Frodo, Grace, and the Founding of a Center: A Conversation with Daniel Lee

To close out our 10th anniversary micro-series, we flip the format: Yulee interviews Daniel about his own journey to founding the Asian American Center at Fuller Seminary. It’s a more personal episode than usual, tracing the family history, faith formation, and institutional battles that shaped both Daniel and the Center itself. Daniel’s upbringing in a Korean American church in Northern Virginia, and how growing up alongside non-Korean Asian American friends—while navigating an abusive father—shaped his early pull toward a broader Asian American identity His campus ministry years as “Grace Man,” and the pushback he got for it Going to Princeton to study Karl Barth and, for a time, trying to leave Asian American ministry behind entirely in pursuit of becoming “a legitimate theologian” The unraveling of that plan: unresolved family patterns, disillusionment with Tim Keller’s Redeemer model, and a friend’s blunt observation—”all you do is talk about Asian American stuff”—that brought him back Arriving at Fuller, starting the Asian American Theological Fellowship as a lone ThM student, and the years of institutional confusion that followed (mistaken-identity emails, “what language will you teach it in?”) The financial and political cost of building the Center—years on food stamps, a breakdown in an empty office, HR complaints, and resistance from unexpected places, including fellow Asian Americans The founding commitment to a truly pan-Asian American Center—not a “wink-wink” Korean or East Asian program—built around Asian heritage, migration experience, American culture, and racialization Where the Center is headed next: the Filipino American Ministry Initiative, the Korean American Ministry Initiative, South Asian American work, and the shift from research toward resourcing This one’s a little different—less history lecture, more origin story. Thanks for listening, and thanks for walking this whole micro-series with us. We’ll see you at the 10th anniversary celebration this October. Sign up to receive more updates from the AAC: aac.fuller.edu/newsletter/ If you appreciate the work we do at the Asian American Center at Fuller Seminary, please consider supporting us! Your monetary support sustains our vital work and expands Asian American research, leadership development, and pastoral formation for the Church in the year ahead. Donate here: fuller.edu/giveaac. For information about our 10th anniversary gala, visit tinyurl.com/10yearsaac