Centering: The Asian American Christian Podcast

Centering is the Asian American Christian Podcast: conversations on Christ, the Christian life, and Asian American perspectives.Through our podcast seasons, as well as specially presented content, we dive into the reality and beauty of living out Asian American Christian faith.Centering is a production of the Center for Asian American Theology and Ministry at Fuller Theological Seminary.

Centering: The Asian American Christian Podcast is a religion podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 112 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Unknown Host hosts Centering: The Asian American Christian Podcast, a religion show with 112 episodes published.

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  Centering: The Asian American Christian Podcast

  Faith Imagination and the Fight to Belong: A Conversation with Ken Fong

  Aug 18, 20261h 7m

  This episode continues our 10th anniversary micro-series with a conversation featuring Dr. Ken Fong—longtime pastor of Evergreen Baptist Church of Los Angeles, former national Asian American ministry leader, and Daniel's predecessor as Executive Director of Fuller's Asian American Initiative. Ken and Daniel trace the decades-long, often invisible labor behind the Asian American Center's history, from Fuller's earliest Asian American ministries class to the founding of the Center itself. Ken's path to Fuller in 1978, and the wave of Japanese American and Chinese American students who shaped the seminary's Asian American presence in that era Why Japanese American churches—shaped by the incarceration camps and shifting generational leadership—became, in Ken's words, a reluctant "vanguard" of pan-Asian ministry Evergreen Baptist's decision to hire its first Chinese American associate pastor, and Ken's framing of the church as evolving from a "Japanese restaurant" to a fusion menu still cooked by Asian American chefs Ken's early clashes over "new wineskins" for American-born Chinese ministry, and the "30 years too soon" conversation that followed The founding and dissolution of Fuller's earlier Asian American Initiative—including the racism Ken and Daniel encountered while trying to institutionalize the program, and why Ken ultimately stepped down so the Center could be funded Ken and Daniel's reflections on the emotional toll of that transition, and what it meant to rebuild afterward Why Asian American women students were consistently among the strongest in Ken's classes—and how few went on into full-time ministry Ken's shift over time from megachurch ambitions to a more communal, formation-centered vision of Asian American church This one runs long on institutional history, but it's essential context for understanding what the Center stands on. Thanks for listening! Sign up to receive more updates from the AAC: https://aac.fuller.edu/newsletter/ If you appreciate the work we do at the Asian American Center at Fuller Seminary, please consider supporting us! Your monetary support sustains our vital work and expands Asian American research, leadership development, and pastoral formation for the Church in the year ahead. Donate here: fuller.edu/giveaac. For information about our 10th anniversary gala, visit tinyurl.com/10yearsaac

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  Centering: The Asian American Christian Podcast

  Asian, Asian American, and the Making of a Center: A Conversation with Jane Hong

  Aug 11, 202644 min

  Asian, Asian American, and the Making of a Center: A Conversation with Jane Hong In this episode, Daniel and Yulee welcome Dr. Jane Hong, professor of history at Occidental College and author of the award-winning Opening the Gates to Asia, for a conversation that's part of a micro-series marking the Asian American Center's 10th anniversary—tracing the histories that came before us. Jane walks through the surprising, often-overlooked story of Asian American evangelicalism, and Fuller Seminary's complicated role in it. The conversation covers: How Jane's research originated—partly from a 2017 gathering of Asian American Christians processing the 2016 election, and partly from trying to understand her own family members who voted for Trump across three elections Why anti-communism, generational trauma, and disinformation help explain (without excusing) political conservatism in many Asian immigrant communities—and how to hold disagreement with grace Fuller's "vaunted" place in white evangelical history, and the untold story of its growth since the 1980s through Asian, Asian American, and international student enrollment The institutional tension between "Asian" and "Asian American" identity at Fuller—including the assumption that Korean international programs could simply stand in for Asian American ministry Key figures and flashpoints: the 1965 Immigration Act, the 1992 LA Uprising (Saigu), the "Silent Exodus" article, InterVarsity pioneers like Jeanette Yep, and the funding disparities between Black, Hispanic, and Asian pastoral programs at Fuller Jane's hope for the next generation: that Asian American history becomes a normal part of the curriculum, not a side note—and that understanding racial structures helps Christians navigate the world with wisdom, not blindness A rich, detail-filled conversation for anyone wanting to understand how Asian American evangelicalism took shape—and why Fuller has been more central to that story than most people realize. Sign up to receive more updates from the AAC: https://aac.fuller.edu/newsletter/ If you appreciate the work we do at the Asian American Center at Fuller Seminary, please consider supporting us! Your monetary support sustains our vital work and expands Asian American research, leadership development, and pastoral formation for the Church in the year ahead. Donate here: fuller.edu/giveaac. For information about our 10th anniversary gala, visit tinyurl.com/10yearsaac

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  Centering: The Asian American Christian Podcast

  Forgotten Leaders and Why History Matters: A Conversation with Tim Tseng

  Aug 4, 202647 min

  To kick off our 10th anniversary micro-series celebrating the Asian American Center at Fuller Seminary, we sit down with Dr. Tim Tseng, Asian American church historian and director of the Asian American Christian History Institute (AACHI). Tim takes us back to 1972 and the founding of PACTS (the Pacific and Asian American Center for Theology and Strategies), tracing a lineage of Asian American Christian leadership that runs decades deeper than any single institution's anniversary can capture. The origins of PACTS: a 1972 gathering of Bay Area pastors trained in mainline Protestant seminaries who began questioning assimilation and erasure within their denominations The newly republished PACTS Reader, edited by Roy Sano and now available through Claremont Press—the story behind bringing this out-of-print, historically significant text back into circulation AACHI's mission and the "pearl divers" metaphor for surfacing hard-to-find Asian American Christian stories The Third World Liberation Front strikes at San Francisco State (1968) and the birth of ethnic studies as a backdrop to the Asian American Christian movement How the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power shaped Asian American Christian consciousness, and PACTS' relationship to (and distinction from) liberation theology The story of Mabel Lee, a pioneering unordained church leader and suffrage advocate in New York's Chinatown at the turn of the century The danger of "Columbusing"—claiming to discover ideas and movements that our elders were already engaging with over fifty years ago Tim's reflection on being forced out of theological academia in 2005, and what nearly 20 years in local church ministry taught him about listening to God's people at the grassroots We hope you enjoy this series! Tim Tseng https://aac.fuller.edu/post/person/timothy-tseng-phd/ The PACTS Reader (Claremont Press) https://claremontpress.com/uploads/3/4/8/4/34846481/theologies_of_asian_americans_and_pacific_peoples_final_.pdf https://claremontpress.com/theologies-of-asian-americans-and-pacific-peoples.html PACTS Archive https://cdm15837.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15837coll16 AACHI www.pearldive.net Sign up to receive more updates from the AAC: https://aac.fuller.edu/newsletter/ If you appreciate the work we do at the Asian American Center at Fuller Seminary, please consider supporting us! Your monetary support sustains our vital work and expands Asian American research, leadership development, and pastoral formation for the Church in the year ahead. Donate here: fuller.edu/giveaac.

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  Centering: The Asian American Christian Podcast

  Bone Symphony—Poetry as Spiritual Practice: A Conversation with Michelle Phương Hồ

  Jul 28, 202654 min

  Bone Symphony—Poetry as Spiritual Practice: A Conversation with Michelle Phương Hồ Daniel and Yulee welcome Michelle Phương Hồ—a Vietnamese American poet based in New Haven and one of Daniel's former students at Fuller — for a conversation about her debut poetry collection, Bone Symphony (releasing October 13th, endorsed by Ocean Vuong). The conversation explores: How the book's title emerged from a single cacophonous poem weaving together her grandfather's experience in postwar Vietnamese reeducation camps, asylum testimony, and questions of public memory—and its resonance with Ezekiel's Valley of Dry Bones Why revision, for Michelle, is a spiritual practice—including the story of a poem addressed to "the enemy" that only became true once she recognized her own desire to win, rather than to love Her unconventional path into poetry: from a college Asian American writing collective, to narrative breaking down into fragments, to a formative writing class with poet Solmaz Sharif Why she believes she's writing to preserve a kind of remembering—drawing on a story about Vietnamese language surviving Chinese colonization through "a critical mass of rememberers" The necessity of leaving gaps in language—and why trying to fully explain grief or wonder can betray the experience itself Her unexpected, dramatic conversion story at a college church service in New Haven, after a season of spiritual searching that included a Buddhist meditation practice Navigating faith within a predominantly white Vineyard community—finding theological resonance in the integration of word and spirit, while wrestling with not fully belonging The poem "After Salvation" and the disorientation of being "rescued"—both as a refugee and as a Christian—without a clear roadmap for what comes next Writing prompts to borrow for your own journaling: Alexander Chee's "What don't you want to know?" and Bhanu Kapil's "Who is responsible for the suffering of your mother?" A reflective, generous conversation about poetry as a spiritual practice—and an invitation to anyone (poet or not) to bring more curiosity and surrender to their own writing and prayer life. Pre-order her book: https://boaeditions.org/book/bone-symphony/ Sign up to receive more updates from the AAC: https://aac.fuller.edu/newsletter/ If you appreciate the work we do at the Asian American Center at Fuller Seminary, please consider supporting us! Your monetary support sustains our vital work and expands Asian American research, leadership development, and pastoral formation for the Church in the year ahead. Donate here: fuller.edu/giveaac.

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  Centering: The Asian American Christian Podcast

  Justice Work for the Long Haul: A Conversation with Steven Park

  Jul 21, 202648 min

  Justice Work for the Long Haul: A Conversation with Steven Park Daniel and Yulee sit down with Steve Park, founder of Little Lights—a ministry that has spent almost 30 years serving children, youth, and families in underserved communities in Southeast D.C.—for a wide-ranging conversation about race, faith, and sustainable ministry. Topics covered: Steve's surprising road to faith: a devout atheist in college, a frightening drug experience, a season of vulnerability with a therapist, a breakthrough moment of compassion with his sister, and finally—fittingly—becoming a Christian through reading a comparative world religions book The origin of Little Lights: meeting an eighth grader who couldn't read a Dr. Seuss book, and the heartbreak that became the spark for a ministry Why Little Lights teaches anti-racism and "race literacy" classes rooted in scripture—and how interest in that teaching has shifted with the political climate, from post-Trayvon Martin to the George Floyd surge to today's pushback Unpacking the model minority myth: how U.S. immigration policy handpicked certain Asian immigrants for "honorary white" status, bypassing the redlining, segregation, and policing that shaped Black communities—and how that history gets erased into a story about "family values" alone The challenge and necessity of being a Korean American leader serving primarily in a Black community for decades—gaining trust, navigating being seen as an outsider, and inviting more Korean American Christians into the work A theology of anger: why Steve believes you can't fully love without it, and how to direct anger toward justice rather than letting it curdle into bitterness or depression Hard-earned lessons on healthy ministry growth—including advice from Bruce Main of Urban Promise about not getting desperate for help—and Steve's conviction that community health, not budget size or social media followers, should be ministry's true metric A glimpse into partnering in ministry with his wife, Mary, and raising a family while doing intense, emotionally demanding work A grounded, hard-won conversation from someone who has done the long, unglamorous work of cross-racial ministry for decades—and has the wisdom (and humility) to show for it. Little Lights: https://littlelights.org/ Sign up to receive more updates from the AAC: https://aac.fuller.edu/newsletter/ If you appreciate the work we do at the Asian American Center at Fuller Seminary, please consider supporting us! Your monetary support sustains our vital work and expands Asian American research, leadership development, and pastoral formation for the Church in the year ahead. Donate here: fuller.edu/giveaac.

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