Tuesday, September 06, 2005
speaking out

This is the letter I sent out yesterday to the Christian Examiner in response to the obnoxious letter I mentioned in my last post...

...




English is NOT in Danger

To the Editor:

I'm writing to express my disappointment in your choice of printing the inflammatory letter �English is in Danger� by Beverly Wyer in your August 2005 issue. While Wyer may think she is expressing an unbiased opinion, her letter is filled with bitter prejudice and veiled racism, both of which have no place in either Christianity or a Christian publication.

Wyer makes the assertation that anybody who chooses to speak a non-English language in public is an �insult� to her and to this country. She also says that it is dividing our country into �several nations� or that lack of English will result in death, but her statements all lack common sense. Everyone who lives in America knows that English is the dominant language and that speaking it is necessary to daily life. People are also aware of the stigma attached to those who cannot speak English fluently. However, there are many American citizens, who for their own reasons, may choose at times to converse in another language, and that is their right.

For those who are multilingual, it may be that they feel more comfortable speaking a different language. Language is intimately connected to the ethnic and cultural heritage of many Americans. Would Wyer feel justified marching into a synagogue and demanding that everyone cease use of Hebrew? Or when a Chinese church sends volunteers out on the public streets to share the gospel, would Wyer insist that the volunteers speak only in English when the people they're witnessing to speak Cantonese as their first language? I'd hope not.

The assumed superiority of �speaking English� has no place in the Kingdom of God and as Christians, we must hold firm to the fact that the Gospel transcends the values we may attach to that language. Those who think otherwise need to take a hard look at their racist attitudes in light of their faith. If Christians choose to ignore the reality of a modern, multicultural, and multiethnic America in a more diverse and interconnected world, we have failed to follow the examples of the apostle Paul and Jesus Christ himself, who shared God's love with all people, regardless of the language they spoke or their cultural background.


G. Chan
Chinese Baptist Church
Seattle, Washington



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As I mentioned before, feel to send your own responses via e-mail to:

info@christianexaminer.com

Be sure to put "letter to the editor" in the title. Speak out, make yourself heard, and let them know that our Christian community DOES NOT condone racism and ignorance. Otherwise, your silence can and will be assumed to be consent to the permissibility of attitudes like Wyer's.

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Comments:
werd. g, you would make cornell west proud. :)
 
angela - yeah, gets the blood boiling, right?

david - haha. u finish reading "Race Matters"?
 
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in?scrip?tion (n-skrip-shun)n.
1. The act or an instance of inscribing.
2. Something, such as the wording on a coin, medal, monument, or seal, that is inscribed.
3. A short, signed message in a book or on a photograph given as a gift.
4. The usually informal dedication of an artistic work.
5. Jeremiah 31:33

the facts.
name. Gar AKA "that Chinese guy" "Sleepy.McSleeping"
ethnicity/nationality. Chinese/American, 4th gen.
location. Sea-Town, WA, USA Kawanishi, JAPAN
occupation. less-cynical poor grad student
age. younger than you think, older than you know

 



 

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