Kathy Khang

Review: Loving Disagreement

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Loving Disagreement, Kathy Khang & Matt Mikliatos. Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2023.

Summary: Moving beyond impasses or civil discourse to loving one another in Christian community while honestly engaging our conflicts through the working out of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.

I’ve often found things are little different, and sometimes worse, in Christian community, when it comes to conflict. Often we’ll paper over differences with niceties and placations while we inwardly seethe. Or we just walk away. Or we just keep lots of things off the table and relate at very superficial levels. At its worst, we’ll line up everyone in the church on sides and demonize the others until we split the church.

Some propose the ideal of civil discourse, the best we can hope for in “civil” society. This means rules of engagement separating issues we disagree about and people we respect, reflective listening, avoiding ultimatums, looking for common ground. Kathy Khang and Matt Mikliatos believe we can do better than that in the Christian community because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the fruit this results in that give us the capacity to love across our differences.

The authors, who never met each other in person before writing this book together, practice what they preach. They come from very different cultural backgrounds. They alternate chapters on each of the fruit of the Spirit and ask questions of each other that tease out different perspectives that enrich the discussion. We see the two of them practice this at the very beginning of the book. Matt had initially been approached about writing the book, then Kathy had been proposed as a co-author. Matt thought Kathy would never do it and says, “I decided not to mention it to Kathy. I planned to politely decline for both of us.” Only when a mutual friend asked, “why are you saying no for Kathy” did he reconsider. In the introduction, we read how they process this, how Matt realizes the hurtful impact this has even though intent was good, and how Kathy has often had brothers speak for her as a woman and person of color. What Matt didn’t know was that this was a project she did have energy for. They model embarrassing honesty and grace, and something more–they discover a shared vision for something more than mere civility.

Reading the book, while I appreciated the unpacking of the meaning of each of the nine fruit of the Spirit, what I most appreciated was the dialogue between Matt and Kathy at the end of each chapter. Rather than the “Yes, but…,” that characterizes many dialogues, their are appreciative reflections and searching questions: how can I grow in love toward people I find the most challenging? do you have any examples of a conflict being resolved well and resulting in peacemaking? can speaking truth be kind and comfortable? what is the difference between the “niceness” that makes other people comfortable and the kindness that allows for clear action?

Along the way, discussions of fruit expose dysfunctions in many evangelical churches. The chapter on goodness lays bare the difference between goodness and the legalism many of us grew up with. They explore the difference between joy and toxic positivity. The chapter on self-control not only explores control of body, mind, and emotion but how we deal with anger and when we need to be angry.

Perhaps the key idea in this book is that Christ-shaped Christian community is worth fighting for. Instead of mere niceness or civility, there are times we need to get our disagreements out in the open, even while determined to stay in the ring out of love for those who are called into this same community. We will mess up, need to apologize, and forgive. And the world will see something compelling. The world knows how to fight but it doesn’t know how to love while fighting. The world has seen plenty of fights split people up. It hasn’t seen people fighting to stay together. That’s the kind of loving disagreement that Khang and Milkiatos says the Holy Spirit makes possible. They challenge us to ask, might we do better?

Review: Raise Your Voice

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Raise Your Voice

Raise Your Voice, Kathy Khang. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2018.

Summary: Explores both why we stay silent and how we may learn to speak up about the things we most deeply care about, particularly in seeking a more just society for all.

Kathy Khang grew up as the child of Korean immigrant parents, writing in a journal given her by her father at an early age. She eventually became a journalist who learned to use her voice in interviews, in getting stories, and yet struggled with the tension of breaking with cultural norms that often rewarded one for silence, and gender norms that labelled outspoken women as “aggressive, arrogant or abrasive” or “a witch” or another term that rhymes with it. Raising one’s voice can be costly.

This book captures Kathy’s experience of both the forces that pressure us to silence our voices, and how we might learn to speak up, to raise our voices. She begins with silencing, in this case where a supervisor literally covered her mouth in a meeting with senior leadership when she was going to voice hard truths no one in the room was saying. Often, though, we silence ourselves, believing “the imposter syndrome” when, like Moses, God sees us, is with us, and sends us. Like Esther, we need to remember we are also Hadassah, the Jewish girl who will be identified with her people, and in remembering who she is, risks her life as an advocate. She explores the excuses we give for silence–we don’t understand (even though we sense there is something very wrong in what we witness), we say, ‘let God take care of it,’ or because our silence preserves a pretty good status quo for us.

She also considers how we may learn to speak up. It starts with who our IRL (in real life) audience is–from our “underwear family” to neighbors and church and workplace, and the kinds of issues we need to think about with each. She also considers our online lives, and the challenges to real conversation when so often these degenerate. She talks about working with friends in discerning how to engage an issue online–not just jumping out there on your own. Her “Learn from My Mistakes Page” is gold with a critical piece of advice being that what we post online stays forever, and we shouldn’t post anything we wouldn’t want those closest to us to see, or see in public media like the New York Times. I have nowhere near the social media presence Kathy does, but everything here rings true.

She concludes by talking about the different ways, according to different gifts, by which people speak up. Her book is such an encouragement that all of us have voices, and while we use them in different ways, they all are meant to be used and heard.

I had to laugh (because she nailed it) at her description of “Midwest nice” as “a superficial collegiality with a touch of passive aggressiveness,” or as Soong-Chan Rah, who she quotes says, Midwest nice is like “a dog that licks your face while peeing on your shoes.” I’m guilty as charged here, living in the Midwest, particularly in allowing my voice to be muted into placative efforts to achieve superficial peace that fails to come to terms with what radical gospel justice looks like. I’m often tempted to maintain a peaceful status quo.

As a white male, one of the most important lessons of this book is listening to what those who are women, or who are ethnic minorities wrestle with in finding their voices and using them. Khang’s narrative encourages me to stop man-spreading, and man-splaining, and listen to the chorus of our female and ethnic minority brothers and sisters. I sing in a choir and one of the first things we learn is that if you can’t hear other voices, or your section can’t hear other sections, you are singing too loud! White men have been singing too loud for too long in the American church, suppressing the voice of the rest of the “beloved community.” I need Kathy’s voice, as uncomfortable as it has sometimes made me feel, if I am ever to shake off “Midwest nice.” I’m glad she has used, and raised, the voice God has given her.