Rachel Bundang is Visiting Assistant Professor of Theology at the College of St. Catherine and a former Bannan Fellow at Santa Clara University’s Bannan Institute for Jesuit Educational Mission and the Department of Religious Studies. Trained in Christian ethics, she teaches and writes on feminist ethics and theologies, Catholic moral theology, and Asian Pacific American (APA) religiosity. Her recent work has appeared in the collections Off the Menu: Asian and Asian North American Women’s Religion and Theology and Pinay Power: “Feminist” Critical Theory as well as the journals Semeia and the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. She is also a consultant on issues such as race and religion, religious pluralism, and liturgy. Her current project explores disruptive personhood as a corrective to the erased self in APA feminist theoethics.
Ken Carlson grew up in Nebraska and Montana, and first came to California as a college freshman. While studying philosophy and computer science in college he sensed the Lord’s call to full time ministry. He and his wife Joni married right after finishing college. While completing his M.Div. and Th.M. at Talbot Seminary he sensed God’s call to missions, and in 1987 took his family to Taiwan for four years of service with Overseas Missionary Fellowship. After studying Mandarin there, he was involved in seminary teaching and leadership training. Upon return to the U.S. he served for a few years on the home staff of OMF before becoming the English Pastor at Chinese for Christ Church in Berkeley, where he has served since 1994. In 2008 he completed his D.Min. at Western Seminary with a dissertation on Reaching the Next Generation in bilingual Chinese churches.
Peter Cha is associate professor of pastoral theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. He received his graduate training in theology from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (M.Div. and Th.M.), and received his doctorate in religion in society and personality from Northwestern University. He has previously served as a campus staff member with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, as a youth pastor, and as a church planter and senior pastor. He co-edited Growing Healthy Asian American Churches (InterVarsity Press) and has published chapters in Following Jesus Without Dishonoring Your Parents (InterVarsity Press), articles in Korean Americans and Their Religion (Pennsylvania State University Press) and in Telling the Truth: Evangelizing Postmoderns (Zondervan), and articles in several scholarly and denominational journals.
Virstan Choy is a native of San Francisco’s Chinatown. He is a Minister of the Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA), and has served as an intern at the First Chinese Presbyterian Church in New York; Pastor of the Chinese Community Church in Sacramento, California; Secretary for Pacific Asian American Ministries in the Reformed Church in America; Associate Executive Presbyter for the Presbytery of San Jose; General Presbyter for the Presbytery of San Francisco; Associate Professor of Ministry at San Francisco Theological Seminary; and Interim Director of the Center for Asian American Ministries and Visiting Professor of Ministry at McCormick Theological Seminary. He and his spouse, Marina Lew, reside in San Francisco. The findings and insights shared in this chapter emerged from his work with the Alban Institute Research Group on Conflict Management in Asian American Churches.
Deborah Hearn Gin is Assistant Professor in Ministry at Haggard Graduate School of Theology and Director of Diversity Studies in the Office of Diversity Planning and Assessment at Azusa Pacific University. She is a Ph.D. candidate in Higher Education at Claremont Graduate University, where she was awarded the Tae Han Kim Fellowship for extraordinary commitment to respect for humanity and culture and the Award for Excellence in Higher Education. Gin’s areas of research include pedagogy, Asian American ethnic/racial identity development, multiculturalism, and intercultural competence. She is a core member of Asian American Women on Leadership (AAWOL), a member of the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) VALUE initiative rubric development team, and a member of Evergreen Baptist Church, Los Angeles. She is Korean American, happily married to a Chinese American man. She and her husband reside in Southern California.
Young Lee Hertig is the Vice President and the Southern California Regional Director of ISAAC (Institute for the Study of Asian American Christianity) and AAWOL (Asian American Women On Leadership). She teaches in the Global Studies and Sociology Department at Azusa Pacific University. She was formerly a Vera B. Blinn Associate Professor of World Christianity at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio (1998-2002) and has mentored United Theological Seminary’s Doctor of Ministry Group, “Spirituality, Sustainability, and Interfaith Dialogue” (2004-2006). She was .an Assistant Professor of Cross Cultural Ministry at Fuller Theological Seminary (1992-1995) where she also earned a Ph.D. in intercultural studies. She is an ordained Presbyterian clergy, and a Commissioner of the Presbyterian Church USA to the National Council of Churches Faith & Order. She was awarded Morehouse College Martin Luther King, Jr. International Collegium of Scholars on April 3, 2008. She is a conference speaker, author, and community organizer. She has written numerous chapters and articles from a Yinist epistemology, taken from Daoism, that address postmodern discourse in the areas of theology, spirituality, and ecology.
Stanley K. Inouye is Founder and President of Iwa, which develops ministry resources that effectively reach and disciple Japanese Americans, other Asian Americans and Postmoderns for Christ. He has served as an ethnic ministry, intercultural and leadership development consultant to many churches, denominations and ministry organizations. He helped start and direct several national ministries for Campus Crusade for Christ and the Japanese Evangelical Missionary Society (JEMS), including Asian American Christian Fellowship (AACF). He also taught as an adjunct at Fuller Theological Seminary, spoken at retreats and conferences across the United States, and contributed to books and magazines such as Christianity Today, Confident Witness – Changing World (Eerdmans 1999), and The Complete Evangelism Guidebook (Baker, 2006).
Russell Jeung is an Associate Professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University. The author of Faithful Generations: Race and New Asian American Churches (Rutgers University Press, 2004), he has recently been awarded a Fulbright Scholar fellowship to lecture in Taiwan.
Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen is a Professor of Systematic Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary. A native of Finland, he formerly served as president and professor at IsoKirja College in Keuruu, Finland. He has taught and lived with his family on three continents, Europe, Asia (Thailand), and North America (the U.S.) He travels widely and has a command of several languages. A prolific writer, Kärkkäinen has published 11 books in English (and seven in Finnish), most recently The Trinity: Global Perspectives (2007), One With God: Salvation as Deification and Justification (2004), and Trinity and Religious Pluralism: The Doctrine of the Trinity in Christian Theology of Religions (2004), as well as more than 100 articles, which have appeared in international scholarly journals. He is also the editor (with William Dyrness) of Global Dictionary of Theology (2008). He is a member of three working groups of the World Council of Churches and has participated in numerous international consultations.
Paul Y. Kim is a graduate of the University of Illinois, where he majored in electrical engineering. He has since dedicated himself to the reconciliation of and partnership between various generations of Korean Americans within a local church context. For the past fourteen years he has served as the senior pastor of Open Door Presbyterian Church in the metro D.C. area, which is nationally known as being one of the few that has successfully implemented a healthy partnership between the older immigrants and younger American-born congregants. As a result, Rev. Kim has become a renowned speaker and consultant on the topic of developing intergenerational relationships in ethnic churches. He also has a strong passion for missions and regularly accompanies members of his congregations to various points overseas. In addition to his B.S. from Illinois, he has both a M.Div. and a Th.M. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He has also been serving as vice chairperson for Operation Mobilization Korean American Mission and as a member of the Catalyst Leadership Center board.
Rebecca Y. Kim is Associate Professor of Sociology and the Director of the Ethnic Studies program at Pepperdine University. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of California at Los Angeles. She has published on topics related to immigration, religion, and the second-generation. She is the author of God’s New Whiz Kids? Korean American Evangelicals on Campus (NYU Press 2006). She is currently conducting research on Korean missionaries.
Prema Kurien is Associate Professor in the Sociology department at Syracuse University. Her research focuses on the relationship between religion, ethnicity, and international migration. Her first book, Kaleidoscopic Ethnicity: International Migration and the Reconstruction of Community Identities in India (2003 Book Award from the Asia and Asian America section of the American Sociological Association), explored the factors responsible for the striking differences in the patterns of migration and migration-induced social change of three ethno-religious communities in Kerala, India. Her second book, A Place at the Multicultural Table: The Development of an American Hinduism (2007) examines the relationship between the institutionalization of Hinduism as a minority religion in the U.S. and the politicization of Hinduism. She is currently completing the research on transnationalism and the intergenerational transmission of religion among Mar Thoma Christians that she writes about in her chapter in the reader and plans to publish several articles and a book on this topic. She is also conducting research on Indian American political mobilization.
Andrew Lee is the Eastern Regional Director for the Institute for the Study of Asian American Christianity, and Adjunct Professor at New Brunswick Theological Seminary. He served as a pastor in New York City for more than two decades, first at Trust in God Baptist Church and later at the Oversea Chinese Mission (Main Church). In between the two pastorates he was Associate Professor of Old Testament Interpretation at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Director of Theological Education for the Northeastern Baptist School of Ministry. He holds a Ph.D. in Religion from Baylor University. He has contributed articles to The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, and Ways of Being, Ways of Reading.
Dihan Lee serves as the lead English congregation pastor of Open Door Presbyterian Church in the Metro Washington D.C. area. He works primarily with vision casting, leadership development, and pulpit ministry, but is also involved with evangelism and outreach. Dihan graduated from Northwestern University (1998) and attended Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (2001), where he received his M.Div. degree. After interning at NewSong Church in Southern California, he came to Open Door Presbyterian Church in 2001 and served as associate pastor for six years. He has played an integral role in helping to develop the intergenerational ministry at Open Door Presbyterian Church.
Helen Lee is an award-winning freelance writer and consultant who writes for publications such as Leadership Journal, Christianity Today and Today’s Christian Woman. She previously served as the associate director of the Best Christian Workplaces Institute (BCWI), an organization she cofounded in 2002. In addition to being a former editor and writer with Christianity Today, Helen has also worked with re:generation quarterly and as a campus staff worker with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, where she pioneered the organization’s first Asian American small group Bible study. She has also written about ethnic identity and faith issus in numerous publications and attends Parkwood Community Church, an Asian American congregation in Chicagoland which she and her husband helped plant in 1996. Currently, Helen is working on a book about missional moms, to be published by Moody Publishers in 2010. Helen attended Williams College (B.A.), Wheaton College (M.A.), and Babson College (M.B.A.) She is married to classical pianist Brian Lee, and they have three sons, Jason, Sean and Aidan.
Ricky Manalo, CSP, is a member of the Paulist community and has published more than 20 articles on multiculturalism and liturgy. Since 2000, he has served as a member of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy (multicultural committee). In 2005, he was the convocation facilitator of the first National Asian Pacific Catholic Conference. Known for his liturgical music published through Oregon Catholic Press, he also serves as a board member of the National Association of Pastoral Musicians (NPM). Currently he is pursuing a doctoral degree in liturgy, cultural studies, and sociology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA, while residing at Old St. Mary’s Cathedral, Chinatown, San Francisco.
Russell Moy grew up in Detroit where his Chinese and Korean grandparents settled. After graduating from the University of Michigan and Calvin Seminary, he served as pastor of the First Chinese Baptist Church where he was ordained American Baptist. He received his Ph.D. in religious education from the Claremont School of Theology and taught at Drew University and the Graduate Theological Union for ten years. Russell research project is an Asian American commentary on I Peter since it was addressed to resident aliens who emigrated to (west) Asia.
Viji Nakka-Cammauf, co-editor of the Reader, received her Ph.D in Theology and the Arts from the Graduate Theological Union and M.Div from the American Baptist Seminary of the West in Berkeley CA. She has served as the Minister of Missions, Adult Education and Prayer Ministry at First Covenant Church in Oakland California for 13 years. She is also an Adjunct professor for the American Baptist Seminary of the West, Fuller Northern California and Logos Evangelical Seminary in El Monte CA. Most recently she taught a Summer intensive for Westmont College students in Missions and Social Justice which required the students to travel and study in India. Nakka- Cammauf is also the president of Little Flock Children’s Homes a ministry to Orphans and Widows. She is the Professor of Record and popular lecturer for the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement study program. She leads short-term mission teams annually to India.
Peter C. Phan, a native of Vietnam, emigrated as a refugee to the U.S.A. in 1975. He obtained three doctorates, the Doctor of Sacred Theology from the Universitas Pontificia Salesiana, Rome, and the Doctor Philosophy and the Doctor of Divinity from the University of London. He was also awarded two honorary doctorates: the Doctor of Theology from Chicago Theological Union and the Doctor of Humane Letters from Elms College, MA. He has taught at the University of Dallas, Texas; at the Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, where he held the Warren-Blanding Chair of Religion and Culture; at Union Theological Seminary, N.Y.; at Elms College, Chicopee, MA; at St. Norbert College, De Pere, WI, and at Georgetown University, Washington, DC, where he is currently holding the Ignacio Ellacuría Chair of Catholic Social Thought. He is also on the faculty of the East Asian Pastoral Institute, Manila and Liverpool Hope University, England. He is the first non-Anglo to be elected President of Catholic Theological Society of America. He is general editor of a multi-volume series entitled Theology in Global Perspective for Orbis Books and a multi-volume series entitled Ethnic American Pastoral Spirituality for Paulist Press. His publications range far and wide in theology and have received many awards from learned societies. They deal with the theology of icon in Orthodox theology (Culture and Eschatology: The Iconographical Vision of Paul Evdokimov); patristic theology (Social Thought; Grace and the Human Condition); eschatology (Eternity in Time: A Study of Rahner’s Eschatology; Death and Eternal Life); the history of mission in Asia (Mission and Catechesis: Alexandre de Rhodes and Inculturation in Seventeenth-Century Vietnam) and liberation, inculturation, and interreligious dialogue (Christianity with an Asian Face; In Our Own Tongues; Being Religious Interreligiously). In addition, he has edited some 20 volumes (e.g., Christianity and the Wider Ecumenism; Church and Theology; Journeys at the Margins; The Asian Synod; The Gift of the Church; Directory on Popular Piety and Liturgy).
Sharon Stanley is an ordained Presbyterian pastor, and is the founder and Executive Director of Fresno Interdenominational Refugee Ministries (FIRM, Inc.) which works with 5,500 refugees annually in California’s Central Valley. She speaks intermediate Lao and holds a Masters of Divinity from San Francisco Theological Seminary and a Doctor of Ministry degree from Columbia Theological Seminary. Sharon has also served as a Presbyterian Church, USA Volunteer in Mission, and has travelled and studied theology at the Third World Church Leadership Training Center in Seoul, with Bossey Ecumenical Institute in Switzerland, and with the Plowshares Institute in Indonesia. Sharon has won multiple social justice awards and lived for over thirteen years in a Fresno slum nicknamed “Little Ban Vinai” (after a refugee camp in Thailand). She is a native “southerner” from North Carolina, an avid jogger, and a “surrogate Mom” to numerous Southeast Asian children.
Steffi San Buenaventure (d. 2002) was a distinguished historian and professor of Filipino and Filipino American history in Asian American Studies at UC Davis. She came to Los Angeles from Hawaii in 1991 and spent two years in residence at the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, revising her dissertation on the Filipino Federation of America, preparing other publications, and teaching several courses, including Filipino American Social Movements. After teaching at UC Irvine, she became an Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies at UC Riverside, where she taught courses until her transfer to UC Davis in 1999. After a long and courageous struggle with cancer, she died peacefully at her home in Davis on Nov. 22, 2002.
Lester E. Suzuki (1909-1999) was a United Methodist minister with a service record of forty-two years. Ordained a minister in 1938 and an elder in 1940, he ministered to churches in California, Iowa, and Washington. He obtained his B.A. from San Jose State University, his B.D. and M.A. from Drew University, his D.Min. from San Francisco Theological Seminary. During World War II he was interned in the Amache Relocation Center as one of the thousands of Japanese Americans put in concentration camps. Out of this experience he wrote Ministry in the Assembly and Relocation Centers of World War II (Berkeley, Calif: Yardbird Pub. Co, 1979).
Jonathan Y. Tan is Assistant Professor of Religion and Culture at Xavier University, Cincinnati, Editor of The Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society of America, Assistant Editor of The New Catholic Encyclopedia, Second Edition (2003), and author of Introducing Asian American Theologies (Orbis, 2008). He holds a Ph.D. in Religion and Culture from The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC. His many essays have appeared in Vidyajyoti Journal of Theological Reflection, East Asian Pastoral Review, Gregorianum, Mission Studies, Missiology, New Theology Review, and INTAMS Review: Journal for the Study of Marriage & Spirituality.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto serves as the Program Director for the Urbana Mission Convention. Her insights come from her work with students at UC Berkeley, Stanford, and other campuses in the San Francisco Bay Area. She edited More than Serving Tea: Asian American Women on Expectations, Relationships, Leadership and Faith (2006), a collection of essays looking at the intersection of race, gender, and spirituality for Asian American Christian women. Nikki lives in Madison, Wisconsin with her husband Jesse and her daughter.
Jonathan Tran is assistant professor of theological ethics in the Department of Religion at Baylor University. He is author of The Vietnam War and Theologies of Memory: Time, Eternity, and Redemption in the Far Country forthcoming in the Blackwell series “Challenges in Contemporary Theology” and Theology and Foucault forthcoming in the T & T Clark International series, “Philosophy & Theology.”
Timothy Tseng, co-editor of the Reader, is the Executive Director for ISAAC. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Asian Philosophy and Religion at the University of San Francisco and a member of the Council of the American Society of Church History. He has served as faculty at Denver Seminary, Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, and as Associate Professor of American Religious History and Director of the Asian American Center at the American Baptist Seminary of the West. A historian by training (Ph.D. from Union Theological Seminary, New York), Tim’s research interests center on Asian and Asian American religious history, Asian Christianity, race and religion in North America, the Chinese Diaspora, and American evangelicalism. He has written articles for several journals and has contributed chapters to Realizing the America of our Hearts: Theological Voices of Asian Americans, Revealing the Sacred in Asian and Pacific America, Women and Twentieth-Century Protestantism, The Social Gospel Today, and New Spiritual Homes: Religion and Asian Americans. He facilitated the publication of Asian American Religious Leadership Today: A Preliminary Inquiry on behalf of the Pulpit and Pew Project and other projects designed to be resources for leaders in Asian American ministry settings.
Enoch Wan is the Director of the Doctor of Missiology Program at Western Seminary (Portland, Oregon). He is the President of Evangelical Missiological Society, Vice President of Great Commission International, Board Member of William Carey International University, member of the Lausanne Diaspora Leadership Team, FIN (Filipino International Network) advisor. He had served on the Board of Directors of the American Society of Missiology; Chairman of the Board – China Academic Consortium, Administrative VP & Southeastern regional VP of Evangelical Missiological Society; contributing editor of the Great Commission International Bi-monthly, Chinese Around the World, Contributing Editor of Cultural Encounters, etc. His publications include: Mission Resource Manual, Missions Within Reach, several books (in Chinese) on Sino-theology (contextual theology for the Chinese), a devotional commentary on Mark and a guide book on Christian marriage. In additional to several books in Chinese, his has published Christian Witness in Pluralistic Contexts in the 21st Century, Jewish-Gentile Couples: Trends, Challenges, and Hopes, Scattered: The Filipino Global Presence, Missions in Action in the 21st Century.
Russell Yee received his PhD in worship and liturgy from the Graduate Theological Union (Berkeley, California), his Th.M from Dallas Theological Seminary (Dallas, Texas) and his BS at UC Berkeley. He was lead pastor of New Life Christian Fellowship (Castro Valley, California) for ten years and is now on pastoral staff at New Hope Covenant Church (Oakland, California). He also teaches at Fuller Northern California and Logos Evangelical Seminary. Dr. Yee is a third-generation Chinese-American keenly interested in matters of worship and culture. In recent years he has helped lead several groundbreaking worship conferences and projects, including, “Waterwind” (Asian American), “Crossings” (African American + Asian American), “Emerging Voices” (Native American + Northeast Asian Indian +Asian American), and “New Urban Voices (South East Asian American + Multicultural). He is currently working on a book of Asian American worship. He is available to consult and lead workshops on culture and theology in Asian American worship.
David K. Yoo is Associate Professor of History at Claremont McKenna College and Chairperson of the Intercollegiate Department of Asian American Studies at the Claremont Colleges (Claremont, California). He received his graduate degrees from Princeton Seminary (M.Div.) and Yale University (M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.), and his publications include the following books: Growing Up Nisei; New Spiritual Homes: Religion and Asian Americans (editor); Religion and Spirituality in Korean America (co-edited with Ruth H. Chung) and Faithful Witness: A Centennial History of the Los Angeles Korean United Methodist Church (co-authored with Hyung-ju Ahn). Yoo currently serves as chair of the managing board of the Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative (APARRI) and is an elder of the First Presbyterian Church of Pomona.
