The Shape of My Eyes

April 29, 2024
Leadership coach Gibbons debuts with a sincere account of the challenges of growing up between cultures. Born to a Korean mother and an American father in Maryland, Gibbons worshipped American culture and was eager to “fit in,” despite looking “100% Korean.” After a fire destroyed their home when Gibbons was 10, the family moved to Arizona. There, they entered a church community of “mostly blue-collar hardcore fundamentalist believers,” sparking Gibbons’s complicated relationship with conservative Christianity, which peaked when he attended a Christian college whose prohibitions against interracial dating were “absurdly inconsistent with what I knew about God.” Souring on Christian fundamentalism, Gibbons broke with the church as an adult and in 1994 helped found Newsong Church in Irvine, Calif., as a “haven” for those who felt like “outsiders” from Christianity. While the sections on Newsong’s founding are somewhat rushed and a climactic revelation pertaining to Gibbons’s family may leave readers with a sense of whiplash, the questions about what it means to be both a Christian and part of a “third culture”—not entirely Korean and not entirely American—are salient. It’s an intriguing look at the intersections of race, identity, and faith.