http://www.oakdaleparkchurch.org/

Oakdale Park Church, 961 Temple Street SE, Grand Rapids, MI (2026)

05/26/2026

"In my experiences of racism, I remember wishing for a particular superpower. I grew up watching the television show Invisible Man, whose titular character was able to make himself invisible. I envied him. If my physical being, my speech, my clothes, or my scent could have left no trace, it would have been so much easier to go on living peacefully, without anyone's judgments shaping my reality and even how I thought about myself.

It is one thing to make oneself invisible; it is another to become invisible without choice. Becoming invisible through no choice of my own, I realize the damaging power that racism has on minoritized individuals and communities. I become invisible when society does not value me or my concerns. Society ignores the plight of Asian Americans and dismisses their struggles by using terms such as honorary whites and model minority.

When I tell colleagues or people at church about my experiences of racism, they usually tell me, 'That is not racism,' as Asians are almost white and don't experience racism. Ignoring my suffering from discrimination and marginalization is making me invisible and pushing me aside. When Asian Americans internalize that erasure and begin to behave with in the confines of this construct, the long reach of white supremacy is revealed. Invisibility is not just created and maintained by dominant groups but internalized and upheld by the marginalized.

05/22/2026

Bring your lawn chair and a blanket this Sunday!

05/22/2026

My family fit into the significant wave of Asian immigration in the 1970's. Postwar Korea saw many young families leave in hopes of better economic prospects and social freedoms in North America; however, this new life came at a cost. Lofty dreams of freedom, opportunity, and novelty were shadowed by heavy socioeconomic barriers, cultural dissidences, and racial discrimination.

Unsettled by the undercurrent of anguish that captured my family after immigration, like most other Asians of my time and before, I did my best to overcome it by aiming for success, which meant becoming part of white society. Little by little, I started to learn to fit in - frequently failing but trying nonetheless. The more I adapted to the blueprint of white society, the more I began to feel closer to those in the outside world. However, in the midst of my 'white awakening,' I continued to lose touch with the fragmented core of my Asian identity.

When I recall my last days in Korea, I fall into a strange feeling. The memories transport me to a time of heightened emotions and expectations, feeling my family's excitement, sadness, fear, regret, and hope. We were so full of ambition and innocence, expressed with the purest hope to do better and be better - not knowing how the future would resist us. This is the story of Asian immigrants: the story of hoping, fighting, laboring, sacrificing, and remaining for the belief that you won't just survive against all odds but thrive gloriously.

05/21/2026

The predicament for Asian Americans is that our work cannot be separated from our identity. Asian American women carry the weight of representing their racial identity in their workplaces; they are known only as part of the frail politics of their identity...Personally, I experience this as a theologian teaching in seminary. On the one hand, I feel that I shouldn't constantly have to address my racialized presence in my work, but on the other hand, because there are not many Asian American female voices represented in academia or literature, I feel that I have an obligation no just to address my racialized identity but to underscore it as a vital part of my work.

Perhaps what I really hope is that I wouldn't be pointed out at all - that I might simply be seen in the room and listened to with respect. My invisibility and silence within society, church, and the academy are indicative of this ongoing struggle. To understand why Asian Americans - and in particular, Asian American women - lack visibility and vocality, it is necessary to comprehend the Asian culture that leads to the imperceptibility of Asian women. IT is also important to understand immigrant history to see how the hiddenness and silence of Asian Americans are embedded into the fabric of white dominant society.

Despite the challenges, my work as a theologian has always provided deeply meaningful rewards. I have the opportunity to reflect and ponder on the notion of who God is. I have the privilege of trying to speak faithfully about God in a way that deepens the theological discourse, broadens the range of conversation partners, and takes seriously the voices that have been absent from the table for the past two thousand years. I have the gift of hope - hope that my theological imagination and creativity can empower other marginalized voices to reimagine a theology that is accepting of all people.

05/18/2026

"My story is like many who were born in Asia and brought to America: we are immigrant children who psychologically live within our parents' generational sacrifice - often in a state of reparation for their sufferings - while also harboring our own growing personal ambitions and desires to explore ourselves outside of familial and cultural expectations. My story is not much different from women in my mother's generation or those who came before her. However, unlike them, I have the opportunity to share not just my own story but the stories of Asian American women in a historical and contemporary context.

In the Bible, the concept of invisibility is prominent in such stories as the foreign women in the book of Ezra, the lepers, the Samaritan woman, and Mary Magdalene. Invisibility as a theological concept can help us understand the dynamics of human interaction, teaching us to be more cognizant of oppressed peoples. It is important to recognize that as much as invisibility is a societal issue, it is also a spiritual one - and this is especially important in discussions surrounding the church."

05/13/2026

"One story of a perpetrator who changed his mind and life is the story of Ken Parker, who attended the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017...At the rally, Parker became weary from heat exhaustion. He was wearing a dark-colored white nationalist uniform and was dehydrated. Deeyah Khan, a Muslim woman from Norway who was also a documentary filmmaker, saw Parker's distress, had compassion on him, and approached Parker to ensure that he was cared for. Because of that experience, Parker was transformed.

Deeyah Khan...demonstrated a response to HAN that is reflected in the Korean term DAN. Dan, meaning 'to cut off', draws its imagery from Korean poet of protest Chi-Ha Kim, and consists of personal and social dimensions. On a personal level, dan involves self-denial; it is the resistance to revenge and violence against oppressors. On the social level, dan involves the act of cutting off the cycle of violence, without which han would continue, and which prevents the oppressed from lashing out.

By responding with dan, the wounded can position themselves in ways that are transformative to others, which also promote healing for themselves."

05/12/2026

"The Japanese art technique of kintsugi involves repairing broken dishes or pottery with a mixture of lacquer and gold, silver, or platinum. The philosophy of this art is to embrace brokenness and see beauty in it. Kintsugi, meaning 'golden seams,' is also related to the Japanese aesthetic of imperfection called wabi-sabi (roughly translated as 'irregularly-aged').

The first time I saw the technique of kintsugi applied, a Japanese-Hawaiian potter created a beautiful ceramic piece, but after he had finished shaping it on the wheel, he deliberately broke a piece off, marring it with his clay-carving knife. For those of us with a Western view of beauty as perfectionism, this type of artistry might make our obsessive-compulsive tendencies go berserk.

Is this why the West has difficulty with a God who is open to being broken and scarred, a God who is vulnerable and who allows God's own being to be vulnerable to hurt? Western views of purity and perfection might drive these ideas of immutability, but only the battered and broken God of the eucharist can feed and heal all.

05/11/2026

"Minjung theology seeks to address the needs of the oppressed, from whom the political system has taken power, by focusing on the need to heal HAN. This way of thinking of talking about God goes back to the 1970's when a group of theologians and lay leaders were dismissed from their seminaries and university posts for criticizing the South Korean government. The notion of Minjung draws from the oppressive history of the Yi Dynasty (1392-1910), when those who were excluded from the elite ruling class were called the Minjung or the "masses of the people."

05/08/2026

"As noted, the word HAN describes a deep woundedness of the Korean people. Han is a sense of unresolved victimization that can lead to anger, hatred, and violence. The history of Korea is a history of han. This small country has been the focus of attempted conquests from the Japanese and Chinese and has face multiple conflicts with the United States. Han is a ubiquitous theme among the people of Korea and lies just below the surface of Korean culture.

In the United States, "the blues," which originated in African American culture, is the equivalent term for han. The blues are ingrained in music and lyricism in art. Where cultures and people are oppressed, a concept similar to han exists in their language and grammar. Korean American theologian Andrew Sung Park refers to the killing of Abel, and the spilling of his blood, which cries out for justice, as an image of han...Han is the groaning of the victim whose wounds are unvindicated, without redress.

This is a crucial time for Christians to reenvision the kingdom in terms of the mission of Jesus in the world: to heal the han-ridden; to liberate people from bo***ge to their wounds and from a system of wounding and woundedness; to actualize the forgiveness of debt, both monetary and psychological; and to proclaim good news to those in poverty.

05/07/2026

"One aspect of liberation that the Eastern fathers did not emphasize in their theory of redemption is the struggle between the sinned-against and sinners. How did sin enter the picture, if not through the sin committed against those who are victims of sin? Contrary to Augustine's view of inherited sin, it is not possible to be a sinner just in general. There is always an object to my sin. If I am a liar, then I must be lying to someone. If I am a thief, I must be stealing from someone. When I lash out in anger, however justified, this sin is committed against something or someone. Within the act of sin, there is always a sinner and always a person who has been sinned against.

Historically, theologians like Anselm of Canterbury and John Calvin have treated God as the primary person against whom we sin. But Minjung theology, including the work of Andrew Sung Park, shifts the focus of the offense from God to humans, or even to the earth and other animals. However, in the story of Western Christianity, we seldom see the two undifferentiated. Within the theory of inherited sin, we have lumped together those who have committed sin with those harmed by that sin, declaring everyone to be equally sinners."

Oakdale Park Church

05/26/2026

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