Korean church vandalized with swastikas

Police are investigating the graffiti as a possible hate crime.



In Orange County, police are investigating a possible hate crime after a Korean American church was vandalized with swastikas, German writing and other graffiti early Sunday morning.

Buena Park church vandalized with swastikas

Members of the True Light Christian Church in Buena Park found the church's outside walls tagged in red spray paint with the phrase "mein Ehrenheit" ("my honor"), a broken heart with the words "toxic love," as well as several swastikas. Because your racist scrawling just isn't complete without a fucking swastika.

Woman sues police for roughing her up in church parking lot

62-year-old Ok Jin Jun has filed a lawsuit against the LAPD, the city of Los Angeles and two police officers.



In Los Angeles, a 62-year-old woman has filed a lawsuit against police officers who she says roughed her up during an early morning encounter last month in a Koreatown church parking lot.

Woman, 62, Sues LAPD For Allegedly Roughing Her Up In Church Parking Lot

Ok Jin Jun is suing the Los Angeles Police Department, the city of Los Angeles and two police officers.

The altercation was captured on surveillance video. Footage shows an LAPD SUV following Mrs. Jun's car as she pulled into her church's parking lot for early morning prayer service on April 14. Mrs. Jun says the officers followed her after she honked her horn at them because they were blocking the church driveway.

But this was not a traffic stop, and Mrs. Jun was not being pulled over.

Boston Chinatown church vandalized with racist graffiti

The Boston Chinese Evangelical Church was spray-painted with racist caricatures.



Last month in Boston, a Chinese American church was vandalized with several instances of hate graffiti. Church members found racist Asian caricatures spray-painted on their office building in Chinatown.

Chinatown church building defaced by racist graffiti

The Boston Chinese Evangelical Church's office building was vandalized with racist graffiti on July 31. According to Sampan, the graffiti depicted a face with slanted eyes, buckteeth and a cone-shaped hat. The image was drawn twice, along with the words "creep" and "have a nice day."

I'm sure someone thought they were being clever.

After ten years, publisher apologizes for Rickshaw Rally

LifeWay offers an apology for racist religious curriculum. It only took a decade.

Long time readers might remember the Rickshaw Rally controversy.

In 2003, LifeWay Christian Resources published an Asian-themed Vacation Bible School curriculum called "Far Out Rickshaw Rally - Racing Towards the Son." Fraught with racist, stereotypical imagery, the materials were criticized by Asian American Christian leaders, who led a campaign to get LifeWay to halt use of the curriculum, which was designed for children. You can still see the old Reconsidering Rickshaw Rally website archived on Geocities.ws.

For the most part, LifeWay didn't give a crap and the issue pretty much died off. Until this week.

The company is apparently under new management. On Wednesday -- ten years after the controversy -- LifeWay president and CEO Thom S. Rainier apologized for Rickshaw Rally via video message at the Mosaix conference in Long Beach, California, a gathering of about 1,000 multiethnic church leaders.

You can watch the video of Rainier's apology here. And here's the transcript:

An Open Letter from the Asian American Community to the Evangelical Church

On cultural insensitivity and reconciliation in the church



This has been a long time coming... Recent incidents of repeated, offensive racial stereotyping of Asians in the evangelical Christian church have compelled a group of Asian American leaders to come together and speak out against this growing gap in the church's understanding and pursuit of racial reconciliation.

I've covered a number of these incidents here over the years, from VBS curriculum, to youth skits, to general Christian trade books, in which Asians have been mocked, caricatured and stereotyped in the name of... I don't know what. Jesus? I didn't see a whole lot of Jesus in any of those things.

Most recently, well-known Christian leader Rick Warren posted an image of a Chinese Red Guard on Facebook, in a failed attempt at humor. When it was pointed out why this imagery might be culturally insensitive, he was dismissive, ultimately issuing one of those perfunctory sorry-if-you-were-offended non-apologies.

And last week at Exponential West, a popular Christian conference attended by thousands, programming included a video featuring a white person mimicking Asian accents and kung fu fighting (do I really have to describe this further?), prompting criticism from Asian American attendees. Organizers have since apologized and promised to remove the video from future conference content.

All of this, and the mounting concern over the church's troubling treatment of Asian Americans and Asian culture, have prompted leaders to draft and post An Open Letter to the Evangelical Church from the Asian American Community, to draw awareness and dialogue to the situation.

Here's the letter: