A Review Of Hyun Sang Lee’s From A Liminal Place: An Asian American Theology

Elizabeth Staszak, MA, Religious Studies

In From a Liminal Place: an Asian American Theology, Sang Hyun Lee offers a contextual theology for Asian Americans living in liminality and marginalization. His book is organized in a compelling fashion. Beginning with God’s historical alignment with the marginalized, Lee locates the Incarnation of God in Christ as a Nazarene and Galilean, (35) and discusses the radical possibility that God intended the Incarnation to be liminal, because God intended humanity to be liminal (50). Lee explores the liminality of Asian American identity (81) and how it can harness this space by coming together as an Asian American liminal church which offers refuge, healing, and prophetic insight as a community (90, 93). Creating a liminal church community which aims “to repeat God’s inner-trinitarian beauty and communion,” will be the church’s purpose into the eschaton (119).

Giving definition to his terms, Lee understands marginalization as a powerless space in which people live, while liminality is the space “in-between,” in which people live situated between two cultures, belonging fully to neither (15-16). Situated in these spaces, Asian Americans have, according to Lee, opportunities. Outlined within his book, Lee focuses on three opportunities which arise from living in the margins and in liminal spaces: the possibility for openness in finding a new identity, the creation of deeper community, and the ability to offer prophetic insights from the periphery regarding the central dominant powers (32). For Lee, God is in the margins, and works through those living in marginal, liminal places to perpetuate what he calls “the inner-trinitarian community of love” (33).

Lee’s efforts to understand liminality and marginality make an enthusiastic move towards finding positive, creative opportunities for Asian ethnic groups living in the liminal space between cultures. He utilizes an optimistic tone often lost in other works addressing issues of oppression and living in the margins. Finding optimism whilst writing from a place of suffering is a difficult task, but Lee proves that living on the periphery can be life-giving. Life on the periphery can allow new creation when Asian Americans make efforts to critique the center and identify with their liminality. Ethnic theologies are crucial for the survival of groups living in diasporic communities.

Coptic Orthodox theology of course, differs from this sort of creative Protestant theology in that it must echo its ancient roots and maintain Orthodox doctrine. However, Coptic Orthodox studies can benefit from Lee’s innovative understanding regarding life in the diaspora for Asian American churches. The Coptic Orthodox Church and its members in the diasporic West struggle to find its place in a foreign culture. Coptic Orthodox people also share the Asian American struggle in finding an identity for its first-generation children. Though church can be a place of refuge for immigrants needing a place to live out their culture, it should not, says Lee, become a refuge of “escapist nationalism,” because neither their home culture nor their new culture will remain the same (91). Instead, people should embrace the liminal space of their church community by being cognizant of new cultural movements in the diaspora and speak critically from the periphery of the dominant center(s) (93). In the liminal space, Coptic Orthodox people may be able to locate a newly formed ethnic identity which recognizes both old roots and new culture. Upon locating this dual identity as Coptic-American, first-generation Coptic Americans may begin to speak into its new Western culture. While speaking into a new culture, Coptic Americans may also value and critique the dominant center of the church which remains in Egypt.

Lee’s work is especially significant because it is useful across many disciplines, whether for theology, religious studies, history, cultural studies, Asian studies, or American studies. For the sake of the Coptic community, it is useful for both Orthodox studies, religious studies, and Coptic studies. Speaking to issues of immigration, culture, race and racism, and feminism, Lee reminds readers that people’s experiences are as nuanced as their theologies. Though Lee’s book is visionary in its theological approach regarding inner -trinitarian love, it goes beyond the bounds of traditional Orthodox theology in imaging God purposefully designing a world in which liminality should exist in order to create community (48). Lee’s vision may not echo Orthodox theology, which may be less useful to Orthodox theologians, while helpful, for example, to religious studies scholars for its creative conception for those living across several cultures. It would perhaps have been helpful for Lee to address how his work might overlap with similar experiences of other cultures. Overall, From a Liminal Place: An Asian American Theology, makes a thorough attempt to create an Asian American theology within the liminality and marginality in which it is situated, and the product is both innovative and hopeful.