259: Unabridged Interview: Kristin T. Lee

May 1, 2026

Kristin T. Lee, physician and author of We Mend with Gold, reflects on being a first-generation Chinese American navigating faith and identity. She discusses code-switching, immigrant church life, cultural belonging, critiques of American Christianity, finding diverse theological voices, and the metaphor of kintsugi for embracing brokenness and repair.

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INSIGHT

The Endless Climb Hides Who We Leave Behind

Seeking stability or proximity to power is universal but can blind communities to neighbors left behind if pursuit never pauses.
Lee warns against an endless climb of the American Dream without reassessing obligations to others once stability is reached.

ANECDOTE

Hospital Hymns Fuel Hope In South Africa

In South Africa Lee worked in a public hospital for patients with multi-drug resistant TB and HIV where nurses sang hymns each morning.
Their communal singing provided hope and resilience that fueled care for the sickest patients daily.

INSIGHT

Racism Conversations Shouldn't Be Compartmentalized

A hospital race committee after George Floyd shut out Asian American concerns, illustrating how conversations about racism can be siloed.
Lee felt excluded despite serving Chinatown patients, arguing racism can't be compartmentalized if institutions want real change.

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This is our unabridged interview with Kristin T. Lee.

What happens when we question the faith that formed us?

Dr. Kristin T. Lee, physician and author of We Mend with Gold: An Immigrant Daughter’s Reckoning with American Christianity, reflects on her journey as a Chinese American navigating faith and identity in the immigrant church of her youth. In this conversation, she explores the beauty and complexity of immigrant communities, the unconscious bias that can undermine true belonging, and the courageous work of reconstructing a more authentic and life-giving spirituality. Together, we consider what it means to pursue faith and community in a fractured world.

Key Ideas:

Embrace Complex Identity Authentic living begins by integrating, not erasing, the contradictions that exist between one's culture, faith, and personal history.

Question Inherited Faith Honest spiritual growth often means examining what we’ve been taught and discerning for ourselves how those ideas might lead to true flourishing.

Redefine What’s “Normal” Cultural norms and unconscious bias often hide power and privilege, and naming them opens the door to deeper healing and justice.

Practice Honest Community Flourishing relationships depend on vulnerability, where hidden pain can be shared and transformed in community.

Resist the Endless Climb The pursuit of the American Dream can rob us of true meaning and purpose if we don’t also consider the people it leaves behind.

Find Beauty in Brokenness Like kintsugi, a meaningful life is not about avoiding fractures, but allowing them to be mended into something more whole and honest.

⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Kristin T. Lee⁠

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No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow ⁠@nosmallendeavor⁠

Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow ⁠@leeccamp ⁠

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