by strongly assuming that there may have been a racial element: because we always mourn with those who mourn (Romans 12:15) and because we always associate with the lowly among us (Romans 12:16) – even if we don’t always agree with them. And because we don’t play footsies with any sin – least of all one that has historically plagued our nation for centuries now.
Make no mistake – many of your Asian American neighbors are in deep grief, fear and mourning right now. And not just because of the killings in Atlanta. Asian American hate crimes have spiked 150% in 2020 because of COVID-related fears – even as the number of overall hate crimes fell. And those are just the reported hate crimes. Asian American women in particular are more vulnerable to these hate crimes. This is why the shootings in Atlanta (regardless of the killer’s confession) feel very personal to many of our Asian American neighbors. So instead of wanting to be right, let’s just try to be light to these neighbors by listening, learning and grieving with them.
To be fair, very few churches these days intentionally teach their members to be racist (i.e., otherizing others and treating them as “less than” because of the color of their skin). Very few churches (if any at all) teach their members to take up arms and kill Asian American women to “eliminate their temptation”. The killer’s church, by their own statement, seem baffled because they don’t believe they’ve ever taught anything like this from their pulpit.
While that may very well be true, here’s something we often forget: as the Church, we aren’t just responsible for what we teach; we’re also responsible for what we allow. As the Church, we don’t just produce what we preach; we also produce what we enable.
How often do we teach against racial injustice from the pulpit? How often do our pastors acknowledge the need for systemic racial justice from the pulpit? How often do we even preach on biblical justice for that matter? How often do we disciple our congregants in the Image of God doctrine – for the poor, marginalized and oppressed? Or do we just reserve that for the unborn on “Sanctity of Life Sundays”?
Also, lest we forget, around 80% of White evangelicals voted for President Trump, who in my personal opinion, only contributed to the spike in racial violence against Asian Americans with his recklessly insensitive “China Virus” and “Kung Flu” comments. As a former political speechwriter and media consultant, let me be the first to tell you that political rhetoric always has consequences. While the rest of the nation may have moved on from the bizarre 2020 election cycle, many in the Asian American community still haven’t forgotten this.
Loving our neighbor well dictates that we ask ourselves these hard questions: how have our churches enabled violent men like the Atlanta killer or the male Capitol Insurrectionists? How have our denominational (or non-denominational) cultures enabled the blatant racism, misogyny and Christian nationalism we’re seeing within U.S. evangelicalism right now?
2. Disciple or let them be discipled
Make no mistake - if we don’t disciple our people in the Word (the Bible), the World will disciple them. If we don’t disciple our people in how to study the Word for themselves (which will lead them to living righteous and just lives that respect the Image of God in their neighbors), social media will fill the void by discipling them in the ways of the World.
Yes, a church only has so much control over what their members get discipled by. I’ve heard many dear pastor friends lament that while they only have their congregants for an hour each week, Fox News and CNN have access to them 24/7. While this perspective is undoubtedly true, I have to reject the helplessness behind this assertion.
First off – if we as Christians truly believe in the sufficiency of Scripture, we will also believe in its sufficiency to captivate and transform human hearts. “For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the ideas and thoughts of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12 CSB)
Secondly – preaching isn’t the only means of shepherding and discipling our congregants. Many of our churches seem to forget the role of Christ-like community in sanctification and discipleship. When we make church all about the weekly, in-person gathering of the saints, we can tend to neglect the sanctification that God makes available to us throughout the week via small groups and life-on-life discipleship. This over-prioritization of the weekly gathering can often lead to us leaving marginal space and resources for community living in a highly individualistic society. Yes, COVID has thrown a wrench into community living and discipleship, but there are always workarounds for this via technology and safe, socially distanced gatherings. Indeed, one can and should argue that the recent events in Atlanta are a reflection of a crisis of discipleship within the U.S. evangelical Church right now.
The best way to fix our public witness (how we communicate the Gospel in the public square) is by fixing our ecclesiology (how we do church). And that starts by fixing how we do discipleship via community first.
3. There is always hope
Yes, things may seem bleak right now. Still, may we never forget that there is always hope. Even though it may not feel like it right now (because of our own depravity), God is still at work building his global kingdom through his Church in the U.S.
On the Sunday before the Atlanta shootings, I preached at a church only a couple of miles down the street from the killer’s church. My sermon at this church’s Freedom Sunday was on biblical justice. My call to action for this small (but mighty) hundred-member church was to get engaged in biblical justice by living lives of generosity. As Christians, we’re generous towards others because Christ was first generous towards us. As Christians, we’re generous towards the oppressed because Christ was generous towards us while we were oppressed by our sin. As Christians, we always side with those on the margins of society because Christ first sided with us while we were still on the margins of his kingdom.
This church, which had already committed to funding one rescue operation a year with International Justice Mission (roughly around $6300/year), tripled down on their commitment by committing to fund 10 rescue operations ($63,000) over three years with us! Their youth pastors have also committed to discipling the next generation in biblical justice by leveraging some of our resources with their youth.
This church is just one of the thousands of U.S. churches already engaged in seeking biblical justice with organizations like IJM. I share this story because stories like this don’t often get told in times like these. So yes, despite the darkness of this world and our complicity towards injustice, there is always hope to be found! Aslan is still on the move.
God is doing incredible work through organizations like Asian American Christian Collaborative and the AND Campaign, who are mobilizing the Church to be a part of the solution – consider supporting them and engaging your church with some of their incredible resources.
For the Christian, lament and hope must always go hand-in-hand. Indeed, for the Christian, repentance and hope are simultaneous spiritual disciplines. So let’s lament and repent about the brokenness and depravity within us. But let’s also hope – not in a goodness that comes from within us but in a goodness that we only find in God and his unfamiliar passions for us.
God, in his mercy and grace is giving the evangelical Church multiple opportunities to reckon with the sin and brokenness we allow. May we not breeze past this moment by distracting ourselves with excuses like “but look at all the good we do”, “the media is being unfair” and “what about Critical Race Theory?”. Instead, may we dwell in this moment, learn from our failures, grieve with our hurting neighbors and dig deep for lessons so tragedies like these don’t keep happening on our watch.
Joash Thomas leads Advocacy & Mobilization in the U.S. Southeast for the world’s largest global anti-trafficking organization, International Justice Mission (IJM). Views expressed by the author are personal. An aspiring Public Theologian, Joash has a Bachelor’s degree from Georgia State University, a Master’s degree in Political Management from The George Washington University and is currently a Master of Theology student at Dallas Theological Seminary. He lives in Atlanta, Ga. with his wife, Valentina. You can connect with Joash on Twitter or Instagram at @JoashPThomas.