The first place Liz Lin learned to truly embrace her Taiwanese American identity was in the high school ministry of her local Chinese Christian and Missionary Alliance church. There weren't many Asians in her school system in the Detroit suburbs, and growing up she hated feeling different.
"Having a place where all of the things that made me weird in the rest of my life were normal was completely life-changing," Lin recalled.
But when Lin left home for college, her politics veered to the left and she began to feel disconnected from the church community she'd known. The issues that were becoming increasingly integral to her understanding of faith â?? feminism, racial justice, the wholehearted embrace of queer Christians â?? were not being discussed in those predominantly conservative spaces. She tried searching for a spiritual home within more progressive churches, but they tended to be predominantly white. She said she missed the cultural connections that made her childhood church so precious.
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