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Tonight, three of the largest Christian fellowships at the University of California, Berkeley, have arrived at First Presbyterian for a joint meeting. Hundreds of students, dressed in running shoes, jeans, and sweatshirts, spill into the sanctuary. A band warms up while students slap hands and hug. InterVarsity Christian Fellowship has invited Campus Crusade for Christ and Asian American Christian Fellowship to hear a special speaker.

Excitement like this would characterize a large Christian gathering at Berkeley during any era. One fact, however, would certainly startle earlier generations. About 98 percent of this gathering is Asian American.

At Berkeley, California's premier public university, "evangelical Christian" and "Asian American" are almost interchangeable descriptions. Three trends come together. One is California's demographics: It is 11 percent Asian compared to 4 percent for the nation as a whole. Two is academic prestige: As the oldest and most selective campus of the University of California, Berkeley has an undergraduate population that is 42 percent Asian. (As a general rule, the more selective the school, the higher the percentage of Asian students.) Three is a national fact: Asian students are more likely to show Christian commitment than other ethnic groups, including whites.

Harvard is 17 percent Asian American; mit, 28 percent; Stanford, 24 percent; Princeton and Yale, 13 percent. At each of these schools, Asian students account for an even larger share of the Christian community. Often they meet in ethnically based fellowships, and these may be the schools' largest Christian ministries.

As a group they are hard-working—driven, some say—and morally conservative. Many come from ethnic churches—Chinese, Taiwanese, and Korean, particularly—but culturally they are transitioning between their Asian roots and their American home. This cohort is going somewhere. But where?

Sabrina Chan grew up in two churches, one Chinese and one Anglo, but she didn't make a heartfelt Christian commitment until 1996, as a student at Rice University in Houston. (One of the South's most prestigious schools, Rice is about 15 percent Asian American.) There she gave her life to Jesus and joined the campus InterVarsity (IV) group. It was mostly white when Chan began, but it became one-quarter Asian by the time she graduated.

Chan wanted to join IV staff, but her parents, like many Asian parents, wanted their child to get work experience. Chan honored her parents' wishes, working in computer networking while volunteering with IV. After two years, her parents relented, and she joined IV staff at the University of Texas at Austin (UT).

At UT she started working with a 20-year-old group known as Chinese Bible Study, which had recently affiliated with IV. "I really wanted to push the fellowship on why we are an ethnic-specific fellowship," she said. "I said if we aren't reaching out [to Asian nonbelievers] or dealing with ethnic-specific strengths and struggles, then we're just staying separate because it feels safe."

InterVarsity at UT is a family of five fellowships: Asian, African American, South Asian, Latino, and multiethnic. (The multiethnic fellowship, once simply known as "IV," changed its name to Texas Christian Fellowship.) Together, the groups signed a covenant agreement, a "declaration of interdependence." Each semester they hold joint activities. The Asian American fellowship, by far the largest, also relates to Asian cultural organizations and sees a mandate to reach out to the sizeable Asian population on campus.

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April 2006, Vol. 50, No. 4