Envisioning an Emerging Asian Australian Christianity

Abstract

In this chapter, I examine the contours of an emerging Asian Australian Christianity in contemporary Australia, discussing their implications for theological reflection and exploring possibilities for better relations between Asian Australians and Indigenous Australians.’ First, I argue that immigrant Asian churches in Australia tend to emphasize the ideals of cohesive group identity and overarching intragroup consensus and harmony defined by language, ethnicity, and culture, while downplaying the challenges of hybridities and conflicts that are caused by emerging generational shifts from immigrant to Australian-born Asians and multiple border crossings that arise from outmarriages and adoptions. Second, I make the case that the essentialized categories of racial-ethnic and cultural identities have to be deconstructed and remixed in new keys and forms to address the implications of hybridities and multiple border crossings among the 1.5 generation and Australian-born Asians, bi/multiracial Asian Australians, and Asian adoptees. Third, I propose that Asian Australian Christians move away from a defensive tradition maintenance to embrace the creative remix of traditioning, that is, from a Christianity that uncritically reinscribes the past to a creative and dynamic Christianity that seeks to address the multiplicity of heterogenized, hybridized, and conflicting constructions of faith and identity within a multidimensional daily living in a pluralistic Australian society.