Identity, Youth, and Gender in the Korean American Church (Asian Christianity in the Diaspora)

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Asian Christianity in Diaspora, Christine Hong, grace ji-sun kim, Joseph Cheah, Korean American

So excited to announce the forthcoming book by Dr. Christine Hong, Identity, Youth, and Gender in the Korean Amercian Church (Palgrave, 2015). Release date: July 16, 2015.

It is the second book in the Asian Christianity in the Diaspora book series in which Dr. Joseph Cheah and I are co-editors.

The first book in the series was Theological Reflections on “Gangnam Style” co-written by Cheah and myself.

There are several other books coming out in the series. Watch out for their release.

Book Description:

This volume develops an understanding of Korean American girls in the Korean American church between the ages of thirteen and nineteen. Christine J. Hong analyses and evaluates girl’s formation around self, gender, and understandings of God in the context of Korean American mainline protestant congregational life. The book utilizes a practical theological qualitative study and develops a hybrid methodology using a feminist ethnography with de-colonial aims and indigenous research methods. Its goal is to facilitate practical theology’s aim of enabling transformative experiences in communities of faith. The study asks and answers the question: what is the experience of being a Korean American girl in the Korean American immigrant church? Hong asserts that cultivating a better understanding of how Korean American girls develop concepts of self, gender, and God will help practical theologians, particularly religious educators, pinpoint, unpack, and evaluate the complexities of bi-cultural identity and faith formation.

Christine J. Hong is the Assistant Professor for Worship and Evangelism in the Practical Theology at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, USA. Previously she was the Associate for Interfaith Relations at the national offices of the Presbyterian Church, USA. Hong is also a contributor to a forthcoming edited book, Here I Am, edited by Kim (Judson Press, 2015).

“Asian Christianity in Diaspora” Book Series Description

Palgrave Series Editors: Grace Ji-Sun Kim & Joseph Cheah

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Asian American theology is still at its nascent stage. It began in the 1980’s with just a handful of scholars who were recent immigrants to the United States. Now with the rise in Asian American population and the rise of Asian American theologians, this new community is an ever-important voice within theological discourse and Asian American cultural studies.

This new series seeks to bring to the forefront some of the important, provocative new voices within Asian American Theology. The series aims to provide Asian American theological responses to the complex process of migration and resettlement process of Asian immigrants and refugees. We will address theoretical works on the meaning of diaspora, exile, and social memory, and the foundational works concerning the ways in which displaced communities remember and narrate their experiences. Such an interdisciplinary approach entails intersectional analysis between Asian American contextual theology and one other factor; be it sexuality, gender, race/ethnicity, and/or cultural studies.

This series also addresses Christianity from Asian perspectives. We welcome manuscripts that examine the identity and internal coherence of the Christian faith in its encounters with different Asian cultures, with Asian people, the majority of whom are poor, and with non-Christian religions that predominate the landscape of the Asian continent.

Palgrave is embarking on a transformation of discourse within Asian and Asian American theological scholarship as this will be the first of its kind. As we live in a global world in which Christianity has re-centered itself in the Global South and among the racialized minorities in the United States, it behooves us to listen to the rich, diverse and engaging voices of Asian and Asian American theologians.

If you have a project you think may be suitable for the series, contact the series editors: Grace Ji-Sun Kim, gjskim@hotmail.com & Joseph Cheah, Jpcheah@aol.com