Video: Negative Evangelism? Asian America and Hesychastic Spirituality—Spring 2017

Dr. Justin Tse joins North Park Theological Seminary for Spring 2017’s Westerdahl Lectures. Dr. Tse is a visiting assistant professor in the Asian American Studies Program at Northwestern University. He served as lead editor of Theological Reflections on the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement (Palgrave, 2016) and also blogs for Patheos Catholic as Eastern Catholic Person. He is working on a book manuscript on how Cantonese-speaking Protestants engage Pacific Rim civil societies.

Building on Part 1’s “ecumene” lens, Tse pivots to what he calls “negative evangelism,” drawing from Eastern Christian (hesychast) traditions of apophatic theology, silence, and ascetic discipline. Instead of adding more words to already crowded Asian-American religious publics, he explores how restraint, quiet presence, and practices of prayerful attention can themselves witness to the gospel amid “too many” overlapping cultural worlds. The move reframes evangelism less as persuasive performance and more as cultivating spaces where the Spirit may be discerned without coercion—especially where Asian-American believers navigate racialization, model-minority expectations, and cross-pressured church politics.

From there, Tse probes practical stakes: how silence can resist extraction in academic, media, and congregational arenas; how ascetic patience unsettles the demand to constantly brand one’s ethnic, national, or denominational identity; and where “negative” postures risk sliding into quietism or complicity. He closes by sketching pastoral implications—liturgical pacing that makes room for stillness, catechesis that names cross-pressures without forcing premature resolution, and ecumenical friendships that privilege listening over winning. The result is a counter-intuitive missional posture for Asian-American publics: witness through disciplined attention, not dominance.

Timestamps

• Framing Part 2 and the problem with “more words” 00:00

• Defining “negative evangelism” from apophatic theology 03:10

• Hesychasm: silence, prayer of the heart, and witness 08:00

• Practices of restraint in crowded Asian-American publics 14:30

• Resisting extraction: media, academy, and church 20:50

• Pastoral implications for liturgy and catechesis 27:40

• Risks & limits: when silence becomes complicity 33:15

• Q&A highlights and practical takeaways 38:20