Embracing the Other: The Transformative Spirit of Love

Prophetic Christianity

Series Editors

Bruce Ellis Benson

Malinda Elizabeth Berry

Peter Goodwin Heltzel

The

Prophetic Christianity

series explores the complex relationship between Christian doctrine and contemporary life. Deeply rooted in the Christian tradition yet taking postmodern and postcolonial perspectives seriously, series authors navigate difference and dialogue constructively about divisive and urgent issues of the early twenty-first century. The books in the series are sensitive to historical contexts, marked by philosophical precision, and relevant to contemporary problems. Embracing shalom justice, series authors seek to bear witness to God’s gracious activity of building beloved community.

Published

Bruce Ellis Benson, Malinda Elizabeth Berry, and Peter Goodwin Heltzel, eds., Prophetic Evangelicals: Envisioning a Just and Peaceable Kingdom (2012)

Jennifer Harvey, Dear White Christians: For Those Still Longing for Racial Reconciliation (2014)

Peter Goodwin Heltzel, Resurrection City: A Theology of Improvisation (2012)

Johnny Bernard Hill, Prophetic Rage: A Postcolonial Theology of Liberation (2013)

Grace Ji-Sun Kim, Embracing the Other: The Transformative Spirit of Love (2015)

Randy S. Woodley, Shalom and the Community of Creation: An Indigenous Vision (2012)

Embracing the Other

The Transformative Spirit of Love

Grace Ji-Sun Kim

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Grand Rapids, Michigan / Cambridge, U.K.

© 2015 Grace Ji-Sun Kim

All rights reserved

Published 2015 by

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

2140 Oak Industrial Drive N.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505 /

P.O. Box 163, Cambridge CB3 9PU U.K.

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kim, Grace Ji-Sun, 1969-

Embracing the other: the transformative spirit of love / Grace Ji-Sun Kim.

pages cm. — (The prophetic Christianity)

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-8028-7299-9 (pbk.: alk. paper)

eISBN 978-1-4674-4395-1 (eBook)

eISBN 978-1-4674-4355-5 (Kindle)

1. Women — Religious aspects — Christianity.

2. Sex role — Religious aspects — Christianity.

3. Women — Social conditions.

4. Race discrimination — Religious aspects — Christianity.

5. Racism — Religious aspects — Christianity.

I. Title.

BT704.K471255 2015

230.082 — dc23

2015017965

www.eerdmans.com

Dedicated to my husband,

Perry Y. C. Lee,

for twenty years of marriage and partnership

in the transformative Spirit of love

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Foreign Women in the Hebrew Bible

2. The Lives of Asian American Immigrant Women

3. Women as the Other: A Postcolonial Perspective

4. Overcoming the Gendered Division of Humanity

5. Spirit God and Shalom Justice

6. The Transformative Spirit of Love

Conclusion

Postscript

Index

Acknowledgments

Every book is written in community. Embracing the Other is no different, growing out of many conversations with colleagues and friends. During the autumn of 2011, Peter Goodwin Heltzel invited me to write a book for the Prophetic Christianity Series at Eerdmans. I would like to thank each of the editors of the series — Bruce Ellis Benson, Malinda Berry, and Peter Heltzel — for their insight and encouragement. I am especially grateful to Peter Heltzel, for his constant enthusiasm, words of wisdom, and earnest prayers throughout the writing of the book. Much thanks is also extended to David Bratt, Executive Editor at Eerdmans, who helped ensure that each stage of the production went smoothly and efficiently.

I am always thankful for my theological dialogue partners who helped me sort through some of my theological struggles for this book. My deep thanks to Joseph Cheah, Dwight Hopkins, Jesse Jackson Sr., Jeffrey Kuan, Donald K. McKim, Kwok Pui Lan, and Miguel De La Torre, who have supported me during the time of my writing. They have been both spiritually and theologically encouraging to me as I wrote the book.

I would also like to thank my friends who read and edited parts of this book. I am thankful to Barbara Lucia, Katie Mulligan, and Mark Koenig for reading parts of the manuscript. I am deeply grateful to my research assistant, Bruce Marold, for reading it with a careful eye and catching errors and problems. His advice improved this manuscript and I am deeply thankful for his help.

Parts of the book have appeared elsewhere, notably in Feminist Theology and Insights, and are used here with permission. I am particularly indebted to Peter Phan for the generous resources and critical exchange that I was provided as a Visiting Research Scholar at Georgetown University, where I was able to research, write, and complete the manuscript. I will forever be grateful for his kindness, encouragement, affirmation, and generosity. I thank him for encouraging me to develop my own Asian American constructive theological vision.

Lastly, I thank my family for standing by me during the vicissitudes of writing and editing; my sister, Karen, and brother-­in-­law, Bruce, for feeding me when I was in desperate need of Korean food; my niece and nephew for making me laugh countless times and making me realize that breaks are needed when writing a book.

I am deeply grateful to my husband, Perry, for taking on extra work around the house and for handling our children’s activities during the writing of my book. I thank my son, Theodore, for studying hard at school and excelling in every subject and extracurricular activity. I also thank Theo for being involved in church activities like youth band and aiding in Sunday school. I thank my daughter, Elisabeth, with whom I have shared my deepest hope for the next generation of women leaders in the church. She knows that any girl can find space in the church to grow, mature, and even lead. I thank my youngest, Joshua, who has made my life joyful with his constant mimicking of his own mom to make my rather serious life a little more lighthearted and enjoyable. To the communities of church, friends, and family that nourished and helped me, I give my heartfelt thanks.

Introduction

My Story: Being an Immigrant in North America

As an Asian American woman growing up in North America, I have experienced alienation, discrimination, and racism. Because of the color of my skin and the shape of my eyes, (some) people in the white dominant society think of me as different, and treat me that way.

Our family immigrated to Canada in 1975 and that year I started kindergarten. I still remember the pain I felt at the racial slurs directed toward me and other Korean friends at my school. Children ganged up against me and my Korean friends; they called us names and bullied us racially. Since we looked different and spoke with a distinct accent and in broken English, we became easy targets of their racism. This type of bullying continued through much of elementary school.

First as a teenager and now as an adult, I see that these overt forms of racism have become more subtle and covert. When racism becomes institutionalized, it feels much more difficult to call it racism. Institutionalized racism percolates in our society under different guises, including such terms and behaviors as the model minority, honorific whites, and being under white privilege. It is vital to unpack these forms of racism, prejudice, and subordination so that we as a society can work towards dismantling them.

Why, as a society, do people tend to treat those who are different with suspicion, discrimination, and trepidation?

Racism and Sexism in Transatlantic Context

During a recent trip to South Africa, I visited Cape Town and witnessed many positive developments in politics, history, and culture. But when I visited Khayelitsha Township which is the fastest-­growing township in South Africa, it was as though time had stood still. The world has heard of the end of apartheid. We have heard of the political ascendancy of the African National Congress (ANC), of the election of Nelson Mandela and several of his successors to the presidency, and of a New South Africa. This makes it all the more astonishing to see the poor, unsanitary living conditions that persist among Black Africans in townships such as Khayelitsha. They live in tiny metal shacks cobbled together out of scrap metal they find lying around. The roofs of these tiny homes usually leak during the rainy season, and therefore people can go days without sleeping on something dry. The government has built toilets throughout the township. But many homes and many people share each toilet, and each one is dirty, neglected, and unsafe. Water pumps are scattered throughout the township, but people have to go out of their shacks to get it and bring it home. Life in these townships is harsh compared to the lavish communities of wealthy whites.

The townships that still exist today convey the impression that apartheid has never been dismantled. How could such an evil system have been eliminated and yet leave in its wake millions of Black Africans living in abysmal conditions? This systemic mistreatment of people of color occurs because of our own preconceived notions of who the foreigners are. The Black Africans lived in South Africa first, while it was the Dutch and the English who colonized the country. The power that a few white people could gain over the many colored people in a short period of time is astounding and tragic.

Unfortunately, this process of racial discrimination has its roots in Christian theology. The racism and prejudice that exist in South Africa was shaped in part by a Dutch Calvinist theology that was used to maintain the colonial status quo. The Afrikaners were predominantly Dutch settlers who first arrived in South Africa in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Afrikaners believed that God made a special covenant with them, one that essentially gave them a Promised Land and in so doing excluded the indigenous population. The distortion of Christian theology is the idea that God has specially elected a particular ethnic or racial group at the expense of others — something that John Calvin himself would have found incomprehensible. The separation of Afrikaners from others was not limited to those of color such as the native Africans or Indians. It also included the South Africans of British descent, and this division became part of the basis for the Anglo-­Boer Wars.¹

The logic of Calvinist chosenness was applied not only to religious life, but also to economic life. As Max Weber would unveil, economic productivity becomes a sign of election within certain Calvinist worldviews.² The sovereign God not only dictates who can and who cannot be saved, but also who should and should not succeed within the socioeconomic order. People who cannot make money are doomed, while people who make money are saved, in this life and the next. The biblical logic of election can easily be distorted into an ethic, not of compassion and service, but rather of exclusivity, discrimination, and domination.

Christian theology was central to the production of race in the New World. In Puritan New England, the Calvinist doctrine of election was also used by the European colonists to justify racial discrimination against Native Americans. While indigenous people were racialized as Indians, enslaved Africans were racialized as black. Within this racial hierarchy, Native Americans and African Americans were seen as subhuman. The white masculine, exported from Europe, was believed to be the ideal for all humanity.³

This white masculine ideal unveils not only the problem of racism, but the problem of patriarchy. While there is an inordinate amount of injustice and oppression towards people of color in our societies, women and girls are often the most vulnerable victims of oppression. Women are continually mistreated, abused, and discounted because of the patriarchal pathology that judges women by different moral rules than men. Again, the roots of patriarchy are often theological, as male clergy seek to keep women in subordinate positions, quoting the Apostle Paul, I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent (1 Tim. 2:12), without considering the cultural context and worship practices of the early Christian movement. Christian theology was used in the construction and maintenance of white male control in the colonies.

The legacies of racism and patriarchy continue on into our present political context. For example, certain male politicians in the United States continue to speak for women and on women’s issues. They decide what is right for women and for women’s bodies. They have tried to take away ­women’s voices, rights, and decision-­making, to the detriment of women everywhere. Instead of advocating for women and girls, especially the concerns of women of color, faith leaders are often silent.

Prophetic Christianity today must critically engage the problem of Euro-­American racism and sexism. As Martin Luther King Jr. said at the Riverside Church of New York City on April 4, 1967: A time comes when silence is betrayal.⁴ The church needs to wake up from its slumber and prophetically confront the sins of racism and sexism in our society today. If we do not do anything about racism and sexism — even creating awareness in one’s church is something proactive — then we are contributing to the problem. If we sit around and do nothing, we are permitting racism and sexism to exist and grow, because we do not insist that oppressing others because of their race or gender is contrary to Christian beliefs.

How do we eliminate this oppression and achieve justice and shalom for all humanity and all creation? How can we join in deep solidarity with the freedom struggles of women and people of color? How do we work towards healing, reconciliation, and justice among people, regardless of their race or gender? I suggest it is through the power of the Spirit.

The Power of the Spirit in Christian Theology

The Spirit is the heart and soul of Christian theology. While we are living in a period of great division and conflict, God’s Spirit can bring healing and hope. While we often make people who are different from us the Other, the scriptural vision calls us not to ignore and neglect the Other, but rather to embrace the Other. It is the power of the Spirit that opens our hearts to cross borders and embrace the Other.

Spirit is ubiquitous. Spirit of life energy is an idea that we see throughout the world. Chinese call it Chi or Qi, Japanese call it Ki, Hindus call it Prana, and Greeks called it Pneuma. In all languages, Spirit is associated with breath, wind, or life-­giving energy. We need to recover the transformative power of life energy, the font of divine love and justice. Because Spirit is the underlying ethos of people around the globe, the concept of Spirit God can provide a more holistic understanding of God and humans that extends beyond skin tones, culture, religion, and power within society. This theology of Spirit is more inclusive and welcoming of outsiders, women, and people of different ethnicities — those who may be subjugated or Othered. Focusing on God as Spirit is more welcoming and inviting to all people within and outside of the church.

Recognizing that Spirit is what connects us all will open doors for further dialogue, understanding, and acceptance. This book contributes to the revitalization of North American churches and spirituality by providing a deeper theological perspective on God as Spirit by inviting all people into the discussion. The problem of the Other has become an important issue in theological discourse as the community of faith interacts with people of diverse faiths. The North American church needs to address this crucial problem of the Other if it is to survive and grow in this ever-­expanding and globalizing world.

Overview

In order to develop a biblical understanding of the promise and the problems of embracing the Other, Chapter 1 explores foreign women in the Hebrew Bible. Using Ezra 9 as a historical and biblical backdrop, I examine how foreign women were treated back in Ezra’s day and consider how women, especially immigrant women, are treated today. The phrase foreign women occurs ten times in the Hebrew Bible, always in the plural. The first usage of this phrase is significant because here Ezra’s meaning is defined. In 1 Kings 11:1, the author states that Solomon loved many foreign women, identified as Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women. The only other non-­Ezra occurrences of the phrase are in Nehemiah 13:26-27, which alludes to Solomon as well. When Nehemiah chastised the Jews who had married foreign women, he reminded them that Solomon’s foreign wives turned his heart away from the Lord and caused him to sin despite the great favor he received from God. Foreign women are framed with foreign gods, and seen as seducing Solomon from complete covenantal loyalty to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

These scriptural narratives also depict foreign women and wives as pawns to be used in political negotiations, later to be marginalized. The story of Abraham sending away Hagar and her son can be viewed as a justification to dismiss the foreign wives and their children.⁵

Foreign women in the Bible are discriminated against both racially and religiously. In this chapter, I apply a postcolonial hermeneutic to illuminate these biblical texts that deal with foreign wives. While Israel came out of slavery in Egypt, sometimes it was difficult for them to overcome some of the oppressive ways of relating to others, especially foreign women. It is vital that we understand the historical and cultural contexts that have led to the oppression of women and what implications this legacy of oppression has for us. After all, how can one ask women to leave who have been fully immersed in the life of the family and community? This casting out has great consequences for the family, community, and the nation, not least that it perpetuates the false understanding that it is acceptable to dominate women in this way. For once the power elites in society label someone as different, inferior, or simply the Other, it is a short step to terrible acts of violence, dominance, sexual objectification, and slavery.

Chapter 2 examines the particular history, social context, and life of Asian immigrant women in North America, thus illumining the existential plight of foreign women today. The history of the first wave of Asian immigration to North America stretches over nearly a century, much of which was plagued with hardship, turmoil, difficulties, and perseverance. Coming to North America is a difficult transition for all immigrants; Asian immigrants face a special set of challenges. A new culture, language, and religion often present a clashing of ideas and traditions that results in much confusion and chaos in the lives of immigrants. From the beginning of immigration, Asian North American women have been viewed both as the foreigner and as the exotic temptress.

White European immigrants were treated differently than Asians or people of color. Europeans entered the United States through Ellis Island in New York and had their identifications checked, and were registered to enter America. Asians, on the other hand, often came principally through Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, which immigrants recall as being more like a prison than a welcoming port of entry to America.⁶ While European immigrants at Ellis Island waited a couple of hours or overnight before they were allowed to enter America, Asian immigrants at Angel Island had to wait sometimes weeks, months, or even years before they were allowed to enter the United States. Whereas only 2 percent of Europeans who applied for entry were sent back to their countries of origin, Asians were sent back at more than ten times that rate. The difference in treatment towards these two groups of people was racially driven.⁷ It was not that European immigrants were any healthier or smarter than Asian immigrants; it was rather a difference of skin color and outward appearance signifying a racial difference that did not fit the white norm. The Japanese government actually did its best to send only the smartest, most educated, and healthiest people to America. Because white immigration officials already had preconceived negative and stereotypical views of Asians, they were blind to this racialized reality and participated in systemic racism.

While the white European immigrant women by and large were able to assimilate into the dominant Western culture, Asian immigrant women have struggled to find their way. It does not matter how many generations such women have lived in North America, their yellow skin continues to mark them as foreigners. As foreign women were ostracized in the book of Ezra because of their cultural and religious differences, so too, Asian immigrant women are marginalized in the West because of their yellow skin tone, cultural difference, and religious diversity.

Chapter 3 focuses on women as the Other, from the perspective of postcolonial theology. In his magisterial book Orientalism, Edward Said argues that the Orient is an invention of the Western imagination and is part of a colonial strategy of cultural control and dominance. Orientalism is understood both as a tendency to dichotomize humanity into us-­them contrasts and to essentialize the resultant Other. Europeans and North Americans have used Orientalism as a way of dominating the East by exerting self-­ascribed authority and power over people of the Orient. European culture gained in strength and identity by positioning the Orient (which today is often referred to as the Middle East, East Asia, or the Far East) as a sort of surrogate and even underground self. In addition, Europeans have feminized the Orient as a further path to domination and subordination. By feminizing the Orient, it consequently considers the Orient as weak, helpless, and vulnerable. Orientalism is one strategy that white Euro-­Americans use to subjugate people of Asian descent.

Asians are migratory people, always on the move. As a result they have complex cultural identities. In the second half of Chapter 3, I analyze Homi Bhabha’s notion of hybridity. When Asians migrate to the West, they bring with them the legacies of Asian religious and cultural traditions, which they have to express in new ways. Postcolonial theory seeks to ensure that the needs and aspirations of the exploited are addressed and is concerned with the effects of unequal power relations between groups of people. Postcolonial theory provides a space for the once-­colonized to decolonize and become creative agents in society. In our globalized world it is crucial to acknowledge the reality and sin of unequal power, and allow it to inform how we understand God, the gospel, and the Bible in our time.

Asian North American immigrant women come to accept that their identities and situations are hybrid given the complex, multi-­circumstantial,