Day Two, Asian Theological Summer Institute

"Be still and know that I am God..."

I tend to forget this passage in Scripture. A lot. The students and professors of ATSI gathered early this morning for a devotion led by Dr. Kwok Pui-Lan. She had us sit still for five minutes. I forgot what it feels like to sit still for even a minute. She spoke of the "monkey mind" that wanders off, but she wanted us to be centered and focused on our breathing. And of course, my monkey mind wandered off to think about the papers I still have to write for my systematics class, but I remembered to come back, center, and breathe.

Today was pretty spectacular and thought-provoking. The morning started off with Dr. Jayakiran Sebastian's presentation on "The Baptism of Death: Reading, Rereading, and Resignifying a 19th Century Mission Document Today." It dealt with Christian missionaries coming to India with the intent to convert Brahmins, looking at the relationship between a Brahmin woman and her Christian convert husband. What is interesting about the convert's wife is that she had been erased from history; historical documentation acknowledges the convert's white, Christian wife, but history has removed the first Indian Hindu Brahmin wife. One of the big questions from Dr. Sebastian's presentation concerned unlearning present social power constructs to enter into dialogue with historical documents... and how identity has been constructed through text.

The rest of the day was filled with student proposal presentations, which was fascinating. One of the common themes I found with many (but not all) of the presentations related to a sense of identity. With much of today's doctoral proposal presentations pointing towards identity, I feel that I am on the right track in formulating my questions for my future interviews. While identity is an interesting subject, why is it so prevalent within an Asian and Asian American theological context? Why is there such a focus on identity? Why is this one of the prevalent threads appearing on the first day, from both established professors and doctoral students? In speaking with Dr. Kwok Pui-Lan, she made this fascination understandable. She stated that there is an American obsession with identity, particularly in a land populated by immigrants.

An obsession with identity. Yep, I'm there too. What is my story in the greater theological narrative? What is the story for Asian Americans within the greater narrative of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America? What happens when identity is placed upon a marginalized population? Why do those in power place such labels on the marginalized? Is the idea of belonging a sense of "be-longing" for Asian American Christians?