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Lee, Going Beyond a Simple Evangelical Salvation Narrative in Anti-Sex Trafficking… 87 

 

Going Beyond a Simple Evangelical Salvation 

Narrative in Anti-Sex Trafficking: 

The Contributions of Asian and Asian 

American Christian Feminist Scholars 
 

Joy Lee 
 

 
 

This article examines the significant involvement of Western Evangelical Christians in anti-sex 

trafficking efforts in Southeast Asia, focusing on how theological frameworks influence understanding 

and responses to sex trafficking. While attention has been given to how Christian faith shapes an 

understanding of trafficking and faith-driven motivations, less focus has been on the limitations 

imposed by specific theological narratives, particularly the "simple" Evangelical salvation narrative 

(SESN). I argue that this narrative, emphasizing rescue, individualism, and dualism, creates blind spots 

and underpins challenging practices, potentially undermining the effectiveness of faith-based 

organizations (FBOs) in anti-sex trafficking efforts. I look at how Asian/Asian American Christian 

feminist scholars can provide contextual frameworks that center sexually exploited Asian women and 

their complex experiences. These perspectives offer a nuanced understanding of God's presence and 

empowerment, enabling more effective, trauma-informed, and multidimensional insights and 

practices. 

 

 
Prelude 

As a transnational Chinese Singaporean North 

American woman, my grandmother’s experience in 

Singapore during the invasion of the Japanese Imperial 

Army in World War II never crossed my mind. 

Advocating with and studying the testimonies of 

survivors of Japanese military sexual slavery (“Comfort 

Women”) led me to ask questions about the impact of 

violence on my ancestors. While trauma has hidden 

many stories, fragments of my grandmother’s 

experience helped me understand a bit more about her 

and trace our family’s experience within this global 

context as immigrants. I found a place in the work with 

comfort women survivors and activists that welcomed 

my voice in advocating with and for unrealized justice, 

remembrance, and reparations. These voices cry out 

for the suffering of the 200,000 “comfort women” from 

Korea, China, the Philippines, Indonesia (formerly the 

Dutch East Indies), and surrounding islands in 

Southeast Asia. The Japanese imperial military’s sexual 

enslavement of an estimated 200,000 women in 1932–

45 was the largest case of sex trafficking in modern 

history (Dudden 2022). No prosecutions were held for 

wartime sexual violence because it was not recognized  

 

as a crime against humanity until 1998 (United Nations 

n.d.). 

The number of “comfort women” survivors is 

dwindling with each passing year (McCarthy 2020; Cai 

2023; Ko 2023). Inspired by the “grandma” activists 

and their faith, the writings of Asian/Asian American 

Christian feminist theologians and biblical scholars, and 

my own hopes to contribute to faith-based relief and 

development education, I began exploring the 

contemporary complex issues of human trafficking. 

 

Introduction 
Scholars have noted the strong representation and 

influence of Western Evangelical Christians in anti-

trafficking work, (Crawford et al. 2017; Henriksson 

2024; Twis and Praetorius 2021; Gee and Smith 2015; 

Lewis et al. 2020; Marshall 2012). Some of this work 

examines the ways Christian faith impacts 

conceptualizations of human-trafficking and the 

motivation to address it (Lewis et al. 2020, Gee and 

Smith 2015; Zimmerman 2011; Knight and Kagotho 

2022; Choi-Fitzpatrick 2014; Frame 2020; Henriksson 

2024). Still, aside from recent publications by Matthew 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 6(2), Winter 2025  

Lee, Going Beyond a Simple Evangelical Salvation Narrative in Anti-Sex Trafficking… 88 

Clarke (2022) and Andreas Henriksson (2024), less 

research focuses on the different types of theological 

frames that can shape the ways that Christians define, 

understand, and respond to trafficking. Given the 

significant involvement of Evangelical Christian efforts 

in this field, expanding the discourse on Christian 

theological frameworks that have the potential to shape 

anti-trafficking efforts is important. While this paper is 

mostly centered on anti-sex trafficking efforts in 

Southeast Asia, the theological frameworks explored 

can shape both anti-sex trafficking and development 

work more broadly.  

The paper begins with a brief sociohistorical 

context of sex trafficking in Southeast Asia. Following 

this, I discuss how a simple Evangelical salvation 

narrative (SESN) based on Western Evangelical 

soteriology, especially its emphasis on rescue, 

individualism, and dualism, can shape anti-sex 

trafficking efforts in a way that ignores the agency of the 

women involved and can lead to harmful responses. 

Lastly, I examine how Asian/Asian American feminist 

theological and biblical scholarship—in particular the 

insights on the importance of presence, empowerment, 

and complexity—can contribute to transforming the 

problematic aspects of the SESN dimensions and 

inform more multidimensional insights and practices.  

 

Sex Trafficking in Southeast Asia: 

Sociohistorical Context of Asian Women 

and White America 
The realities of sexually exploited women in 

Southeast Asia are complex; in part, they are driven by 

White sexual imperialism, but also by local and cross-

cultural forms of oppression (Boonprasat Lewis 2007). 

The term “White sexual imperialism” describes the 

relationship between Asian women and White America 

and the sociohistorical situations that have perpetuated 

harmful stereotypes of Asian women and caused 

physical harm (Woan 2008). Its legacy is still 

intertwined in media and social discourse, impacting 

Asian women in Asia and the diaspora today. Tropes 

of exoticism, hyper-sexualized yet submissive women, 

and the objectification of Asian women in general can 

be traced back to a “White heterosexual male presence 

in East Asian wars, particularly the Philippine-

American War, World War II, and the Vietnam War” 

(Woan 2008, 278). For example, sex industries created 

in the Philippines and Thailand for U.S. military men’s 

“rest and recreation” have persisted because they 

                                                        
1 A good definition of the “Western gaze” is the following: “The Western Gaze is defined as a more privilege (sic) 

audience (people from the west) gazing/looking at people who are not from the west and projecting their 

preconceptions, biases and ‘what have you’s’ onto them” (“What is Ethical Storytelling?” 2021). 
2

  Karen Marshall says that in 2003, President George W. Bush promised $50 million USD for anti-human trafficking 

work as “encouragement” (2012). 

became substantially profitable industries that were 

reinforced by systemic poverty and local 

patriarchy/cultural values (Woan 2008). Furthermore, 

the Western conceptualization of “women of the East” 

leads them to be seen through a lens of “male power-

fantasy” (Said in “Orientalism,” as cited in Woan 2008). 

In short,  

 
[i]n Southeast Asia both female and male sex 

workers [including those who are trafficked] are 

viewed as victims of the global economy; of the 

tourism industries; of internal warfare; such as 

the Burmese and Cambodian situations; of 

neocolonialism, militarism and imperialism; and 

of racism, patriarchy, and the institutionalized, 

traditional values and moral system that privilege 

the haves and the powerful over the Other…The 

problems are also exacerbated by cultural 

ideologies, attitudes toward sexuality, gender 

inequality, and violence against women 

(Boonprasat Lewis 2007, 223). 

 
This backdrop is important to keep mind while 

examining the relationship between Western 

Evangelical faith-based organizations (FBOs) and 

sexually exploited women in Southeast Asia, because 

anti-trafficking efforts do not happen in a vacuum, 

outside of a sociohistorical context that situates power 

dynamics. As Western Evangelical FBOs have only 

recently become more self-aware of how their faith-

based practices and values do in fact carry a western 

cultural perspective, some Evangelical Christians and 

organizations may still carry a theological framework 

that sustains a kind of self-righteous benevolence that 

inadvertently hides Western sexual imperialism within 

“faith-driven rescue” and reinforces local harmful 

patriarchal beliefs and practices. 

Anti sex-trafficking work in Asia has undoubtably 

been shaped by a Western Evangelical Christian “gaze”
1

 

and engagement. According to Glenn Miles, the 2003 

NBC broadcast of the Christian NGO International 

Justice Mission’s raid in Cambodia launched the issue 

of sex trafficking into global and Western 

consciousness in the early 2000s (Marshall 2012). Not 

only did the broadcast bring awareness to trafficking in 

Cambodia, but it also sparked U.S. government interest 

and funding, motivating many Christian FBOs to work 

in Southeast Asia, and across Asia (Marshall 2012; 

Henriksson 2024; Swartz 2019).
2

 Scholars like Shih 



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Lee, Going Beyond a Simple Evangelical Salvation Narrative in Anti-Sex Trafficking… 89 

contend that “moral panic around sex work has framed 

sex trafficking as a more urgent concern than 

nonsexual-labor” trafficking for Evangelical Christians 

(Shih 2023; Gee and Smith 2015). A sketch of the anti-

trafficking NGO landscape in Asia reveals a saturation 

of Western-led Christian FBOs with local staff 

(Henriksson 2024). While Christian FBOs have been 

shifting towards practices like localisation and survivor-

centered efforts, historically many have not been 

respectful of survivor insights and perspectives 

(Kempadoo 2012 and Russell 2018 as cited in Cordisco 

Tsai et al. 2020). This article examines how a 

theological narrative like SESN plays a role in 

undermining Christian FBOs’ anti-sex trafficking efforts 

and how Asian/Asian American feminist biblical 

scholarship and theologies provide contextual 

frameworks that center sexually exploited Asian women 

and their complex situations and offer a nuanced 

understanding of God’s presence and empowerment, 

which enables better practices.  

 
The Simple Evangelical Salvation Narrative 

Theological Framework (SESN):  

Implications for Anti-Sex Trafficking Efforts 
While making broad assumptions is risky when it 

comes to Evangelical theological frameworks, authors 

have noted that there appear to be widespread 

commonalities among most Evangelicals and 

Evangelical organizations around what might be called 

a “simple” Evangelical salvation narrative (SESN).  
The implications of SESN for Evangelical anti-sex 

trafficking work have one positive dimension and three 

that are problematic. First, SESN is part of the 

Evangelical soteriology that holds the seeds of what has 

been labeled a theology of “holistic development,” 

meaning change through personal transformations of 

various aspects (physical, emotional, mental, social, 

financial, and spiritual), and this is foundational to 

Evangelical anti-trafficking FBOs (Henriksson 2024). 

According to Henriksson, holistic development arises 

from an Evangelical understanding of the “doctrines of 

creation, fall, and redemption” (2024, 97). Through 

Christ’s reconciling work, all broken relationships can 

be restored towards wholeness. For Evangelical 

Christians, holistic development in anti-trafficking work 

often addresses emotional trauma and a “brokenness of 

the soul” that requires “(re)building self-esteem, trauma 

healing, and individual morality” (Henriksson 2024, 86, 

114). The influence of holistic development theology is 

                                                        
3

 It is important to note that while this understanding can trace back to Anselm of Canterbury's theory of 

substitutionary atonement, Long suggests that Anslem’s theology has been widely misunderstood as God’s demand for 

bloodshed (2007). According to Anslem, the death of Christ on the cross was not willed by God, “but Christ himself 

freely underwent death...on an account of his obedience in maintaining justice, because he so steadfastly persevered in 

it that he brought death on himself” (Anselm as cited in Long 2007, 89). 

seen especially through FBOs’ focus on preventative 

and protective work, commonly implementing post-

trauma and self-reforming restorative interventions 

even though this theology is compatible with addressing 

structural issues (Henriksson 2024).  

A critique of this salvation narrative, and by 

extension of this particular kind of holistic development 

framework as well, is that it has tended to over-

emphasize the “individual” person and can be closely 

tied to converting individual souls for “spiritual rescue” 

against a framework of good vs. evil (Bird 2013, 1318), 

downplaying the ways the gospel speaks to the 

multidimensional nature of the good news. In such a 

view, Jesus Christ was like a superhero sent by God the 

Father to come down to earth to die for peoples’ sins 

and was resurrected to glory, rescuing souls for heaven; 

metaphors like “ticket to heaven” and “fire insurance” 

exemplify this view (Bird 2013). One Evangelical 

church leader reflects, “Well, like a quick bridge 

model. You know, that’s like, sin separates humans 

from God, the cross is the bridge. Good. But there’s a 

lot more to it. I don’t say that’s wrong, but there’s a lot 

more to it, right?” (Knight and Kagotho 2022, 17). 

 Alternatively, the Evangelical doctrine of salvation 

(soteriology) includes God’s redemptive plan for the 

world and transformation within individual persons to 

be more like Christ; both creation and humanity will be 

reunited with God and renewed for eternal peace (Bird 

2013; Treier 2019; Nordling 2007). Jesus Christ, in this 

understanding, atoned for the sins of the world.
3

 Amid 

an array of Evangelical perspective on salvation and sin, 

there is consensus around how a “holistic soteriology 

addresses past, present and future…removes sin’s 

penalty and confront sin’s power, it progressively 

removes sin’s power altogether, and it ultimately 

removes sin’s presence” (Treier 2019, 193). The 

SESN’s myopic focus on “rescue” in personal salvation 

through Jesus’ death and resurrection inadvertently 

obscures how the saving grace and power of Christ is 

holistic and multidimensional (beyond the spiritual 

dimension of individual persons).  

The language of “rescue” in personal salvation 

likely grew out of American dispensationalism, drawing 

on the eschatological belief in Christ’s return to reign 

and separation of the “spiritual church” and “worldly 

society,” reflecting dualistic thinking (Mangum 2011). 

People experience conversion and disavow the sinful 

world as they exhibit “moral” behavioral changes. In 

turn, this dualistic framework of strong opposites 

perpetuates binary thinking in concepts like 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 6(2), Winter 2025  

Lee, Going Beyond a Simple Evangelical Salvation Narrative in Anti-Sex Trafficking… 90 

belief/doubt, saved/unsaved, literal/figurative, 

body/soul, sinful/innocent, and more, which are 

problematic when it comes to engaging in complex 

issues of poverty, justice, and reconciliation in the 

world. As shown below, when applied to Christian anti-

sex trafficking efforts in Asia, the SESN and ideas 

associated with it, especially those of rescue, 

individualism, and dualism, can lead Christian 

communities to understand and engage in their efforts 

in distorted ways, leading to unproductive and even 

harmful outcomes. 

 
Rescue: As outlined above, the SESN centers on how 

Jesus “rescues” individual souls for heaven. It can seem 

natural for the SESN to carry over into anti-sex 

trafficking work in Evangelical organizations. In fact, a 

study of Christian anti-trafficking NGOs found that 

“rescue for a greater purpose” is one of the four main 

themes found in Evangelical Christian anti-sex 

trafficking narratives (Twis and Praetorius 2021) 

Moreover, additional research on the work of Western 

FBOs in Cambodia also found that many of their 

marketing materials “focused on the individual action 

that someone can do to help “solve,” ”cure,” and/or 

”rescue” people from sex trafficking and exploitation” 

(Miles et al. 2024, 7). The hero-based narratives in 

Western media and SESN are mutually bolstered to 

perpetuate a stereotypical ‘damsel in distress’ trope in 

sex-trafficking and have a great ability to compel and 

resonate with Evangelical American Christians. As a 

result, many Christian communities in the West 

resonate strongly with the traditional ideas of rescue in 

anti-sex trafficking efforts, such as that popularized in 

the highly successful film The Sound Of Freedom, a 

2023 independent film based on a “raid and rescue” 

operation (Coscarelli and Tracy 2023). In short, as 

Swartz says, because “stories of rescue appeal to the 

Western mind,” the language and intervention of 

rescue “sells,” and western FBOs feel “constrained by 

the evangelical markets in the United States” (Swartz 

2019; Choi-Fitzpatrick 2014; Twis and Praetorius 2021; 

Jones et al. 2018). 

There are three main problems that have come to 

the fore based on this framework and methods of 

“rescue.”  First, such a narrative excludes the 

perspectives of women in local contexts as well as those 

most impacted by trafficking, leading at times to harm 

and trauma. In other words, Asian women are 

embodied persons who can construct their own 

experiences but are often left without consent during 

rescue transitions (Kwok 2000). For example, the 

rescue transitions may deny agency to those being 

“rescued” by forcing women to go to shelters against 

their will, turning the shelters into a place of 

incarceration and confinement as supposed to one of 

safety and healing. One effect of this is that both the 

rescue operation itself and then the transition 

contribute to trauma, as testimony from two “rescued” 

women makes clear:  

 

One woman, Seda, who was placed in a 

shelter following a police raid said: “I did not 

want to go [to the shelter], but I have been 

brought, so [it’s] not a choice…”  

 

Phhoung also described her emotional distress 

upon being brought to a shelter following a raid, 

saying ‘They told me they brought us to Phnom 

Penh. Once I heard like this, I cried until I 

nearly died” (Cordisco Tsai et al. 2022). 

 

These observations are part of an expanding body 

of research that prioritize testimonies and lived 

experiences of sexually exploited women in Southeast 

Asia. A growing proportion of testimonies and research 

corroborate this perspective thus underscoring the 

importance of centering the voices of sexually exploited 

women in academic discourse, best practices, and 

systemic change (Shih 2023, Parmanand 2021, 

Whitford 2020, Jones 2017).  

Second, and related to the problem of agency, 

Asian women can become the racialized and sexualized 

objects of rescue in a local patriarchal cultural context 

reinforced by the Western imperial gaze (Katoppo 

2001), especially when it comes to marketing the cause 

of anti-sex trafficking efforts. In many cases, as FBO 

staff and donors are the main decision makers and 

“saved” survivors remain as the passive “objects” for 

marketing content, the content can impact survivor’s 

identity and sense of agency (Miles et al. 2024; Cordisco 

Tsai et al. 2022). This is particularly true when the issue 

of respect and honor are very important in the local 

culture. 

For example, survivors from one western FBO in 

Cambodia expressed how they did not know that they 

were publicly known as “former sex workers” in the 

organization’s promotion and marketing materials 

because it was in English (Miles et al. 2024). One 

survivor explained that she felt “dishonored by the pity 

sought from foreigners using her life story” in leaflets 

while at the same time felt exposed and discriminated 

against by local Cambodians coming to the social 

enterprise restaurant because of the concept of srey 
kouc (Miles et al. 2024). In the context of Cambodia, 

srey kouc, in the Khmer language, is a Cambodian 

concept that translates to “broken woman;” it describes 

a woman who has had sex with men outside of marriage 

or sells sex and is “despised, disrespected and shunned 

because they think she is impure and a very bad 

person” (Miles et al. 2024). Another survivor expressed 

how the FBOs are “good because they help” but “they 

do not know how much they hurt” (Miles et al. 2024). 



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Lee, Going Beyond a Simple Evangelical Salvation Narrative in Anti-Sex Trafficking… 91 

This powerlessness goes hand in hand with a sense of 

obligation and gratitude that can skew their feedback 

and even choice to consent for their images to be used 

in promotional materials when they may not actually 

want to (Miles et al. 2024). As a participant in “Time to 

Listen: Hearing People on the Receiving End of 

International Aid” says, “There should be nothing 

communicated about us, without us” (Lentfer et al. 

2014). In short, while hero-based narratives are 

compelling and effective for nonprofit promotion 

toward a Western audience, they cannot take 

precedence over treating survivors with dignity and 

respect and should not perpetuate harmful stereotypes 

like that of the diminutive Asian woman. Meaningful 

participation and input from survivors in the 

development of promotion and marketing approaches, 

materials, and media is empowering and acknowledges 

the inherent dignity within them.    

Third, and finally, understanding anti-sex 

trafficking efforts through the lens of “rescue” can also 

simplify sex trafficking as an emergency crisis, shifting 

attention away from advancing long term preventive 

impact interventions and in some cases, “ease[s] the 

need for producing programmatic evidence of 

‘success’” (Molland 2019, 781; Shih 2023; Jones et al. 

2018).  

What is encouraging is that “rescue operations” 

have been critiqued in the past decade and this critique 

has seemingly led to change, especially with well-

established FBOs (Carroll 2021). For example, 

International Justice Missions (IJM) has publicly stated 

that it has learned from past mistakes and now works 

differently and collaboratively with local authorities 

(Swartz 2019). It is still important, however, for all 

Evangelical organizations involved in this work to ask 

themselves whether they are following best practices 

and evidence-based policies to help women exit from 

exploitation in a trauma-informed way (Henriksson 

2024),
4

 and to consider how their theological 

frameworks, especially those revolving around 

salvation, may lead them to have blind spots.  

 

Individualism: The second dimension of the SESN 

focuses on saving individual souls. Again, it is no 

surprise that this dimension appears to influence the 

                                                        
4 Current research points to survivor-centered empowerment-based approaches as best practices rather than moral-

based approaches (Cordisco Tsai 2023; Edwards et al. 2023). A moral-based approach to aftercare shelter 

programming that undermines women’s agency violates the trauma-informed principles: physical and psychological 

safety, trust, mutual peer support, collaboration, empowerment, and cultural, historical, and gender-responsiveness 

(Huang et al. 2014). Based on these principles, survivor-centered empowerment-based approaches could help 

survivors and exploited persons feel “empowered, respected, informed, connected, and hopeful about their recovery” 

(Edwards et al. 2023).  
5 In the field of social science, schema is a “mental structure that individuals use to organize knowledge and guide 

cognitive processes and behaviours” (Britannica n.d.). 

anti-sex trafficking work of Evangelical organizations by 

focusing their work on rescue and restoration of 

individuals instead of also addressing the structural 

dimensions of the sex-trafficking problem.  

An emphasis on individualism often a paints a 

reality that is tied to an Evangelical Christian salvation 
schema based on biblical imperatives from Luke 19:10 

and Isaiah 1:17 that help frame human trafficking in a 

way that motivates a “commitment to immediate 

emancipation that lacks a structural critique” because 

“individuals are lost and in need of salvation” (Choi-

Fitzpatrick 2014, 134–135).
5

 This emphasis creates a 

blind spot, obscuring how structural realities shape 

individual circumstances. Research has shown that U.S. 

Christians with an evangelical worldview more 

frequently recommend a focus on individual deficits 

(“job skills, life options, family support or police 

protection”), the work of spiritual forces like “evil, 

brokenness or sin,” and interventions that deal with the 

individuals (rescue, police raids, etc.) when it comes to 

conceptualizing trafficking (Choi-Fitzpatrick 2014). 

Other research also notes the “racial identity of white 

Evangelicals has been connected with their inability to 

recognize the importance of systemic issues” (Reynolds 

and Offutt 2013). Finally, the overwhelming preference 

for individualistic approaches to trafficking can be 

connected to emotive decisions laced with a saviour 

complex to “fight evil.” One former IJM Thailand 

director explains how many middle-aged women 

“watch a documentary [about trafficking] and then 

proclaim that “God called me to Thailand,” but do so 

without expertise or informed strategies (Swartz 2019, 

101). This type of thinking and planning has also led 

American college students doing missionary work in 

Thailand to see sex-trafficking as a problem of 

individual deficits and focus on the victimhood of 

sexually exploited women (Swartz 2019).  

This is not to say that factors related to the 

individual are not important to understanding 

trafficking and to tackling emotional trauma and 

spiritual brokenness (Henricksson 2024). But given that 

systemic poverty is often the most significant pre-

existing factor that contributes to the sex industry and 

the vulnerability of trafficked peoples (UNODC 2020; 

Parmanand 2021), it is notable that Evangelical 



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Lee, Going Beyond a Simple Evangelical Salvation Narrative in Anti-Sex Trafficking… 92 

organizations rarely focus on that aspect of the 

problem, and that the SESN may very well play a part 

in creating and reinforcing that blind spot. 

 

Dualism: As outlined above, the third main component 

of the SESN has to do with dualism, a theological 

framework that organizes ideas in terms of opposites 

and can reinforce binary thinking, leaving little room for 

nuance and complexity, especially in the context of 

having multiple “target” audiences. The dualistic 

framework raises two main problems when it leads to 

binary thinking in anti-sex trafficking work. 

The first, arising from the dualism of good vs. evil, 

is that this framework has led to binary thinking when 

applied to understanding a trafficker’s complex 

positionality because the narrative ‘requires’ a villain 

(the trafficker) from which the victim is rescued from—

good vs. evil. This is particularly notable in the 

marketing and promotions around anti-sex trafficking 

work. For example, a study interviewing FBO staff in 

Thailand highlights that Western media perpetuate a 

stereotypical understanding about traffickers as one 

dimensional “villains,” whereas the FBO staff explains 

that traffickers should not all be characterized as 

“monsters,” when they themselves are also victimized 

by socioeconomic systemic inequalities and 

exploitations (Jones et al. 2018).  

The second is that the dualism of SESN does not 

provide groundwork to understand complex realities in 

sex trafficking, especially when it comes to the agency 

of the women involved. The dualistic aspect of this 

salvation narrative reinforces the ignoring of how 

structural issues like systemic poverty and cultural 

values like filial piety might be push factors that 

contribute to a woman’s decision to return to the sex 

industry and not want to enter a rehabilitation shelter 

for low wage “racialized redemptive labor programs” 

(Shih 2023; Whitford 2020; Miles et al. 2024).
6

  In 

doing so, it can often group all women in the sex 

industry as “trafficked,” and as noted above, “rescued” 

women may not always see themselves as “survivors” of 

trafficking and do not want to be “rescued” (Shih 2023; 

Parmanand 2021). In short, dualism in SESN makes it 

difficult to wrestle with the idea that someone would not 

want to be “saved” from a brothel and they may be 

exercising “agency” to enter the sex industry (Whitford 

2020). Jo Doezema sees this as racialized victimization, 

                                                        
6 “Racialized redemptive labor” is a term that Shih uses to describe the ways western FBOs develop vocational 

programs (often times the making of jewelry) framed as ethical consumerism targeting customers in the U.S. These 

“traditional exchanges of wages for labor are replaced with affective commitments between white First World rescuers 

and their purported victims in Asia” (2023, 266). The racialization refers to identifying the “histories of colonial and 

imperial dispossession” and affirmation of a “racial order of moral righteousness and division of low-wage labor” 

(2023, 266). Shih argues that these programs do not provide authentic opportunities for long-term economic change 

and self-sufficiency; rather they contribute creating a “new form of dependence on American aid and intervention” 

(2023, 266).  

the “refus[ing] to respect the choice of a woman from a 

developing country” and disregards her story 

(Doezema 1998 as cited in Shih 2023, 41; Gee and 

Smith 2015).  

 
Insights from Asian/Asian American Christian 

Feminist Scholars: Transforming the SESN 

Framework in Anti-Sex Trafficking 
Asian/Asian American feminist theologians and 

biblical scholars have long carried the injustices 

experienced by their sisters in how they speak of God, 

understand God, and act as agents of change in God’s 

work among those who experience exploitation and 

suffering. Indonesian theologian and novelist Marianne 

Katoppo is often considered to be the first Asian 

women to do Asian feminist theology in the 1970s 

(Katoppo 2001; Fabella and Park 2015; Kwok 2000; 

Orevillo-Montenegro 2010; Kim 2022). She is part of a 

legacy of women who have been in solidarity with and 

encouraged and inspired by majority world scholars 

and early white American feminist scholars globally 

since the 70s to theologize and “reclaim the right to 

speak about God as subject of their own destiny” (Kwok 

2005, 150). Other prominent Asian/Asian American 

feminist theologians are Sharon A. Bong, who has 

explored questions of the presence of Jesus with those 

who experience suffering and exploitation; Naw Eh Tar 

Gay who has focused hermeneutically on the question 

of living in harmony through God’s empowerment; and 

Grace Ji-Sun Kim and Susan M. Shaw’s who have put 

forth a theological methodology that emphasizes the 

need to look at and understand the complexity of 

structural sin and lived experiences within that. In what 

follows, the insights from these and other Asian/Asian 

American feminist theologians are brought to bear on 

the problematic aspects of the three dimensions of 

SESN outlined above—rescue, individualism, dualism—

in order to transform them and provide a more 

complete theological grounding to guide the analysis 

and actions of Evangelical organizations involved in 

anti-sex trafficking work. 

 
Transforming Rescue – The Importance of 

Presence:  The SESN tends to lead to seeing the 

physical bodies of women who are sexually exploited as 

objectified, objects of fear or pity, or invisible, what has 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 6(2), Winter 2025  

Lee, Going Beyond a Simple Evangelical Salvation Narrative in Anti-Sex Trafficking… 93 

been described as an “individualistic [and] 

disembodied view of being human” (Nordling 2007, 

75). As a result, thirty years ago Global South 

theologians gathered in 1994 to call for an alternative 

“theo/ethical” framework “where embodiment is 

central and where the objectification of women’s bodies 

is denounced and renounced” (EATWOT as cited in 

Grovijahn 1997, 252). More recently, Malaysian 

feminist theologian Sharon A. Bong (2010) has 

addressed this problem by putting forth a theology of 

Christ’s presence among Asian women who have 

suffered, which brings a crucial dimension to 

transforming the perception of all that is involved in the 

concept of “rescue.”   

In Bong’s essay, “The Suffering Christ and the 

Asian Body,” she provides insights into an embodied 

Christology that gives space to the process that women’s 

bodies go through in suffering, in resisting, and in 

healing. First, she suggests that the “suffering Christ 

literalized in women (and men) who are dehumanized” 

acknowledges the lived realities of Asian women (and 

men) who are sexually exploited in the context of 

systemic poverty (2010, 187). Considering the cultural 

patriarchal contexts where female bodies are less than 

male bodies, the approach of presence associates the 

suffering Christ’s body with female bodies and elevates 

females wholistically in their humanity, in their Imago 

Dei, emphasizing that God laments and is present in 

their suffering. This focus elevates the dignity of the 

women who are embodying Christ in their suffering, 

and mitigates the tendency to objectify them simply as 

victims to be “saved.” 

 Second, Bong’s focus on the agency of women and 

their embodied process of resistance similarly brings 

new and important aspects to bear on “rescue” and 

“salvation.” For example, bodies that resist can 

redetermine dignity and “reject the construct of virginity 

as proof of a woman’s marriageable worth” or worth as 

a human person made in the image of God (Bong 2010, 

190). Resistance can also consist of destigmatizing 

exploited bodies, insisting that they are important 

sources to listen to on trauma healing and resisting 

disembodiment, and refuse to simplify lived 

experiences as linear conversions from “rescue to 

saved/safe.” Finally, resistance implies that their bodies 

are not simply objects to be saved but a reminder of an 

incarnational God in Christ on whose body unjust 

violence was inflicted and who became a symbol of 

resistance against cosmic evil, empire, and structural 

sins.  

 Finally, the space given by Bong to the importance 

of the bodily process of healing beckons an 

“epistemology of the broken body” in which the body 

becomes a site of sacred wholeness with all the scars 

                                                        
7 Psalm 139: 14 (New Revised Standard Version Anglicized).  

and complexities in spite of exploitation (Chung 2013 

as cited in Bong 2010, 338). Understanding the “spirit 

as corporeal and the body as sacred” restores agency of 

the inherent dignity Asian women have as image 

bearers of God (Bong 2010, 190). God listens to their 

voices and sees the context of their complex realities in 

which they made challenging decisions, and 

“[k]nowledge of God as omniscient, omnipresent, and 

omnipotent is arbitrated through the agency of the 

suffering and resistant, and God the signifier thus 

becomes known, present, and empowering” (Bong 

2010, 291). This leads to insisting that the exploited and 

objectified bodies of Asian women also call for 

restoration in the Asian Church, an ecclesiastical body, 

and for it to be in solidarity with those who are 

marginalized and in a process of healing. How is the 

body of Christ living out Christ’s teachings when 

women who are sexually exploited bear the weight of 

cultural shame and guilt and cannot find authentic 

belonging and spaces to heal within the body of Christ? 

Furthermore, women can come to know a God that 

suffers, resists, and heals alongside them. The liberation 

Jesus proclaims in Luke 4:18-19 is not limited, but 

rather expressed as wholistic embodied liberation of the 

whole self. Instead of shame and stigma, sexually 

exploited women can indeed say, “…I am fearfully and 

wonderfully made.”
7

  

 

Transforming Individualism – The Importance of 

Empowering Gender Parity: As outlined above, the 

SESN has an individualistic focus that ignores crucial 

aspects of the structural dimensions of culture and 

power that are so important to understanding the roots 

of sex trafficking and challenging Evangelical 

organizations to allocate their attention there as well. 

Asian feminist theologian Naw Eh Tar Gay from 

Myanmar provides useful insights to remedy those 

blind spots, with a specific focus on the unequal cultural 

and structural valuing of men as opposed to women. 

The foundation of those insights come from her 

contextualized gender-egalitarian hermeneutics called 

Maijjima Patipada (middle way), which focuses on how 

“male and female are created in the image of God,” and 

she “aims for liberation of all genders from patriarchal 

and structural sin, which enslaves all genders alike” 

(2023, 212). Looking at Galatians 3:28, Naw Eh Tar 

Gay sees the Maijjima Patipada of the baptismal 

formula’s antithetical gender pair of “no male nor 

female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” as an 

emphasis on the shared humanness between male and 

female in the patriarchal context of Myanmar. Thus, 

the approach of a Christian contextualized gender 

egalitarian interpretation of “the middle way” could see 

males and females as both “bestowed with full dignity 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 6(2), Winter 2025  

Lee, Going Beyond a Simple Evangelical Salvation Narrative in Anti-Sex Trafficking… 94 

and rights” rather than understanding only males as the 

ones with full glory and dignity because they are more 

“human” according to Myanmar Buddhist traditions 

(Gay 2023, 226). Both males and females are 

empowered by God in full dignity and glory as image 

bearers of God to resist a power dichotomy. “This 

concept calls for balancing where there is unbalance, for 

equality where there is inequality, and for justice where 

there is injustice” (Gay 2023, 212).  

Reading Galatians 3:28 through Maijjima Patipada 

encourages Myanmar Christians towards co-laborship 

and a rereading of this biblical text leads to a 

consideration of how the issues of gender-based 

violence and sexual exploitation are rooted in a context 

where males are still preferred over females. From the 

SESN framework, its individualistic focus on inner 

healing can be empowering for females but does not 

address the root causes of the exploitation and 

trafficking that lie in the structural and religio-cultural 

values that assumes men are of more value than 

women. Naw Eh Tar Gay’s insights help expand that 

individualistic dimension to a communal and cultural 

one, making clear the importance of working towards 

changing the societal norms, values, and power 

dynamics that are at the root of sex trafficking.  

 

Transforming Dualism – The Importance of 

Complexity: The third dimension of the SESN, that of 

dualism, has significant limitations when it comes to 

shaping anti-sex trafficking efforts as outlined above. In 

particular, its tendency to reinforce binary thinking with 

a framework of rescuer vs. victim does not provide the 

groundwork to understand the paradox of being 

someone who both has agency and is also victimized. It 

is here that the work of Grace Ji-Sun Kim and Susan M. 

Shaw on intersectional theology provides a way to 

amplify the voices of those who paradoxically have 

agency and are victimized (2018). Notably, it helps shed 

light on how the women’s lived experiences shed light 

on understanding the complexity of structural sins. 

 Intersectional theology has a bias towards justice, 

recognizes the different aspects of human identities, 

and is a framework that identifies structures of power 

while facilitating inclusion and equity (Kim and Shaw 

2018). Intersectional theology is not afraid of 

complexities and paradoxes as “complexities are a 

reflection of the diverse realities of differently situated 

lives” (Kim 2021, 526). Intersectional theology has 

women’s identities and personal experiences as the 

starting place of theology and does not try to make 

experiences fit or align with particular religious beliefs. 

This is of particular importance as gender-based 

discrimination compounds with racism and 

xenophobia in human-trafficking (Mullally 2021). In 

short, Asian/Asian American feminist theologians and 

biblical scholars trace the vision of God’s liberative 

presence. The limitations of binary thinking 

(pure/unpure, worthy/unworthy) disintegrate because 

Asian/Asian American feminist theologies can hold 

space for process, paradox—and most importantly for 

God’s spiritual and tangible liberation. Through 

intersectional theology we can still understand God as 

one who embraces complexity by remembering how 

God is simultaneously omniscient, omnipresent, 

omnipotent, and still mysterious. “By making space for 

greater complexity in the being of God, we open 

possibilities for a God who is both/and, whose 

complexity is wide and deep enough to embrace us all” 

(Kim and Shaw 2018).  

Through this lens, the voices and experiences of 

survivors and those who enter the sex industry, however 

paradoxical, would be valued, listened to, and 

understood considering structural sins of systemic 

poverty and dehumanizing patriarchal cultural contexts. 

Their experiences are not shamefully hidden or simply 

used for content marketing. Intersectional theology 

aligns with trauma-informed principles and survivors 

are recognized as knowledgeable beyond just their lived 

experience; they are empowered towards agency in 

their own lives, in policy making, and addressing 

structural issues that harm them as women who have 

been trafficked or voluntarily entered the sex industry. 

In other words, the paradox of recognizing the agency 

of sexually exploited women while understanding the 

toxic structure of the sex industry can be held within 

intersectional theology and sets up FBOs to see sexually 

exploited women as partners in responding to the root 

causes related to systemic poverty.  

 
Conclusion 

The insight proffered by Asian feminist theologies 

and biblical scholarship present a deep challenge to the 

SESN and an opportunity for ecumenical insights to 

contribute to transformation. These insights center the 

inherent dignity and agency of sexually exploited Asian 

women and their complex realities while deepening an 

understanding of who God is to the marginalized and 

vulnerable without a western gaze that creates an 

imbalanced power dynamic between “rescuer” and 

victim. We see how God, in incarnational love, comes 

alongside those who experience suffering, seeks to 

empower, and can hold complexities. However well-

intentioned, the SESN framework’s characteristics of 

rescue, individualism, and dualism have led to a 

tendency to not center sexually exploited women in 

their contexts for long term flourishing and creates a 

blind spot when it concerns the wholistic redemption of 

God. This framework can inadvertently lead to a savior 

complex and make it challenging to hold space for 

complexity. In some cases, this has resulted in harmful 

conceptualization of sexually exploited women in Asia, 

uninformed rescue operations, and FBO anti-



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 6(2), Winter 2025  

Lee, Going Beyond a Simple Evangelical Salvation Narrative in Anti-Sex Trafficking… 95 

trafficking marketing and promotions that contribute to 

undignified depictions and further stigma.   

As Christian FBOs continue to have a strong 

influence in anti-trafficking efforts, expanding the 

discourse on Christian theological frameworks that 

have the potential to shape anti-trafficking work is 

important, especially along the lines of revealing God’s 

presence, empowerment, and complexity while 

centering the inherent dignity and agency of survivors 

and sexually exploited Asian women in their realities 

from a trauma-informed approach. This article has 

sought to do just that, and I hope it contributes to 

helpful transformations of theological frameworks that 

address the distortions that are present and the 

liberation that Katoppo describes: 

 

 As a woman, I too have felt bent and distorted. 

As a matter of fact, I still often feel that way. And 

it is the power of Jesus which liberates woman, 

in the space of the Kingdom of God. So that 

woman can stretch herself to her full length, and 

glorify God ( 2001, 63).  

 

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8171.2011.00309.x  

 
 

 

Joy Lee is Program Administrator - M.A. in 

Humanitarian & Disaster Leadership (HDL) and HDI 

Associate Fellow at Wheaton College. She has an 

M.A. in HDL from Wheaton College and degrees in 

Semiotics & Theatre, and Education, both from the 

University of Toronto. 

 
Author email: joy.m.lee@wheaton.edu 
 

 

 

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https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-8171.2011.00309.x
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-8171.2011.00309.x
mailto:joy.m.lee@wheaton.edu

