It’s taken me forever to finally devote time to this, but I feel the need to respond to a blog post from nextgenerasianchurch.com. It was a guest post from Danny Yang that generated over 100 responses so far. It’s a post that I have serious issues with.
First of all, if you aren’t familiar with Francis Chan know that he is a Chinese-American pastor that is gaining notoriety in Christian Church circles. He recently wrote a book titled Crazy Love that has a lot of buzz behind it. He is the senior pastor of Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, CA, which is also home to Eternity Bible College.
In my opinion, the frustrating thing to me is that for all the accomplishments Pastor Chan has done–including Cornerstone plating 9 churches throughout the US–he is being viewed as a token Asian in a white man’s world. However, it is sad to know that now Francis Chan’s notoriety is being used to drive discussions on how Asian an Asian-American must be with blog posts scandalously being titled like “Is Francis Chan A Sell-out?”
After talking about being surrounded by a “sea of whiteness” at the Orange Conference and how wrong that was, Yang concludes the blog post by stating:
don’t really think he’s a sell-out; I believe Chan is living faithfully to what GOD has called him to be. But I do think Chan is being used by white evangelicals to alleviate their unwillingness to engage race and faith. Chan is welcome at these conferences only because his message could come just as easily from a white male.
Sometimes a little diversity is worse than no diversity.
So, it’s great to know that Yang writes in the end that Francis Chan isn’t being considered a sellout, but in essence Danny Yang affirms that Chan is a sellout when he puts Chan’s speaking engagements as merely a tool used by white evangelicals to relieve themselves of the burden of engaging race and faith. In essence, as I read it, Yang is saying that Francis Chan is a sellout, but he just doesn’t know he’s a sellout.
To take a man that stands on the truth of the Bible and has gained attention outside of the Asian-American church context and then knock him for speaking to white evangelicals really just rubs me the wrong way. Chan has done things as an Asian-American that speak to how big God is within him. He is not being asked to speak because he is of Chinese descent–He is being asked to speak because he has a relevant voice that is drawing people to truly understand what discipleship means. White, black, yellow, brown, neopolitan..it doesn’t matter!
When I think of this subject, it reminds me of the issues that the Apostles had after Jesus had risen to take his place next to the Father and let the work of evangelism to the Gentiles be done by his people. Issues such as eating only what was considered clean by Jewish law and requiring circumcision for Gentile Christians. As much as the Jews wanted to retain their customs and favor as God’s chosen people, God instead was moving them to understand this passage from Galatians 3:28:
- There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Yes people, it’s true: We are all one in Christ! Does it matter that an amazingly gifted and talented servant of God named Francis Chan is speaking to groups of Caucasian Americans? I think not. Don’t you know that through opportunities such as Chan speaking at the Orange Conference or any other forum where the attendees are predominantly Caucasian, that it will inspire other Asian-Americans as well as Latino-Americans, African-Americans, Native Americans, Italian-Americans, etc to embrace a call to preach the gospel to all nations? Just as Christ transformed a Jewish Pharisee of Pharisees and caused him to speak to Asians, Greeks, Romans, and others in the name of grace and love, so too will he call upon people like Francis Chan to do a similar work. Regardless of race God will bring people near to him through the ministry of Francis Chan and we should celebrate this, not downplay it by judging who Chan speaks to and whether or not he recites cultural Chinese aspects in his sermons.
How can we get from a place of no diversity to a place of great diversity? It starts with one person and grows from there. In order to get a place of diversity, it must begin as just a little diversity. I appreciate who Francis Chan is, what God is obviously doing through him, and the fact that regardless of who one is or where one is born, Chan is speaking relevant truth in a loving way to everyone.
Whether you like it or not, one day we will be in a place where there is no Asian, Latin, German, French or Russian–instead we will be in a place of undeserved love and grace in the presence of the God that created us to be one with him through his Son Jesus.
