Manifesto Statement

You were created with a beautiful cultural identity that reflects God’s image in the world.

Path Point Contributors:
Brandi Miller · J.W. Buck · Phung Banh · Sophia Park · Tasha Jun

Art By:

Artist

Phung Banh

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Phung Banh is a Chinese-Vietnamese art director, designer, and illustrator based in Dallas, Texas. Passionate about creating immersive storytelling and narrative through visual design, her work seeks to highlight women, facilitates space to promote different world cultures, and brings awareness to various social issues. See more of Phung's work at phungbanh.com.

Brandi Miller

Brandi Miller

Based out of Seattle, Brandi Miller is the host of Reclaiming My Theology, a space to take out theology back from ideas and systems that oppress. She is a staff member and justice program director with a college campus ministry and works at the intersection of faith, politics and justice.

Brandi Miller

Brandi Miller

Based out of Seattle, Brandi Miller is the host of Reclaiming My Theology, a space to take out theology back from ideas and systems that oppress. She is a staff member and justice program director with a college campus ministry and works at the intersection of faith, politics and justice.

Who we are, in all of our messy human-ness, matters. As we set our trajectory toward being people of peace in the world, it comes as no surprise that often the things that have formed us or are a part of us also need peace brought to them. We are not robots or shells of people trying to restore shalom but individuals who are part of cultures and nations within a global community in need of collective healing. The stories we write with our lives have the potential to bring restoration now and form legacies of peace that follow us. The intersection of who God made us to be in our cultural identity with the needs of the world paves a path to our unique contributions to God’s healing work. At the core is a simple truth, as we find ourselves caught up in God’s redemptive story: You were created with a beautiful cultural identity that reflects God’s image in the world. The story of God has always worked through people’s cultures and unique stories, not in spite of them.

Our cultural identity is expressed through the world as we live our stories out. It is the complex combination of the places, people, ideas, histories, politics, and experiences that have formed us. Who we are exists at these complicated intersections. In this social and political moment, with so much division and chaos around identity, it could be tempting to believe that nothing good comes from exploring our culture and stories, that it is simply another concept that divides an already divided world. It may seem frivolous or self-indulgent to do the deep work of knowing who we are over the long haul when there are so many needs present to engage with outside of ourselves. But, as people attempting to follow Jesus, the story of God has always worked through people’s cultures and unique stories.

Stepping into God’s Story

The loop of cultural narrative and expression are clear in the story of Moses. His background and life are complicated, to say the least. He is born of a Hebrew mother in the midst of an infanticide (Ex. 1:15-22). Pharaoh, after enslaving Moses’s people, becomes fearful that they will be too powerful and begins to enact violence against their children. This political backdrop is met with faithful midwives who refuse to do violence when Moses enters the world. He is then put in a basket by his mother and sent down the river in hopes that he might have a better life. Before Moses is even six months old, the political and social realities of his world shape his culture and experience deeply. He is rescued by Pharaoh's daughter and raised in the trappings and locations of power. Moses is a Hebrew with a bicultural identity. He is Hebrew, but his people are enslaved to the people that raised him.

From there, Moses lives in the legacy of the freedom-bringing, life-protecting midwives before him. He sees, as I imagine he has many times before, an Egyptian slave driver abusing Hebrew slaves and, taking justice into his own hands, Moses kills the abuser. His attempts to do “right” only make his own people afraid of him, and he is forced to flee to a third culture, that of the Midianites in the wilderness. At this point in Moses’s life, it would be hard to see his culture as a gift. His own character flaws, namely his uncontrolled anger and propensity toward violence, prevent his good desire--the desire for justice--from creating peace in the world. His stories don’t seem to serve him as he navigates being a man on the run, going from the royal court to the wilderness. The journey of discovering the beauty of our stories comes as we figure out who we are, who God is, and look at both the failures and successes of our lives to ask where God might be inviting us.

Many years pass while Moses is a shepherd. I imagine the quiet of the wilderness, combined with decades of time, helped mature his understanding of his culture. It is at this point that God calls to him from a bush, knowing who he is in all of his fullness, and invites Moses to use his identity as a multicultural, complex person for the liberation of God's people.

Moses’s life shows us that our stories and our formation matters. As we step into ourselves, messiness and all, we step deeper into God’s story. What is striking about Moses, among many others in the Bible, is that they don’t have control of what shapes them and their culture. They can only control how they respond in each moment. The journey of discovering the beauty of our stories comes as we figure out who we are, who God is, and look at both the failures and successes of our lives to ask where God might be inviting us. When Moses partners with God to emancipate the Hebrews, he does so with the language of power, experience in the wilderness, and a desire for justice for his people.

Making Peace with Ourselves

Moses likely carries his story and experience of his culture with mixed emotions: anger, shame, despair, and hope. He is like us. We may want to be bearers of peace in the world, but may not have taken the time to ask God who we are and who we are being invited to become. God is aware of our stories and the world we live in. He is gracious as we discover how it all works together. We need to lean into this. Some of us, before we can bring peace to the world, need to make peace in and of ourselves.

If we are to know and honor God, it is imperative that we honor the people God creates. This is easy to do in a disconnected way as we seek justice, freedom, and peace for others. It’s harder to do for ourselves. To honor God, we must honor the person and culture that we embody. Jesus tells us that the greatest commandments are to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves. It is a challenge to love those that you don’t know, yet many of us try without understanding who we are and who we are becoming. Some of us, before we can bring peace to the world, need to make peace with ourselves. Then can we partner with God for the renewal and healing of all things, including our cultural identities.

We start this journey where we are. God doesn’t expect that we would start elsewhere. The journey of becoming who we are is a lifelong one, but the earlier we start to figure out who we are becoming, the more likely we are to honor the beauty of the people and places that formed us. There are countless stories in the Scriptures to guide us, to offer us grace, and to help us see the countless and expansive ways that God works to redeem all parts of his people so they can live at peace with themselves and their world.

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Art By:

Artist

Sophia Park

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A young girl in South Korea who loved drawing came to Canada when she was 15 years old. Sophia Park, now a freelance graphic designer and illustrator based in Edmonton, Alberta, is passionate about communicating God’s message in a creative and visual way. See more of Sophia’s work at sophiaparkdesign.com

Poetry

Kimchi Jar Baptism

Tasha Jun

Tasha Jun

Tasha is a biracial Korean American melancholy day-dreamer, wife to Matt, and mama to three little warriors. She’s lived and stood in places where cultures collide for as long as she can remember, and most days you’ll find her homesick and thinking about identity, belonging, and lost things becoming found. You can read more from Tasha at tashajun.com.

Tasha Jun

Tasha Jun

Tasha is a biracial Korean American melancholy day-dreamer, wife to Matt, and mama to three little warriors. She’s lived and stood in places where cultures collide for as long as she can remember, and most days you’ll find her homesick and thinking about identity, belonging, and lost things becoming found. You can read more from Tasha at tashajun.com.

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Story | Reflection

Pax Culture Loop: A Reflective Journey To Better Understand Cultural Identity

J.W. Buck

J.W. Buck

Josh is a co-founder of Pax. He has a BA in biblical studies, MA in ministry, and a PhD in intercultural studies. His doctoral work involved qualitative research that platforms the voices and stories that have experienced racially motivated violence. He is an adjunct professor at Eternity Bible College, was the co-founding pastor of Antioch City Church of Los Angeles, and co-founded an after-school arts program called AMP Los Angeles. He has produced and directed documentary films including one on the life story of Dr. John Perkins. His wife Sarswatie and three kids (Aahana, Anaia, & Azariah) all live in Tucson, Arizona.

J.W. Buck

J.W. Buck

Josh is a co-founder of Pax. He has a BA in biblical studies, MA in ministry, and a PhD in intercultural studies. His doctoral work involved qualitative research that platforms the voices and stories that have experienced racially motivated violence. He is an adjunct professor at Eternity Bible College, was the co-founding pastor of Antioch City Church of Los Angeles, and co-founded an after-school arts program called AMP Los Angeles. He has produced and directed documentary films including one on the life story of Dr. John Perkins. His wife Sarswatie and three kids (Aahana, Anaia, & Azariah) all live in Tucson, Arizona.

Culture Loop

You were created with a beautiful cultural identity that reflects God’s image in the world. The Culture Loop is a tool to help you better understand the beauty of your own culture.

The concept of culture is generally defined as a group of people’s way of life - the behaviors, beliefs, values, stories, and symbols that they accept and that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next. Our culture is an essential part of who God made us to be. Sadly, the concept of culture has also historically been used to dehumanize, coerce, and marginalize people. Many people don’t even know what their culture is. The Culture Loop is meant to demystify and offer a basic understanding of culture in order for you to have a tool that equips and empowers you to reclaim and develop your cultural identity. The better you know your own culture and how it works, the easier it is to also reject rhetoric and ideology that keep you from flourishing as a cultural being.

Choosing Identity

Your cultural identity is the narratives and expressions that you hold most dear to your heart. These narratives and expressions are at the crossroads of your values and morals. In other words, we grow up surrounded by cultural expressions and stories that create a vision of life that we consider good, right, and preferable.

Narratives

Your cultural identity is built on the foundation of stories. This is the top half of the culture loop. These stories help you answer some of life’s most important questions. They tell us right from wrong, who is our enemy, who is our friend, how to interpret our thoughts and feelings, and what to think about people that act differently than us. We receive these stories from our families, our ethnic heritage, from the generation we find ourselves located in, from our nation, and from our religion.

Reflection Questions
What narratives (stories) are most important to you?

In what ways do these narratives give you meaning and purpose?

Which of these narratives do you look at negatively?

Expression

The second part of our cultural identity is the ongoing expressions that we engage in. This is the bottom half of the culture loop. We have daily habits, routines, and traditions that have cultural meaning. In many cases, we just grow up “doing what we do,” not even knowing that we are largely driven by these cultural habits. Some of these expressions carry great cultural significance in our life while others do not. As the culture loop shows, these expressions almost always relate to our cultural narratives. The top half of the loop reinforces the bottom half of the loop and vice versa.  

Reflection Questions
Think about your daily rhythm: How might the things you eat, the places you go, and the choices you make represent cultural expressions?

What expressions (i.e., actions) are most important to you?

In what ways do these expressions give you meaning and purpose?

Which of these expressions do you look at negatively?

Cultural Identity Discovery

The constant circling of cultural narratives and expressions reveals the deep and inherent power of our cultural identity. It’s important for us to spend time reflecting on the narratives and expressions that drive our own convictions as well as the convictions of others. We also need to consider how the peace and justice of Jesus should shape our cultural identity. Take some time to identify the cultural narratives and cultural expressions that dehumanize others and then begin to imagine what stories and expressions from the life of Jesus can lead us out of the injustice that surrounds our bodies, our communities, and our world.      

Reflection Questions
How do your cultural narratives and cultural expressions drive your convictions?

How does (or should) your faith shape your cultural identity?

What stories and expressions from the life of Jesus should you factor into your culture loop?

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Continue your journey

The next path point is Myth. Unpack the false beliefs and counter-narratives that divide and mislead us.

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