This presentation by Dr. Christina Lee Kim, PhD, titled “When We Stay But Disappear: Hidden Ruptures & the Hope of Church as a Healing Community,” was recorded on April 10, 2026. The lecture was part of the 2026 conference “Our Flourishing, Our Faith: Navigating Rupture and Repair in Asian American Christian Communities,” presented by the Center for Asian American Christianity at Princeton Theological Seminary and the Rosemead School of Psychology at Biola University. You can learn more about this conference here: https://ourflourishing.org/.
This plenary examines subtle and often unseen relational ruptures within church communities - - those marked not by open conflict, but by emotional withdrawal, quiet disengagement, and unspoken disconnection. Within many Asian and Christian cultural contexts, values such as harmony, endurance, respect for authority, and sacrificial service may unintentionally foster the concealment of hurt, discouraging lament, repair, and honest confrontation. This plenary seeks to give insight into how these unacknowledged ruptures affect spiritual vitality and community belonging. It also seeks to offer a hopeful vision for how church communities can be a place of healing, connection, and repair.
Christina Lee Kim, PhD, is an associate professor of psychology at Biola University, associate dean in the Rosemead School of Psychology, chair of undergraduate psychology, and a licensed clinical psychologist. Her teaching, research, and professional work focus on cross-cultural and multicultural psychology, mental health and the church, Asian American psychology, and qualitative research methods. In this lecture, Dr. Kim reflects on how hidden ruptures can form within Asian American Christian communities and how the church can become a place of honest naming, repair, reconciliation, and healing.
Time Stamps:
01:42 Hidden Ruptures Focus
06:53 Termites And Tension
10:00 Needs Beneath Rupture
17:34 Harmony Face And Shame
28:56 Why We Stay Silent
38:28 Spotting Hidden Signs
44:15 Under And Over Responding
Photo by Jackson Simmer on Unsplash
