Jessica Wai-Fong Wong

Rev. Todd Maberry:

Welcome to the Divcast. The podcast that gives you an inside look into the Duke Divinity community. I am your host for this episode, Todd Maberry. Today we are continuing a series featuring our alumni and this one is with Dr. Jess Wong, who is the assistant professor of Systematic Theology at Azusa Pacific University. I've known Jess for a long time. We overlapped as M.Div. students back in the day and she went on to get her Ph.D. at Duke before becoming a professor. I want to talk to her because I spend a lot of time speaking with people who are thinking about becoming a professor and going on to do doctoral work and Dr. Wong is somebody who's actually done that. I also wanted to talk to her because she has a new book coming out called, Disordered: The Holy Icon and Racial Myths, which will be released in fall of 2021 from Baylor University Press. I want to talk with her about her new book and her journey to becoming a professor. Please enjoy this conversation with Dr. Jess Wong.

Dr. Wong, I appreciate you being on the Divcast and we have known each other for more than 10 years now. We overlapped briefly as students at Duke, and then I got to witness you go from the M.Div. to the Ph.D. program and now to a faculty position at Azusa Pacific, it's been a joy to see how you're now flourishing in that role. But one thing I don't know is just more about your background. You came to Duke from Baylor I know that, but I don't know the story of how you ended up at Duke. So how does a young woman from Texas end up at Duke?

 

Dr. Jessica Wai-Fong Wong:

It's actually an interesting story. So, part of it has to do with the church that I grew up in. So, I grew up non-denominational, evangelical and in the end I think I felt a real calling. I prayed about it a lot and I felt a real calling to go to Duke and I think it wasn't until I started studying with professors that would end up becoming mentors and advisors, that it became extremely clear, perfectly clear why God has led me to Duke, because it transformed the trajectory of my life. Not only my theology, but set me on this path of studying race and theology and asking the questions I was asking. And these were questions that I always had because I grew up biracial in very white circles of Dallas, Texas and I didn't have a lot of people talking to me about issues of race, but I very much felt those questions because of my own life. And so when I got to Duke, I encountered professors that were teaching me critical theory and that were giving me resources to understand my own life and that was extremely powerful.

So yeah, I guess I should say that I got to Duke because God very much was leading me there.

 

TM:

Thanks for sharing that. And I definitely hear echoes of my own story, as a conservative evangelical from Illinois. Well, I've worked at Duke for a long time and I've heard a number of students say that they come to Duke thinking they're going to go on and get a Ph.D. and then maybe teach, I hear that a lot. You're someone who actually did that. So I'm wondering, what were some key moments along the way from going from the M.Div. to the Ph.D. and then to a professor role that helped you to keep heading in that direction, down that path?

 

 JW:

Yeah, that's an interesting question. I didn't know I actually wanted to go on and get a Ph.D. at first. I was open to the possibility, but I genuinely just started the M.Div. program and chose M.Div. program in particular over the M.T.S. program because I felt very strongly that if I was going to go on to teach, I wanted to have the experience that my potential M.Div. students would have. I also wanted to have that pastoral training because I very much think that teaching is a form of pastoral ministry, that I am pastoring my students, especially as I sit in my office and cry. We talk about really intimate, deep things and it opens up a lot of issues and a lot of past experiences for students that can be challenging, so being able to meet them there in a pastoral way, I think it's important.

But to answer your question more directly, I didn't know I was going on to get a Ph.D.. However, I had a lot of professors come alongside me when I was at Duke who recognized certain gifts, abilities that I had and walked with me and I think that also opened up doors to what was exciting. I was excited to learn and study these things. I love the conversations. I loved the dialogue and that's something that I just wanted to keep doing. So in some ways maybe I went on and got a Ph.D. because I didn't want to leave. So, yeah. It's like, well, what else am I going to do? Why not just stick around and keep having these amazing discussions. Yeah.

 

TM:

And I will say that's a key indicator that I've noticed. It's one thing for an individual to say, I want to go on and get a Ph.D. and maybe to teach. It's another thing to have professors speak into you and to mentor you and to be like, "Have you considered this?" And, "You should think about that." And that's probably a better indicator of, for lack of a better word, future success in that area. If you have a faculty member saying, "I believe in you, you should consider doing this." It sounds like you got that support.

 

JW:

Yeah, I think so and I think it's also really important that you're driven by passion and excitement. And, something I noticed in students quite a bit is general dread. Like this general feeling of, well, I know how few spots there are, and it's going to be so challenging to get a spot. And I know how few faculty positions there are and it's going to be difficult to get a faculty position. And that sense of dread kind of colors their whole experience, even going through the master's program. I find that to be so sad. I think that being a master student is such an incredible opportunity where, for most of the students, they don't have to work while they're studying. They can focus all their time and attention on doing this incredible and of living into this incredible period of their life, where they get to read and think and talk about these ideas. And so often I feel like that's missed because they're scared.

And for me, maybe part of my experience was affected by the fact that I've very much lived, as I came to Duke and my theology changed, I very much embraced this reformed sense of God's hand over my life and that, "Yes, I can work hard, but in the end, it's going to be God who opens up doors or closes doors." And I think that gave me room to not have to worry. That that gave me room to be able to trust that I could rest in that, I guess.

  

TM:

Those are really great insights. And so your research and your scholarship now is looking at visual perception and identity formation, specifically around identities of race and gender and through using the lens of Christian theology and ethics. If you were to explain your scholarship to a person without the theological training in a couple of minutes, and try to make sense of that, what stories do you tell her? How do you do that?

 

JW:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I should probably say that I think my research, my particular interests are stemming from my own experiences. So, in part being biracial, I remember growing up in Texas and my mom is white, my dad is Chinese and I remember asking myself the question when I was five years old, "I wonder if I could pass as white?" And trying so hard to pass as white and yet people would look at me and they would have a certain picture of who I was. As I got older, I very much learned to embrace my Chinese identity and to be very proud of it and to recognize myself as a person of color. But what was really formative for me in those young years is that distinction. The distinction between how we see ourselves and how others see us.

And so in the book that's coming out, one of the main questions that I'm asking in that text is, "Why are black and brown bodies seen as disorderly and disordering in our modern Western society?" So it's about this visual perception of bodies which is very much tied to our imaginations. Who we're told certain people are and what they're like.

 

TM:

You mentioned the book that's coming out, and I'm wondering if you could share maybe a few more key insights that book is trying to communicate.

 

JW:

I think part of it is to really uncover the way in which visual reality is functioning, visual perception of bodies is functioning within our modern context. So I look at the colonial period and I look at 20th century immigration. So how external evaluations of the body have been used to discern internal, spiritual, intellectual social states, which impact who is seen as fit or unfit to participate within civilized society. So, the framework that I'm using in the book is actually Icon Theology. Because during the Byzantine period, the icons are functioning as a way that people could enter in to the order of God, His holy order. But there's also another side of that, namely that people who rejected the icon were believed to be disorderly, were believed to embrace this kind of demonic disorder and that disorder was thought to be manifest through their bodies. So their bodies would actually reflect the devil's disorder.

So many ways I'm using that framework and applying it to how are black bodies seen as actually embodying this unholy disorder within Christian civilized society, because we know that the way in which our modern world, that society understood itself to be a Christian, a city upon a hill kind of stuff, right? How those bodies just simply didn't fit. In fact, not only did they not fit, but they were seen as a threat. So those are the general ideas that I'm working with. And I think the goal then is to lead people into potentially a new way of seeing, a new visual logic that coincides with the truth of the gospel far more closely than what we currently have.

 

TM:

Thanks for that. And so, in addition to your research, you're also a professor and we were just talking before we started recording that you're teaching three classes, sometimes three or two classes a semester. So, two part question. The first part is, what are some moments when you've just felt alive as a professor/scholar? Was there any moment when you're like, "Yeah, this is incredible."

 

JW:

Yeah. That's an interesting question. I should say, some of my favorite moments as a teacher are those moments after class, when students will stay after to talk to you about certain ideas, because they're so captivated by it. And I love, in those discussions, having students come up to me and we stand by the whiteboard and I have them draw out what they're thinking. To actually be able to bring these pieces together and to draw how are they conceptualizing God or this particular idea that they're working with and being able to have it turned into a genuine dialogue and conversation. Recognizing that, yes, I have a lot of experience reading and thinking and talking about these things, but that I am also genuinely open to how they are seeing things.

And so it turns into a real exchange of ideas instead of a one-way dissemination from the professor to the student. And so I think those are the moments that I feel really alive as a teacher when it really turns into a conversation. And whether that be a conversation between me and a student or conversation between students where I get to sit back and watch them hash things out, and there's a lot of energy and excitement that comes into the room because they're actually building something. I think so often our education is deeply flawed because the expectation is that the professor is the one who walks in with all this information and the students are supposed to sit there and absorb it like little sponges and then regurgitate it on their exams.

But that is such a terrible, terrible way to learn and really boring, I think. And I find that so much of my experience as a teacher at APU is teaching the students how to learn. Teaching them how to think about learning in an entirely different way and teaching them how to trust this new approach to pedagogy. Because a lot of times they're scared. They want me to give them the "right answer." And so when I tell them that there might not be a right answer, or maybe the goal isn't to achieve this or to arrive at this right answer but the goal is to build something together through conversation. It takes a lot of work to get them there.

 

TM:

Yeah. That's a consistent theme I've heard from talking to faculty and ones that I think are particularly excellent, that there comes this point where the relationship is so dynamic, that it breaks down, who's the teacher and who's the learner? And becomes this more dynamic relationship that's functioning with all kinds of energy in the moment. The second part of that question is, what were some of the more challenging aspects, or do you remember any particular moments of difficulty for the role that you currently occupy?

JW:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, that's a good question as well. I become really frustrated with some of the administrative tasks. I really don't like committee work, which I'm sure is also a common theme that you hear from faculty. And I see the point of it, I do understand it. But I think there are moments where it feels like faculty doesn't always get to be heard. That we go through this process of forming committees, but that these decisions have already been made at higher levels of administration. And I think I've also become frustrated at moments where I think that my voice might actually make a difference in the room and I pour a lot of time and energy and to trying to make changes and in the end, what gets produced is the status quo.

So it's hard. It's hard to invest that energy when you know that your time is limited, and there are students who need you and there's work to be done in terms of your writing. And what you are being asked to do is sit in a conference room and talk about things that I think might get you in trouble, if you're honest and that at the end, the product that's produced is like, "Actually nothing that I said in the last six months has made its way into this document."

 

TM:

Yeah. And that's a challenging part of probably any institution, but certainly in the Academy where you and I find ourselves. There are those administrative challenges. Shifting over, I know you're also active in the local church. You're a part of the PCUSA. I think you're a key lay leader at your local church, Knox Presbyterian in Pasadena, in fact, you've been named the Youth Group's hype girl for that church.

 

JW:

You've done your research.

 

TM:

I'm wondering, why is staying connected to a local church important for you and how do those connections then inform your scholarship and inform your teaching?

 

JW:

Yeah. It's interesting because I remember before I began the M.Div. at Duke, having a conversation with God. And I said, "Okay, God, I'll go to get my masters, but I don't want to have anything to do with the church." And the reason for this, and you know deals with God always really work out, historically speaking, we know that. The reason I took that position was because I grew up in a church where it wasn't okay to be honest about our brokenness. There was a sense of, if you were walking right with God then your life was really beautiful and that you had no pain or suffering. And I just thought, how is it possible? How could we possibly be honest with ourselves and with others and work in a church at the same time. Right.

And, I think what is so interesting looking back at this journey that I've gone through is how much of my life has become deeply connected with the church, and deeply connected with a church that is honest and a church that takes pain and brokenness and suffering very seriously and sees our role as Christians as being in those spaces of brokenness and pain. So I think for me volunteering at Knox is in many ways, a byproduct of all the training that I got in liberation theology. It's living out the reality of how God has called us to that work of being with the broken, with the marginalized, with the oppressed.

And in terms of what that experience does from me, in some ways it grounds me. Whether it's working with kids and doing really silly things or working on the Racial Justice team, in both cases I think it grounds me in the realities of life. As an academic, it's really easy for us to... Of course the biggest critique is that you're closed away in this ivory tower. And I think that's very possible for even theologians to experience that, but the local church and the local community and ministry and organizing prevents... At least in some ways, presses us not to, pushes us toward recognizing that the theology that we're doing has to speak to the realities of the world, because if it doesn't then what are we doing? Yeah.

 

TM:

That's good. And I have one final, big question. And that's asking you, you've touched on this a little bit, but I'm curious if you could reflect back now on the ways in which Duke equipped you to be an effective professor? Are there specific things that you can think of that Duke was particularly formative?

 

JW:

Yeah. Well, I should say that much of what I do as a professor, many of the ways that I am as a professor are modeled directly on my experience learning with Willie Jennings, who was an incredible, incredible teacher. I think I learned, and this is not just true of Willie, I think many of the professors at Duke Divinity School past and present are incredible models in this way that they treat students, not simply as people who exist in their classroom during that whatever hour and some odd minutes that they're sitting there, but are whole people that have full lives and experiences and struggles.

And, I remember moments where I would be experiencing something in my own life as a student, and I would have a paper that was due and how incredible it was to say to my professors that I was really struggling with this and I needed a couple extra days to submit something, and they would say, "Just take a week." So to ask for three days and to be given a week felt like such incredible grace. And it felt also like I was being recognized as a whole person, that there are other things that mattered. And again, this brings us back to this idea that teaching is more than just what is happening in the classroom and it's also an incredible ministry that it's a chance to be with and for your students in a way that is incredibly pastoral, potentially at least. Yeah.

 

TM:

Yeah. That's wonderful. Well, right here at the end, I want to do something a little different to wrap up and that's to do a lightning round, or I just throw up some stuff and looking to get your tastes and preferences, but I've been asking really deep questions, this'll be pretty light. The first one I hope is pretty easy. Do you consider yourself an early bird or night owl?

 

JW:

Early for sure. 100%. 5:30, let's go.

 

TM:

What's a good book that you've read recently?

 

JW:

Good book, I read. Ooh, reading a book called A Canticle for Leibowitz and it's about this post- apocalyptic world in which people have lost much of current knowledge and have reverted back to medieval period of functioning and are trying to piece back together the old technology that they once had.

 

TM:

Fascinating. What's a small thing you miss about Duke?

 

JW:

Oh gosh, the trees. I love LA, California is great, there's a lot to do here but palm trees don't cut it for me. And I miss the rain, the smell of rain. It's just so relaxing.

 

TM:

What's a movie, or maybe a show you saw on a streaming service recently?

 

JW:

Well, I would have to say that I am re watching Bob's Burgers, which I'm a big fan. Do you know this show, Bob's Burgers?

 

TM:

I've seen one or two episodes.

  

JW:

You clearly don't like it. I find it to be equal parts sweet and funny and meets my dorky sense of humor. So I'm a big fan.

 

TM:

No, it's not that I don't like, I just don't know that I've invested the time in it to get it.

 

JW:

Yeah, sure. Right. Absolutely.

 

TM:

What's your favorite California cuisine?

 

JW:

Oh gosh. Well, the right answer is avocado, clearly. Favorite cuisine. Do we really have a particular California cuisine? Or maybe our Mexican food is supposed to be a little fresher, but really any California cuisine is just food that has avocado. I do miss textbooks. I don't feel like the Mexican food out here cuts it for me. I miss my cheesy queso and my super thin chips. So...

 

TM:

Some recent music that you've heard?

 

JW:

Well, I was listening to some Miles Davis earlier. Is this supposed to be new music?

 

TM:

No, just something you've heard recently. Miles Davis is perfect. Can never go wrong with Miles Davis.

 

JW:

Just to indicate how classy I am, right?

TM:

Last one here. What's a piece of advice that you have for someone considering a Ph.D. in theology?

 

JW:

I would say, pursue your passion and don't worry about the statistics. Just be yourself. I think a lot of people are trying to think through, okay, what would be most marketable? And I'm not sure that's the right approach. I think that if you're deeply passionate about something and you're committed to that, and you're excited about that, that passion and excitement will come through. That people will see it, people will notice it and that's going to be what sets you apart.

 

TM:

Yeah. Yeah. And it's crazy, but what you focus on really matters. So are you focusing on the work because you love it or are you focusing on getting a job in this very small competitive marketplace?

 

JW:

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Because the truth is, there are a lot of people applying for these positions, but there are a lot of people applying for these positions who are so terrified. So if you're doing this out of joy, if your academic pursuits are a pursuit of joy, that is something that distinguishes people. And that's something that I think we're all attracted to. We're attracted to people who are excited and joyful and passionate and that's equally true for people applying to Ph.D. programs and people reviewing applications.

 

TM:

Yeah. Well, speaking of joy, it's been a joy for me to connect with you in this way. I want to finish by just reading some feedback I got from one of your former students, and it echoes perfectly what you said about Duke. So one of your former students, her name is Brooke. She actually does research for these podcasts and I had her do some background research on you and without my prompting, she put some personal notes in here that I just want to read real briefly.

She said, "Dr. Wong cares a lot about her students and genuinely wants to see them thrive. She goes above and beyond to see them as real human beings, taking time to set aside research work or important things anytime one of us shows up at her office door. She never turned me away even when she was busy. Dr. Wong is more than just a professor, she's a mentor, pastor and friend to her students. She also helped all of the students, especially me, get through existential crisis almost daily."

 

JW:

Oh, that's so sweet.

TM:

So that came without her prompting and once again, it's just been such a joy for me to see how you've flourished over the last 10 years. And it was the life for me a couple of years ago to be at Azusa Pacific and sit in one of your classrooms and to see how your students were clearly engaged in what you're doing. So thanks for being such a great example of what a Duke grad should be.

 

JW:

Thanks Todd, thank you for interviewing me. It's been a real pleasure for me as well.

 

TM:

All the best.

Thanks for listening to the Divcast. Be sure to subscribe to our feed available anywhere you find podcasts. A full transcript of this episode is available on our website. You can send us feedback and questions by emailing divcast@div.duke.edu. Our executive producer is Morgan Hendrix. Sound design is by Brandon Holmes. Editing support provided by Kinsley Whitworth. Research help came from Brooke Reardon M.Div. 2022. Our music is from Christian DaPonte, M.Div. 2021. We'll end with a Div, Did You Know? Which is a fact or interesting aspect about Duke Divinity School that you may or may not know.

Did you know that in the halls of the Langford building, you can find images and biographies of different saints and church leaders from throughout church history? The biographies were written by professors at the Divinity School.