Asian: Resources of particular value to Asian communities.
Asian and Pacific Islander Roundtable
Pacific School of Religion Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (format: Website)
The Asian and Pacific Islander Roundtable envisions the emergence of coalitions and networks of API LGBTQ and API allies across the country that affirm the dignity and spiritual wholeness of API-LGBTQ people of faith.
(categories: All, Asian)In God’s House: Asian American Lesbian & Gay Families in the Church
Network on Religion and Justice for API-LGBT Persons , 2014 (format: on-line-video)
In God’s House: Asian American Lesbian & Gay Families in the Church is a quality 22 minute presentation on the experience of lesbian and gay Asian Americans in their churches and families. There is also a DVD available with subtitles in Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Japanese, Filipino. The DVD contains several special features, including a 30 minute Bible study on the Bible and homosexuality by Dr Kah-Jin Jeffery Kuan, Associate Professor of Old Testament at Pacific School of Religion; a study on a Theology of Acceptance by Rev. Nobuaki Hanaoka; and footage of the award-winning Gay Asian Pacific Alliance float in the 2006 San Francisco Chinese New Year parade, among other special features.
You can find information on the DVD here.
(categories: All, Asian, Bible Study, Personal Stories, The Curious)Valuing Families: Christian Education for the Household of God
Pacific School of Religion Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, 2013 (format: free-download)
This curriculum focuses on the API experience of, and commitment to, extended family in community. API families are often extended families in both blood and community, which differs significantly from the dominant model of the nuclear family in the United States. Given this experience of an extended family, it is quite likely that an API individual will be vaguely aware of at least one family member who identifies as LGBT, be it a cousin, an aunt, a niece, an uncle, a nephew, or a long-time neighbor.
This curriculum can be helpful for other racial/ethnic, regional, rural communities that value the extended family as well. In these materials, the educational process does not rely on questions of identity and difference but rather on questions of relationship and connection. How then do we treat each other properly like family members? All other aspects related to LGBT concerns – what it means to be a Christian community, how to use the Bible responsibly, how to think ethically about human sexuality, how to face changing communal realities, and so on – will be addressed from that foundation of relationship and connection.
In that light, all of the sessions in this curriculum involve both “nurturing” and “nudging.” The goal of this program is thus two-fold: to nurture the familial bonds of faith in Christian communities and to nudge those same communities toward an even more expansive view and embrace of faith family relations.