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.
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For information about our 10th anniversary gala, visit tinyurl.com/10yearsaac