Introducing Asian American Theologians – By Jonathan Y. Tan

INTRODUCING ASIAN AMERICAN THEOLOGIANS . By Jonathan Y. Tan . Maryknoll : Orbis , 2008 . Pp xiv + 210 . $24.00 . Jonathan Tan's lucid introduction serves as a primer on all things Asian-American-Christian (e.g., a chapter on Asian immigration with histories of Chinese, Japanese, Korean immigrations; summaries of Asian-American theologies and theologians; a nice bevy of statistical tables, etc.). While all this makes Tan's book useful, its finest elements remain largely undertheorized, and perhaps rightly so. Unlike its black, liberation, and feminist predecessors, Asian-American theology remains an identity politics ironically lacking identity. To date, it boasts no defining voices or texts, with no recognized schools of thought or influence. Much of this has to do with the complex dynamics that make Asian-American theologians hesitant to engage issues of race, while those precious few who do, because of a guarded black/white binary, tend to get ignored. Tan gives fantastically clear explications for such dynamics. While Tan's text purportedly makes no claims of its own, his survey surely packs normative punch: how have traditions as rich, diverse, and established as Asian-American theologies been rendered invisible? If Asian Americans remain “forever foreigners,” their gifts will continue untapped, always to be seen, if at all, as peculiar assemblages of inclusive particularities. Unfortunately the same patient hybridity that makes Asian-American Christianity a genuine alternative to totalizing whiteness also renders it sadly unnoticed. Tan's book gets about the task of remedying this

Aesthetics · Asian americans · Epistemology · Ethnic group · Genealogy · Hybridity · Immigration · Model minority · Normative · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Theology · Anthropology · Asian American and Pacific Histories · Gender Studies · History · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies