I thought it was so cool that Tim Keller was featured in New York Magazine. It’s a pretty interesting article, you can check it out here: http://nymag.com/news/features/62374/index2.html

One line that popped out to me was the following: Jonathan Tse, a 28-year-old investment analyst originally from Hong Kong, describes Redeemer’s emphasis on divine grace as a kind of liberation from the pressure that Manhattan, and the Asian community in particular (the Redeemer congregation has a disproportionately large Asian component), puts on its young people to perform. ‘Redeemer and the gospels themselves basically say, ‘You don’t earn your way into eternal life by working or by being good.’ 

Just reading that made me wonder if the reason for Redeemers’ “disproportionately large Asian component” was due to the lack of “divine grace” shown in the churches that these Asians grew up in? I know for myself growing up, even though “God’s grace” may have been preached, the families at church that compared each other’s children and college aspirations did not match that message. Just recently, my dad’s friend asked if I could bring his 11 year old daughter to church. When I asked why, (since he himself was not a Christian) he said that he knew sending his daughter to church would help her get into Harvard. This kind of thinking, seeing church as a means to earning our way to eternal life AND a successful worldly life, is part of the reason why I think many Asian Americans are leaving the churches they may have grown up in and flocking to mega-churches like Redeemer.

What do you think?

Read more: Why Are So Many New Yorkers Flocking to Evangelical Christian Preacher Tim Keller? — New York Magazine http://nymag.com/news/features/62374/index2.html#ixzz0YPYZnfb4