Significance for the Academic Field:
This project significantly enriches the study of religion in North America, and more specifically, deepens our understanding of Christianity and Asian American Christianity, by foregrounding the complex lived experiences, spiritual practices, and narrative worlds of first-generation East Asian American Christians. Traditionally, scholarship on Christianity in the United States has emphasized transatlantic migration stories, white mainline and evangelical Protestantism, and a doctrinally centered view of faith. By contrast, this oral history research, rooted in transpacific migration narratives, expands and complicates these standard approaches in several key ways:
1. Broadening the Scope of American Religious History: By featuring first-generation Asian immigrants as active religious subjects, the project disrupts the implicit centering of White, European-derived religious communities. It shows that religious life in North America is also forged by migrants who bring diverse cultural, linguistic, and political inheritances from Asia and who adapt faith traditions as they settle in new contexts. This inclusion challenges the notion that American religious history can be fully understood without considering the contributions and experiences of Asian Americans.
2. Rethinking Christian Identity and Diversity: Instead of relying on denominational categories (e.g., “evangelical” vs. “mainline”) or Western theological frameworks alone, this research highlights how first-generation East Asian American Christians articulate their faith through family-centered values, communal practices, and spiritual experiences that resist easy classification. Their narratives underscore how Christianity in North America is neither uniform nor derivative; rather, it is dynamically shaped by multiple ethnic and linguistic communities, each bringing their own histories and sacred concerns.
3. Expanding Theoretical and Methodological Tools: By integrating oral history and ethnographic methods with theological reflection and social pragmatism, the project provides new conceptual frameworks—such as examining “sacred values” expressed through familial ties, migration experiences, and everyday spiritual practices. This approach complements and challenges prevailing categories of “belief-centered” religiosity, inviting scholars to consider the full spectrum of religious life, including affect, aesthetics, political contexts, and socio-economic realities.
4. Illuminating Asian American Religious Complexities: While earlier studies often portrayed Asian American Christianity as largely evangelical, assimilationist, or modeled on white American churches, these oral histories reveal a richly textured landscape. First-generation Asian American Christians engage and reconfigure Christian doctrines, adapt or question denominations, and grapple with political, racial, and linguistic complexities. In doing so, they co-create a form of Asian American Christianity that is neither wholly “Asian” nor “American,” but a fluid, evolving hybrid shaped by transpacific influences and local encounters.
5. Inspiring Comparative and Transnational Perspectives: By attending closely to the transpacific dimension of these communities’ religious life, the project encourages further comparative and global studies. It suggests that American religious historiography must attend to the interplay of global migrations, foreign mission legacies, and ongoing cultural exchanges that shape religious communities on U.S. soil. This transnational lens ultimately helps situate North American Christianity in a broader world Christian context, recognizing how theological ideas and ecclesial practices circulate across oceans and borders.
In sum, this research advances the academic field by breaking through narrative constraints and offering narrative surplus: it complicates dominant assumptions, brings first-generation Asian American Christian voices to the forefront, and challenges existing interpretive categories. By doing so, it enriches the understanding of religion in North America and sets a new agenda for studying Christianity and Asian American religions—one that is more inclusive, transnational, ethnographically grounded, and attuned to the lived realities of believers.
Theoretical and Methodological Contributions:
From a theoretical standpoint, our findings challenge the dominance of standard typologies (e.g., “evangelical,” “mainline,” “conservative,” “liberal”) derived from Euro-American Protestant categories. We encountered narrators who questioned the point of denominational boundaries, who found doctrinal litmus tests unhelpful, and who described their faith journey in terms of hospitality, healing from trauma, forging community activism, or reconciling family obligations with Christian discipleship. These testimonies prompt scholars to develop new conceptual languages and frameworks that can embrace intergenerational family dynamics, transpacific political entanglements, and forms of religious experience not easily captured by doctrinal or institutional metrics.
Methodologically, our use of abductive reasoning and semi-structured interviewing positions narrators as knowledge creators. Unlike studies that confirm pre-existing theories, this project’s iterative, exploratory approach means that our subjects set the research agenda. For instance, one narrator might emphasize the moment she first heard church bells in Seoul that later resonated as a spiritual calling after migrating to the U.S.; another might reflect on how the 2019 Hong Kong protests re-inflected her understanding of justice and lament in worship. Such emergent themes encourage scholars to adopt more flexible, listening-first methodologies, making our approach a potential model for future research in lived religion, migration studies, and cultural anthropology.
Impact on Community Life and Practice:
The project’s significance resonates deeply with the communities from which it draws. Immigrant churches often operate as social hubs, moral support systems, and cultural preservers. By articulating how family structures, political memories, and intergenerational tensions shape the faith lives of first-generation believers, we offer these communities an enriched self-understanding. Church members who read or hear about these findings can see their own complex journeys validated: stories of struggling to find a spiritual home in a denomination they barely recognize, of feeling both comforted and challenged by new faith communities, or of reconciling Buddhist upbringing with Christian convictions.
Concrete Examples for Local Faith Communities:
- Family as a Sacred Value: Consider a Cantonese Christian who immigrated in the 1980s for her children’s future. She narrates how “sacred value” lies in caring for aging parents and ensuring her grandchildren’s moral upbringing. Church leaders who understand this can tailor sermons, counseling sessions, or adult education classes that speak directly to the moral weight and spiritual significance of familial devotion.
- Trauma and Mental Health: Another Chinese participant describes a life-altering car accident that took his father’s life shortly after arriving in the U.S. Through faith, he channeled grief into civic engagement in his Chinatown community, finding divine purpose in helping others. This testimony can guide pastors to address mental health, grief, and social justice more openly in their preaching and programming, acknowledging that trauma and spiritual growth are often intertwined.
- Cultural and Political Worlds: A Hong Kong immigrant’s reflection on the 2019 protests reveals how political upheaval abroad intensifies theological reflection at home. Church small groups might use such a story as a prompt to discuss global justice, intercessory prayer for one’s homeland, or the meaning of solidarity in diasporic Christian life. This encourages congregations to become “glocal” communities—locally grounded but globally aware.
Organizational and Institutional Benefits:
Beyond individual communities, seminaries, denominational bodies, and research institutes stand to gain from the project’s insights. As theological schools seek to prepare ministers for multicultural congregations, they can incorporate these narratives into syllabi, reading lists, and training modules. Faculty might assign excerpts from these interviews in a class on “Global Christianity in North America,” prompting students to compare and contrast Western Protestant assumptions with the lived realities of first-generation Asian believers.
Enhancing Institutional Curricula and Training:
- Seminaries and Theological Schools: A Master of Divinity student studying pastoral counseling might read a transcript where an interviewee struggled with language barriers and confusion over denominational identities. Discussing this scenario in class could yield strategies for culturally sensitive pastoral care—recognizing that theological language, ritual forms, and evangelism methods may need adaptation when working with first-generation congregants.
- Denominational Bodies and Mission Agencies: Those who allocate resources or shape cross-cultural missions training can draw on these interviews to refine their outreach. For instance, if a Presbyterian mission board sees that first-generation immigrants often find denominational lines puzzling or irrelevant, they might focus on training local leaders to be more ecumenical, emphasizing shared core values (like hospitality, justice, and community support) rather than confessional markers.
Fostering Dialogue Between Academics and Pastors:
A key achievement already visible is the budding dialogue between scholarly inquiry and pastoral practice. Although our primary activities centered on research, the inclusion of pastors and lay leaders as interviewees meant their voices carried into our analytical sessions. Their questions—“How does this help us mentor youth who feel torn between Asian cultural norms and American individualism?” or “How can we address mental health stigma illuminated by these stories?”—converted academic insights into actionable ministerial strategies.
In the future, we anticipate hosting workshops and forums where pastors, seminary students, and scholars convene to discuss findings. For example, a training event might feature panel discussions with researchers presenting themes from the interviews (family pressures, denominational confusion, hybrid liturgical expressions) followed by roundtable conversations with pastors who respond from their congregational experience. Such events can spark new collaborations, resulting in instructional materials (like bilingual devotional booklets or culturally informed pastoral handbooks) that directly implement the research outcomes.
Already Notable Impacts:
Even at this juncture, preliminary presentations and working seminars with both academic and ecclesial participants have generated enthusiasm and introspection. Scholars in other subfields (such as Latinx Pentecostal studies or African diaspora congregations) have expressed interest in adapting the abductive, narrative-first methodology. Pastors and ministry leaders who caught wind of our early findings have informally shared that hearing about “mental health as a spiritual concern” or “family obligations as a theological issue” resonates with their pastoral observations, providing language and frameworks they lacked.
One practical manifestation might be a pastor deciding to preach a sermon series on “Faith and Family Across Generations” after reading an anonymized vignette from our research. Another might incorporate a listening session in a church meeting where older and younger congregants share their experiences of faith formation, prompted by the stories uncovered in our study.
Long-Term Influence and Future Directions:
We believe the project’s influence will expand over time. As we publish journal articles, blog posts, or possibly a monograph weaving together these narratives, the research will reach wider academic and church audiences. Digital humanities projects might emerge—an online resource center with carefully curated audio clips and translated excerpts, where congregants, pastors, and scholars can explore them for teaching or personal reflection. These digitally accessible resources would ensure that the project’s benefits endure, guiding new generations of leaders and believers.
In the academic sphere, researchers might take inspiration from our findings to compare first-generation Asian American Christian narratives with those from other diaspora communities, thus broadening the conversation and refining comparative theology and religious ethnography. Meanwhile, denominational leaders might adjust their pastoral resource materials, offering multilingual guides that acknowledge the particularities of first-generation religious life.
Conclusion:
The significance and impact of this oral history project are multifaceted and evolving. For the scholarly field, it provides richer conceptual frameworks, methodological innovations, and new research questions. For local communities and congregations, it validates complex lived experiences and invites practical applications in worship, pastoral care, and community engagement. For institutions—seminaries, denominations, and research centers—it lays the groundwork for curriculum reforms, resource development, and inter-institutional dialogue.
Most importantly, this project exemplifies a research posture that honors the voices of narrators, bridging academic insight with the practical wisdom of those who live out their faith amid migration, family pressures, racialization, and transnational concerns. Through this integrative approach, we hope the legacy of this project will inspire more receptive, contextually alert, and theologically imaginative ways of understanding and serving diverse Christian communities going forward.
