From Classical Tradition Maintenance to Remix Traditioning:
Revisioning Asian American Theologies for the 21st Century

Title

From Classical Tradition Maintenance to Remix Traditioning:
Revisioning Asian American Theologies for the 21st Century

Description

In this chapter, Tan examines the implications of hybridities, multiple belongings, and multiple border crossings on Asian American theological reflections in twenty-first century United States. First, early Asian American theologies emphasized the ideals of cohesive group identity and overarching intra-group consensus and
harmony, while downplaying the challenges of hybridities and conflicts that are caused by emerging generational shifts from immigrant to American-born Asian Americans and multiple border crossings that arise from outmarriages and adoptions. Second, the essentialized categories of racial-ethnic and cultural identities have been deconstructed and remixed in new keys and forms to address the implications of hybridities and multiple border crossings among the 1.5 generation and American-born Asians, bi/multiracial Asian Americans, and Asian adoptees. Third, Tan proposes that Asian American
theologies move away from classical tradition maintenance to the creative remix of traditioning,
i.e., from theologies that uncritically reinscribe the past to theologies as creative and dynamic endeavors that seek to address the multiplicity of heterogenized, hybridized, and conflicting constructions of faith and identity within a multidimensional daily living in a pluralistic society.

Creator

Jonathan Y. Tan (jonathan@jonathantan.org)

Source

Journal of Race, Ethnicity and Religion Vol. 3 Issue 2.3 (2012).

Rights

©Sopher Press (contact jrer@sopherpress.com)

Relation

Part of
New Overtures: Asian North American Theology in the 21st Century (Essays in Honor of Fumitaka Matsuoka),
edited by Eleazar S. Fernandez.

Type

Text

Comments

Collection

Citation

Jonathan Y. Tan (jonathan@jonathantan.org), “From Classical Tradition Maintenance to Remix Traditioning:
Revisioning Asian American Theologies for the 21st Century,” Antiracism Digital Library, accessed March 28, 2024, https://sacred.omeka.net/items/show/154.