Remembering

As I gear up for my final semester at Yale, I remember why I came in the first place.

Whenever people ask me, I tend to give the short answer: I grew up in a Christian family and have been actively involved in my faith ever since.  However, I don't have an academic background in religion, and I'd like one.

Of course, there's always a lot more behind a decision as big as relocating across the country to spend one's savings on school.

As my 30th birthday approaches, I am keenly aware of how differently my life has turned out from many of my peers, who have chosen to get married, enter professional careers, and buy homes.  I have been blessed to not have to enter debt to get my second master's degree, but I'll be in a different economic bracket from most of my friends by the time I graduate.  During this time, it's good for me to recall why I decided to attend Divinity School--and what I'd like to get out of it before I graduate.

In 2012, my family encountered medical, relational, and spiritual crisis.  I took a year off going to church--a self-proclaimed "sabbatical"of sorts--and seriously reevaluated a lot of the fundamentalist theology with which I had been raised.  It was also around that time that many of the (male and white) Christian leaders I had looked up to started having extramarital affairs exposed, and that was confirmation that there was something wrong with the patriarchy of the conservative church.  I voraciously read blogs of Christians who had come out of (were raised in and ultimately left) the conservative and Evangelical church circles, and those writings encouraged me to think more deeply and holistically about my faith.

My heart not only longed to understand more about God's heart for all Christians--not just fundamentalists or conservatives--and I wanted to be exposed to more liturgical (high-church) ways of worship.  I had gone to Catholic mass--alone and unencumbered by expectations that often were put on me when I got plugged in to Evangelical church circles--during a time of personal crisis in 2011 and found that I felt more connected to God there than in any other church (with the exception of a Spirit-filled Charismatic church my family attended in the late 1990s).  During the crisis of 2012, my mom often played music from Taize on YouTube, as the instrumental accompaniment to voices singing repeated, meditative lyrics seemed more appropriate for a dark spiritual season than upbeat Evangelical worship songs.  In short, I was ready to get out of the Christian circles with which I was familiar and to go to a more "liberal" environment where theology was fluid, creative, and intellectually stimulating.

Well, I've gotten what I wanted, and it's made me both broaden my theological views and deepen my personal faith.  Contrary to many people think, a liberal Christian education has made me appreciate Scripture even more (rather than devalue its validity); love more openly (rather than become jaded); and cling to God desperately (rather than resting assured that my theology is the best one out there).  Each week, I attend 2-3 ecumenical chapel services at school, where students from various denominations gather to offer worship to God in different styles and with different emphases.  I have learned to care about social justice issues that my former actively Republican self would have frowned upon.  I have made friends who are "red and yellow, black and white," gay, transgender, transsexual, bisexual, conservative, liberal, a dichotomy-defying in-between, in love with Jesus, mad at God, open to the Holy Spirit, and the list goes on.

Previously, in college, I had liberal friends who weren't Christian (mostly from the Thornton School of Music and from Thematic Option honors program) and Conservative Christian friends (in my college fellowship).  I never thought that one could be (truly, devotedly) Christian and somewhat liberal--or non-Conservative.  Well, it's true, folks.  I've seen it with my own eyes.

Friends getting up for morning prayer every day, friends who support or are gay, going out in the New England cold to worship God at 7 am.  Friends who are devoting their lives to ministry, even if they don't fully believe (literally) everything the Bible says, because they see a compelling role for religion in society.  Friends who choose a life of poverty in order to stand in solidarity with the oppressed.  The list goes on.

At the same time, Evangelicals and Conservatives have found a home here, too.  My prayer group is comprised of students mostly from the Assemblies of God, a relatively conservative and Pentecostal denomination.  My church believes in the power of prayer, in God's word, and in the accountability of community.

The beautiful thing about an ecumenical seminary housed in a larger secular university is that, in order to engage with other denominations and academic disciplines, one is compelled to really figure out one's own background, narrative, and current beliefs.  I have discovered that I am an Asian-American woman, saved by God's grace, willing to follow Jesus wherever He goes, and strengthened and led by the unpredictable moving of the Holy Spirit.  I love my (Evangelical, Spirit-filled) church, but I also love attending mid-week evening prayer (often in the style of Taize) and observing Eucharist at Catholic or Anglican mass.  I am learning just how broad God's love is for all people, and how His heart rejoices at the diverse ways people find to connect to Him and worship Him.  I am seeing how futile it is to box God into rigid theology or a brand or culture of Christianity.  I am also learning from my peers what conviction is and the price we pay for choosing to go against the grain of our capitalist, material, competitive, and patriarchal society.

I still have so much to learn, and I am looking forward to absorbing as much as I can during my final semester and my 30th year!

**I recognize that "conservative" and "Evangelical" are not necessarily the same thing.  Perhaps one day I will write in a way that better distinguishes between the two.  Thank goodness this is personal writing and not an academic discussion!