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Invisible: Theology and the Experience of Asian American Women Paperback – November 9, 2021

4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 18 ratings

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Invisibility persists throughout the Asian American story. On the one hand, xenophobia has long contributed to racism and discrimination toward Asian Americans. On the other hand, terms such as perpetual foreigner and honorific whites have been thrust upon Asian Americans, minimizing their plight with racism and erasing their experience as racial minorities. Even more indiscernible in America's racial landscape are Asian American women. The compounded effects of a patriarchal Asian culture and a marginalizing American culture are formidable, steadily removing the recognition of these women's lives, voices, and agency.

Invisibility is not only a racial and cultural issue, but also a profound spiritual issue. The Western church--and its theology--has historically obscured the concerns of Asian Americans. The Asian American church relegates women to domestic, supportive roles meant to uplift male leaders.

In Invisible, Grace Ji-Sun Kim examines encounters with racism, sexism, and xenophobia as she works toward ending Asian American women's invisibility. She deploys biblical, sociological, and theological narratives to empower the voices of Asian American women. And she shares the story of her heritage, her family history, her immigration, and her own experience as an Asian American woman. Speaking with the weight of her narrative, she proclaims that the histories, experiences, and voices of Asian American women must be rescued from obscurity. Speaking with the weight of a theologian, she powerfully paves the way for a theology of visibility that honors the voice and identity of these women. As Asian American women work toward a theology of visibility, they uplift the voiceless and empower the invisible, moving beyond experiences of oppression and toward claiming their space in the kin-dom of God.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Combining moving personal narratives and social history, this timely book challenges anti-Asian racism and internalization of white norms that contribute to the invisibility of Asian Americans. It uses an intersectional approach to articulate a theology of visibility that decenters whiteness and offers a vision for our collective future. Written in an accessible way, this book can be used in classrooms, churches, and adult forums." --Kwok Pui Lan, Candler School of Theology, Emory University

"Kim's Invisible is an eloquent clarion call to steep American theology in the sufferings and pains and joys and hopes of Asian women. I most strongly recommend this book to all Americans, especially in the current anti-immigration climate." --Peter C. Phan, Georgetown University

"In Invisible, Kim moves with deft sensitivity between concepts of invisibility and erasure, historic legacy and nuanced contemporary reflection, unearthing how a theology of visibility can help redefine the self-knowledge and understanding of Asian Americans and pave the path for new generations to embrace their story as an essential element of the American experience. In this season, love, hope, visibility, and unity matter." --Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., president and founder of Rainbow PUSH Coalition and author of Keeping Hope Alive

"Invisible opens our eyes to the long history of racism, discrimination, and xenophobia that Asian Americans have faced and are facing. We need a theology of visibility to start embracing, welcoming, and loving one another. I highly recommend this book." --Susan M. Shaw, professor of women, gender, and sexuality studies, Oregon State University

"This book is vital for churches to celebrate the essential role of Asian and Asian American women as leaders in a truly global Christianity, in which a tapestry of voices brings dignity to all." --Todd M. Johnson, co-director, Center for the Study of Global Christianity, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

"Grace Ji-Sun Kim's Invisible is as provocative as it is alluring. She draws on her own experiences and stories to unveil the hidden discrimination and racism faced by Asian Americans and how we can move toward a theology of visibility that is consequential during this time." --Rev. Graham Joseph Hill, associate professor and principal, Stirling Theological College, Australia (University of Divinity)

About the Author

Rev. Dr. Grace Ji-Sun Kim is a professor of theology at Earlham School of Religion and author, coauthor, or editor of numerous books, most recently Spirit Life; Invisible; and Intersectional Theology. She has served on the American Academy of Religion's board of directors, is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), and is the host of the Madang podcast from The Christian Century. Kim writes for Baptist News Global, Sojourners, and Faith and Leadership and has published in TIME, The Huffington Post, The Christian Century, US Catholic Magazine, and The Nation. She lives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Fortress Press (November 9, 2021)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 177 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1506470920
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1506470924
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.2 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.75 x 0.75 x 8.75 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 18 ratings

About the author

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Grace Ji-Sun Kim
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Grace Ji-Sun Kim received her her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and is Professor of Theology at Earlham School of Religion. Kim is the author or editor of 24 books, most recently, Surviving God, Spirit Life; Invisible; Hope in Disarray; Keeping Hope Alive and Reimagining Spirit She is a co-editor for the Palgrave Macmillan Book Series, “Asian Christianity in the Diaspora”. She is the host of Madang podcast which holds conversations on Christianity, religion and culture. Madang is hosted by Christian Century Magazine.

Kim is a much sought after lecturer and has given papers/lectures throughout the United States and in Malaysia, Korea, Myanmar, Spain, Qatar, Brazil, Switzerland, Peru, England, South Africa, Paris and Canada. Grace Ji-Sun Kim has appeared on MSNBC, PBS and C-Span. She has been a guest on BBC Radio, Soul Search Radio, WBEZ Radio, and Keep Hope Alive Radio.

Kim writes for Faith and Leadership, The Christian Century, The Huffington Post, Sojourners, GoodFaithMedia, Wabash Center and Feminist Studies in Religion, Spirituality and Health Magazine and the Baptist News Global. Kim has published in TIME, The Feminist Wire, Feminism and Religion, The Forum for Theological Education, and The Nation.

Kim is the co-director with Graham Joseph Hill of The Global Church Project. Kim served on the Board of Directors for the American Academy of Religion and sits on the editorial board for the Journal for Religion and Popular Culture .

Kim is a member of the working group on Climate Change for the World Council of Churches. Kim served on the board for the Korean American Clergywomen and is also a member of the Presbyterian Church(USA)’s Social Ethics Network.

She is honored to be included in the Englewood Review of Book‘s list of “Ten Important Women Theologians That You Should Be Reading” and to be included in their list of books to read under “Our God is Too White? Diversifying our Theology”. Eerdmans included her in Five Great Women Scholars (and Their Books) and is included in the “15 Majority World Books that will Change the Way you see the World in 2017”. She is also one of the “Top 10 Writers Shaping Our Movement” put together by the Center for Progressive Renewal.

Grace Ji-Sun Kim is an ordained minister of word and sacrament within the PC (USA) denomination.

Customer reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars
4.8 out of 5
18 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2023
Great insight an read. I could connect with some of the individuals. It’s speaks much of where my heart lands from experience.
Reviewed in the United States on November 23, 2021
Thoroughly enjoyed reading this! It’s a little “seminary level “, but the telling of the authors experience and painnpoints in church was enlightening.
Reviewed in the United States on March 2, 2022
One of the most challenging dimensions of missioning with and through today’s church is the cultural impact of new means of connecting and communicating. New voices are being heard. New people are becoming visible. New relationships are being cultivated - or rejected.

This broader range of vocality and visibility changes our perception and practice of being church. It opens up new situations through which God is inspiring and instructing us to reformulate our understanding of how to be faithful, wise, and effective as ambassadors of God’s forgiving and reconciling love made most manifest in Jesus, the Christ. That’s what Canadian Presbyterians have discerned as the great affirmation of the core truth of the Gospel - God has made us ambassadors of God’s forgiving and reconciling love for the whole world.

When people who have previously gone unnoticed are seen and heard, they challenge and disrupt the ways we have practiced that calling. How, then, do we find the compassion that will lead us into a more comprehensive sense of the coherence of the Christian faith as we experience it practiced in Jesus, our triune Creator’s Christ? How do we find the courage to hear those voices with respect, especially when they criticize the ways we have been habituated into living together?

In Invisible, Grace Ji-Sun Kim takes us deep into the world of the invisible and the silenced. She is a reflective story teller, finding in her experience the slow but sure workings of her God who encourages her to find her visibility and vocality. She is also a prophetic presence in today’s church, bringing to her reading of the Gospel and to our calling to be its ambassadors a fresh vision of how the church and its contributors show up as the triune Creator’s companions in the care of all creation.

At the age of 5, Grace came to Canada with her family. They settled in London, ON. They were drawn into the warm embrace of a Korean Presbyterian Church in that city. Eventually, Grace felt called to ministry, studied at Knox College in Toronto, did doctoral work in the Toronto School of Theology, is an ordained minister of with the Presbyterian Church USA, and now teaches at Earlham School of Religion in Richmond, Indiana. She is a prolific writer (authored or edited more than 20 books), an astute user of the various social media channels available these days, and a champion of voices, including her own, that would greatly strengthen the church’s witness if heard with respect.

The particular focus in this book is Asian-American (and Canadian) women. The stories Kim recounts of her relationships with her grandmothers, her mother, her sister, and the women in the Korean Presbyterian Church in London, ON, are poignant. As they touch our souls with their lament, we get a powerful sense of what it means to really hear new voices with a tales of demeaning and dismissal to tell.

The stories Kim analyze are complex, especially as they overlap. Her descriptive language is telling – “model minority,” “enclosed,” “hidden,” “submissive,” “sexualized,” “exotic,” “legacy of shame,” and “barely visible shadows.” Kim reveals a complex net of racism from without and sexism from within her immigrant community that keeps visibility and vocality for Asian-American women on the margins.

But there is another dimension of this dynamic, one embodied by Kim herself. She has found in the Christian community and its traditions a source of resilient respect, resilience, and reform that brings her race and gender to redemptive visibility.
Here is a concise summary of her theology of visibility:

A theology of visibility reminds us that everyone is a child of God, and all life is sacred. As such, we should love and embrace one another – not stereotype, racialize, discriminate against, and hate. As we live with sacredness, dignity, and love, we will recognize God who is among us and who embraces the invisible. (159)

Kim has written eloquently on two themes that are woven through this practical application of her Christian faith to her context as an Asian-America woman.

The first is the Holy Spirit. She has reformulated the Reformed articulation of that doctrine in dialogue with the Asian concepts of Chi, that life-giving energy that infuses our daily lives, of Jeong, the “sticky love” that binds us together in all of our interdependencies, of Ou-ri, the deep sense of being “us” rather than “me,” and of Han, the undeserved suffering of human beings. She talks a lot about light, wind, breath, and vibration, especially as manifest in music (including jazz!), being channels of the Holy Spirit’s workings.

The second is intersectionality. It recognizes that people live multiple intersecting systems of oppression and domination that often determine what is noticed and what is not. By seeing and hearing new voices, we awaken to the dynamics of those systems in a way that shines a light on the suffering they impose on others and on us.

In the triune Creator’s incarnation in Jesus of Nazareth, intersectional humanity living the dynamics of the divine energy was made manifest in his proclamation of the kin-dom of God with its preference for sinners, outcasts, the marginalized, the poor, and the powerless. Theirs are the voices Kim urges us to hear, the neighbours Kim urges us to see because in their welfare we will find our own. In their visibility and vocality, the full flourishing of the kin-dom of God will be realized.

Kim’s whole body of work is a good introduction to a progressive reformulation of the Christian tradition that models a form of traditioned innovation that is not defined by ancient male theologians working out of imperial church perspectives. Set within the context of her own story of gaining visibility and vocality, this book is narrative theology at its best as it opens up for its readers new possibilities for the church’s missioning.
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Reviewed in the United States on December 25, 2021
Got this book as a Christmas present from my young adult kids. Started reading today and could not put it down! So good and so relatable… I shed a few tears already reading the author’s immigration story. Must-read!