LifeWay’s Asian-Themed VBS Material Draws Protests

NEWS
LifeWay’s Asian-Themed VBS Material Draws Protests

Bob Allen
11-27-03

“Far-out Far East Rickshaw Rally—Racing to the Son™ is a VBS race that will have kids dashing through the streets of Tokyo, climbing Mt. Fuji, and diving for pearls,” says a promotion of LifeWay Christian Resources’ 2004 Vacation Bible School curriculum on the company’s Web site. But some Asian Americans are taking offense at the use of stereotypes in Southern Baptist churches like rickshaw races, kimonos, chopsticks, takeout boxes and karate uniforms.

“While LifeWay’s attempt at incorporating diversity into their curriculum is admirable and appreciated, the resulting product is grossly misguided and inappropriate,” contends a Web site, “Reconsidering Rickshaw Rally,” aimed at raising awareness of concerns about the curriculum.

“It’s devastating and disturbing to know that there are children in many different churches across the U.S. whose first exposure to Asian culture will be this stereotypical, racially offensive material,” says the site, which lists as a contact person the Rev. Soong-Chan Rah, senior pastor of Cambridge Community Fellowship Church in Cambridge, Mass.

The Baptist Convention of New England appears to agree, adopting a resolution earlier this month supporting state convention staff in their decision not to promote the “Rickshaw Rally” material.

“We believe that, however unintentional, a mistake was made with this year’s theme,” said Jim Wideman, the state convention’s executive director, quoted in Baptist Press. “Asian Americans in New England have found this theme focusing on the rickshaw to be insensitive and to be a poor representation of Asian culture. Some have found it highly offensive. We did not feel that we could stay sensitive to our culture and context in New England and promote this material.”

Wideman said the state convention is not at odds with LifeWay and plans to promote other material produced by the Southern Baptist Convention’s publishing house as an alternative. A LifeWay spokesperson expressed appreciation for that but disagreed that the material is offensive.

“We have listened carefully to every person who has expressed a concern about the curriculum and responded appropriately,” said Mary Katharine Hunt, VBS division project manager, in a statement. “We simply disagree with those who make negative charges about our VBS curriculum.”

For every concern raised by an Asian American, Hunt said, “we are receiving dozens of positive responses from Asian Americans that tell us we are fulfilling our intent to lift up another culture and share the message of hope for all people in Jesus Christ.”

LifeWay has declined to recall the material or to promote alternatives, but company President Jimmy Draper pledged to review it and “enter into substantive discussion with Asian-Americans regarding the marketing and content of the VBS material,” according to a Sept. 3 update on the “Reconsidering Rickshaw Rally” Web site.

But in another update posted Tuesday, Pastor Rah said Draper didn’t follow through with that promise and released the product with no substantive changes. When confronted, he said, Draper replied that LifeWay is “learning in the process” but “the decisions we make in this are ours to make and not yours.”

“Apparently LifeWay has decided that the protests that have been raised are coming from a small, select group of angry Asians,” Rah said. “They have chosen to ignore these concerns and have elected to proceed with business as usual.”

A response letter to earlier criticism from Jerry Vogel, director of childhood ministry publishing for LifeWay, said the content of next year’s VBS material was not intended to be offensive. “While producing the material, we included folks who have served in Asian countries as missionaries and have also consulted people who are native Japanese. Some of our editorial team have actually visited Japan so that we would be as true to the culture as possible. We have not included anything in our materials other than the wonderful and fun elements of the Japanese culture that we have discovered on our own or delved into through research.”

But Rah said new material on the LifeWay Web site contains “even more blatantly offensive and racist material.”

--A chorus to the theme song which goes, “Wax on, wax off, get your rickshaw ready … to the far out, Far East.”

--Name tags in the shape of Chinese take-out food boxes, which come in a box of 20 for $5.99.

--The entire VBS package comes in a tin shaped like a Chinese take-out food box.

--“I have found that children enjoy large decorations. Use big props, big chop stix, made out of wood.”

--“If you have a community theatre nearby, check with their wardrobe master/mistress to see if you could borrow one or two Geisha or Samurai costumes for the director or teacher.”

--“You could check in with your local rental suppliers to see if they have the sumo wrestler blow-up costumes for the children to wrestle each other in. If you have never seen this done before, it is hilarious! Pretty much whoever can stay standing wins. This could be done for recreation time or during Family Day/Night and get the parents involved!”

Another Web site, angryasianman.com, which describes itself as attacking racism in a “half-joking” manner with exaggerated humor, targeted the LifeWay material when it was released in August.

“It looks like someone’s well-intentioned attempt at diversity, but it comes off stereotypical, racially insensitive material.”

“While certainly not as blatantly offensive as Abercrombie’s T-shirt designs or the ‘Kung Fool’ Halloween costume, Rickshaw Rally is still a few giant ugly leaps backward,” the site continues. “Absolutely aggravating. That’s racist!”

A Baptist ethicist said the theme choice is evidence that “racism has metastasized within Southern Baptist life.”

“’Rickshaw Rally’ represents yet another example of the moral blindness that insults a racial group and seeks to make a profit off of prejudice,” said Robert Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics.

Three years ago Parham criticized two SBC agencies for using an image of a black man on a poster emphasizing a theme of “dispelling the darkness” to raise money for missions.

“Southern Baptists cannot address racism with easily forgotten resolutions while playing the race card to generate revenue,” Parham said.

Interesting. I'm not usually one to pay much attention to this sort of thing, but this time around it sounds like they've gone off half cocked in assembling this curriculum...

The statement, "--“If you have a community theatre nearby, check with their wardrobe master/mistress to see if you could borrow one or two Geisha or Samurai costumes for the director or teacher.”"

Is pretty telling. I wonder if they bothered to do enough research to find out what a Geisha actually is... :)

I dunno... with perhaps the exception of rickshaw races, most of those things are a real reflection of some aspect of Asian culture. I would think a rickshaw race would be similar to the way a rodeo roundup is in the US. A legitimate reflection of our vanishing western heritage, and not very common these days. So let's face it - many stereotypes are based on some exaggerated fragment of real life. While some are certainly culturally offensive, others are not and others may at times be offensive and at other times not offensive. It all depends on the context of how they are presented. A person in black face is often considered offensive, but it is not offensive if you are with the krewe of Zulu on Mardi Gras. I also don't see it as offensive when seeing an old Fred Astaire film with him in blackface. Those were very different times. I see Asians using chopsticks in my neighborhood Chinese restaurant twice a week when I go to eat there. I have friends in Japan who send me pictures of their kids in karate outfits. Takeout boxes are still a fact of life in Japanese business. Instead of being so insulted, why not simply accept that certain things are associated with one's culture and work from that as a source of distinction. Americans have or have had many icons known around the world: muscle cars, baseball, hotdogs, drive-ins, cowboys, cheerleaders, gangsters, etc, etc. Sure, some may be seen as stereotypes, but I wouldn't lose any sleep over someone in Japan mimicking American culture.

I belive that the Bug Safari and Super Cool Underwater Bible Adventure (S.C.U.B.A.) series were by GroupVBS, not LifeWay's.

My church did S.C.U.B.A.this past summer. the children loved it.

The Rickshaw Rally theme sounds a bit silly, not racist. The Samurai and Geisha costume suggestions are somewhat inappropriate, IMHO. However, I'd take the article and selective outrage quotes regarding racism with a grain of salt.

Thanks for this thoughtful reply.

I have two reactions.

First, I would ask those who are upset about this program to suggest changes to it. Right now, all they want is for the program to be stopped. In other words, they're throwing out the proverbial baby along with the bathwater. But if only SOME things are upsetting, why not ask that those things be removed, rather than everything.

Second, I like your point about rodeos. Is that a stereotype? Perhaps. But even though rodeos are rare, references to them are hardly racist.

I just had a talk with my daughter about this VBS issue (she is more upset than I am). By the way, we are Americans of Asian descent (note my deliberate use of the preceding term, rather than the term I am beginning to hate, "Asian American"). Anyway, I reminded her of the movie "Hoosiers." Even though the U.S. flag is hung incorrectly throughout the movie (they show the union to the viewer's RIGHT, and it really should be to the viewer's LEFT), that doesn't mean the movie director is anti-American. It was just an honest mistake.

In the same way, some images probably ARE inappropriate. But it doesn't mean the program and the program designers were/are racist. Deliberately being mean to people simply because of their race is wrong. But at the same time, we shouldn't be looking for racism under every rock, lest we become an Al Sharpton.

By the way, the girl who holds the chopsticks is holding them too low. She should be holding them higher up, towards the ends of the chopsticks LOL.

i think you are probably right: what fascinates people about other cultures is often not the high points of the culture.
when i was in england back in 1968, the kids there were fascinated with cowboys and King Kong. i read a number of years ago that "Bay Watch" was the most popular tv show in the world, and was even on tv in Viet Nam (whether this was true or not, I can't say).
we don't really get to choose which aspects of our culture will fascinate people in other countries, and it's not necessarily racism if certain weird aspects fascinate people elsewhere. France loved jerry lewis, and germans actually bought records by david hasselhoff.
if Americans were into being victims, we could cite all of these as evidence of racism.

Regarding the Samurai? I guess that might be OK. The kids would probably prefer a karate outfit. Of course, whoever puts on a samurai costume better not carry any swords. That would really get the liberals and PC crowd in a tizzy, even though carrying a weapon is traditional. ;)

Remember John Bulushi playing a Samurai Butcher, Samurai Dry Cleaner, or Samurai Pizza Delivery Man on the old 70's Saturday Night Live show? That was hilarious--definitely not PC!

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