Publication Type
Book Chapter
Version
acceptedVersion
Publication Date
2020
Abstract
Recent treatments of Asian American evangelicals tend to focus on a shift of attention from their identity-based attempts to found autonomous congregrations to online self-publications. I evaluate this new trend by considering two episodes in Asian American evangelical self-publication: the 'open letter to the evangelical church' in 2013 and the Killjoy Prophets initiative from 2014-2016 when their leader Suey Park disappeared from the Internet. I argue that while Asian American evangelical online self-publication is intended to reform evangelicalism, its discursive nature leads to debates among Asian American evangelicals about whether the cyber-discourse about them is adequately representational. This sobering analysis demonstrates that the identitarian claims of Asian American evangelicalism are not transcended by cyberspace, but are exacerbated by it.
Keywords
Cyberspace, Asian American, evangelicalism, reform
Discipline
Asian Studies | Religion
Research Areas
Humanities
Publication
Religion, hypermobility and digital media in global Asia: Faith, flows and fellowship
Editor
Catherine Jean Gomes, Lily Kong, and Orlando Woods
First Page
179
Last Page
201
ISBN
9789463728935
Identifier
10.1515/9789048552108-010
Publisher
Amsterdam University Press
City or Country
Amsterdam
Embargo Period
8-16-2021
Citation
TSE, Justin K. H.. (2020). ‘The open letter to the evangelical church’ and its discontents: The online politics of Asian American evangelicals, 2013-2016. In Religion, hypermobility and digital media in global Asia: Faith, flows and fellowship (pp. 179-201). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3341
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1515/9789048552108-010