Growing Beyond My Ahistorical and Apolitical Faith

As an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley in the 1980’s, I was clueless about the wider world. I knew little about the historical background of my family’s immigration from Toisan to California. As an engineering major, I was not required to take much in the liberal arts. I took one modern Chinese history class, one political science class, and two religious studies classes. That was the extent of my liberal arts education.

My college years were filled with momentus events that would eventually become significant historical events. I knew about the Murder of Vincent Chin because the 80’s were a time of increased anti-Asian hate. The invasion of Greneda happened in the first semester of my first year at Cal. My roommate joined the protestors on the streets of Berkeley.

Below is a sampling of current events during my college years, of which I knew very little:
  • US Invasion of Greneda (October 1983)
  • US Bombing of Lybia (April 1986)
  • Democracy Movement in South Korea (June 1987)
  • March on Washington (October 1987)

My faith community in college was ahistorical and apolitical

If you were like me, who grew up in the United States, and didn’t have much appreciation for history, don’t be too hard on yourself. You are the product of the culture that formed you.

“The problem with Americans is not that they don’t know history. It’s that they don’t think they need to.” — Historian David McCullough

The Christian fellowship that I was a part of in college taught me how to read carefully and to think critically. I was taught these skills in bible study, but I also learned to apply them more broadly. Somehow, though, this did not transfer to a careful reading of world history or the current times. Our fellowship was on the “social justice” end of the Evangelical spectrum. We had concern for the poor, but we didn’t understand the systems that made and kept people poor. We were part of a larger religious ecosystem that was apolitical because we didn’t want to be like those conservative Christians and their ugly politics.

I don’t remember talking with my Christian friends about politics. After watching the 1986 movie, The Mission, we talked about whether Christians were supposed to be non-violent, or was it okay for the Catholic priests to take up arms against the oppressor. The historical context of the movie was 18th-century Spanish and Portuguese colonization. Speaking for myself, I was unaware of contemporary covert operations by the US in Central and South America. I knew little about Latin American Liberation Theology, so I was not able to intelligently engage with the politics or the theology.

Though I started with Evangelicalism, in my twenty years as a pastor, I tried to learn from outside its siloed ecosystem. I sought to grow beyond my ahistorical, apolitical faith.

What does the Opium War Have to Do With Anything?

I like history because it tells a story and puts it in a larger frame. Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China’s Last Golden Age helped me better understand my family history and how it fit into China’s relationship with “the West” over the last couple of centuries.

“As China reclaims its position as a world power, Imperial Twilight looks back to tell the story of the country’s last age of ascendance and how it came to an end in the nineteenth-century Opium War. As one of the most potent turning points in the country’s modern history, the Opium War has since come to stand for everything that today’s China seeks to put behind it.” —Stephen R. Platt

I was born in Hong Kong, and personally connected to this story. I visited Hong Kong the summer after it was returned to China after its 100-year lease to Britain. This was just one remnant of how colonial powers opened up ports and enforced unequal treaties with China.

“The CIA’s coup in Guatemala was the first time it overthrew a democratically elected government in Latin America. It set a pattern for decades to come.” —Stephen Kinzer, Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq

My son and his partner both teach world history. Her family is from Guatemala. They are deeply connected to the history of US “regime change” in country after country in Latin America. And to the story of on-going, military-backed foreign policy that protects US economic interests in those countries.

My wife and I pastored a new church development in the wake of 9/11 and the “War on Terror”. Regime change, collateral damage, and enhanced interrogation became everyday phrases in those years. What was really happening here? How did God feel about all this? What was God doing? Was there an overarching story that ran through all of this, from Asia to Latin America and Africa?

I got a late start, but I want to grow. I am wrestling with what my Christian faith has to say about our world.