Issue 59 - From the Editor
Photo by Thomas Broeker on Unsplash
By Jonathan Ho
As I write these words, I hesitate a lot, realizing many of you may consider the following uncomfortable, offensive, and biased.
When I first asked the writers to share about politics, I had the intention of looking at politics on a broader scale. What are politics and what does it mean to move in a world where politics affect every group of human beings? I wanted a broader view of the idea of politics and what it means to be a Kingdom citizen. What does it mean to wrestle for and utilize power in this world? Yet, what I received back from writers was almost entirely focused on the challenges we face today in the United States. Almost all of them focused on the turmoil we face today in an uncertain world and either directly spoke to or described the difficulties we find related to race. 1
Some of what you read will be called “political” because it points a finger only in one direction. Despite doing my best to ensure every argument has a concrete rationale, you may call some of what is printed here “biased.”
So why are we publishing this work? Shouldn’t we all be fair and unbiased people as Christians? We choose to print this work because we cannot sit idly on the sidelines. Jesus did not come and patiently hope everything would sort itself out. As I sit here, days after Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I remember the words that Martin Luther King Jr. wrote from a jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama:
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice… We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured. 2
Most of our readers are not white, but as an Asian American I have felt the strong current towards “moderation.” Traditional Chinese music speaks in the language of harmony through its pentatonic scale where every note is consonant with one another. There is no dissonance in a standard pentatonic scale (try just playing black keys on a piano and you’ll hear what I mean). While our cultures may demand moderation and a false peace, our King speaks to our allegiance and self-sacrifice. As Kingdom followers we cannot ignore what is going on around us. We must not look away.
In the Scriptures we read Jeremiah’s words, “They have healed the brokenness of My people superficially, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ but there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14, NASB). My prayer is that God would use the words of this edition to help us begin the process of joining in the tension and dissonance of this world. Yes, I fear, bias will have made it into the articles as will the effects of fear, sin, and anger. Yet, as a follower of Christ, the alternative of silence is not an option. While we may wish there were only the five notes of the pentatonic scale, this world has many more notes which require our engagement as Kingdom citizens. God did not rapture us away upon faith through Christ. No, he left us here for a purpose. As we await the return of Christ, may we choose to keep our lamps lit in readiness, not succumbing to the ease of sleep.
Jonathan Ho
P.S. Our hope is that this edition may open the door for more conversation and we would love to hear your feedback (whether neutral, positive, or negative). If you have any thoughts, concerns, or suggestions to share, please email us at krc.english@gmail.com.
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1 Adrian Pei defines race as a category with a history and purpose of social power in his book The Minority Experience
2 https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
From The Other Side
The following are the titles of the articles published on the Chinese side in this edition. Please let us know if you have any interest in learning more.
Talent Section:
1. Serving the Lord at Work, Resting in the Lord
2. Management with Mutual Understanding
3. Coaching: Cultivating Talents
Outreach Section:
1. Love One Another: Caring for Cross Cultural Missionaries
2. Crises or Turning Points: The Changes in the Lives of Cross Cultural Missionaries
3. Waiting and Learning: The Story of Esther, A Cross Cultural Missionary
Culture Section:
1. Living Dual Identities: As Kingdom Citizens and Earth Citizens
2. Hong Kong Church: In the Center of the Political Vortex
3. So Far Yet So Near: The Distance Between Evil and Us
KRC & You Section:
1. 2019 November Writing Workshop Report
Relationship Section:
1. Entering the Space of Holiness
2. Finally, I Wore My Own Skirt For the First Time
3. I’m Feeling Single Today
Community Section:
1. Financial Planning for the Poor?
2. The Sadness Behind the Beautiful Veil
3. The Calls from the Starlit Tribe