Abstract
Editor’s Note
Having begun my personal journey in intercultural mission in Japan, where I taught at Kyodan Church (UCCJ)-related institutions for twenty-three years, I think the Japanese situation may be instructive for contexts where Christian faith is being challenged by radical changes in how we see the relationship between the gospel and society, culture, family, nation, and humanity. Those who have read my editorials over the past several years will realize that my current concern is for the American churches—on both the right and the left—that have become dangerously polarized over opposing opinions on contemporary political personalities and social issues. This polarization is undermining the church’s mission as a humble but well-equipped witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. In the face of the current menacing moment in world history, I want to remind readers of the six “evangelical truths” proclaimed by the 1934 Barmen Declaration (see https://www.ucc.org/beliefs_barmen-declaration/), as follows:
Jesus Christ, as he is attested to us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God whom we have to hear, and whom we have to trust and obey in life and in death. We reject the false doctrine that the Church could and should recognize as a source of its proclamation, beyond and besides this one Word of God, yet other events, powers, historic figures and truths as God’s revelation.
As Jesus Christ is God’s comforting pronouncement of the forgiveness of all our sins, so, with equal seriousness, he is also God’s vigorous announcement of his claim upon our whole life. Through him there comes to us joyful liberation from the godless ties of this world for free, grateful service to his creatures. We reject the false doctrine that there could be areas of our life in which we would not belong to Jesus Christ but to other lords, areas in which we would not need justification and sanctification through him.
The Christian Church is the community of brethren in which, in Word and Sacrament, through the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ acts in the present as Lord. With both its faith and its obedience, with both its message and its order, it has to testify in the midst of the sinful world, as the Church of pardoned sinners, that it belongs to him alone and lives and may live by his comfort and under his direction alone, in expectation of his appearing. We reject the false doctrine that the Church could have permission to hand over the form of its message and of its order to whatever it itself might wish or to the vicissitudes of the prevailing ideological and political convictions of the day.
The various offices in the Church do not provide a basis for some to exercise authority over others but for the ministry [lit., “service”] with which the whole community has been entrusted and charged to be carried out. We reject the false doctrine that, apart from this ministry, the Church could, and could have permission to, give itself or allow itself to be given special leaders [Führer] vested with ruling authority.
Scripture tells us that by divine appointment the State, in this still unredeemed world in which also the Church is situated, has the task of maintaining justice and peace, so far as human discernment and human ability make this possible, by means of the threat and use of force. The Church acknowledges with gratitude and reverence toward God the benefit of this, his appointment. It draws attention to God’s Dominion [Reich], God’s commandment and justice, and with these the responsibility of those who rule and those who are ruled. It trusts and obeys the power of the Word, by which God upholds all things. We reject the false doctrine that beyond its special commission the State should and could become the sole and total order of human life and so fulfil the vocation of the Church as well. We reject the false doctrine that beyond its special commission the Church should and could take on the nature, tasks and dignity which belong to the State and thus become itself an organ of the State.
The Church’s commission, which is the foundation of its freedom, consists in this: in Christ’s stead, and so in the service of his own Word and work, to deliver all people, through preaching and sacrament, the message of the free grace of God. We reject the false doctrine that with human vainglory the Church could place the Word and work of the Lord in the service of self-chosen desires, purposes and plans. The Confessing Synod of the German Evangelical Church declares that it sees in the acknowledgment of these truths and in the rejection of these errors the indispensable theological basis of the German Evangelical Church as a confederation of Confessing Churches. It calls upon all who can stand in solidarity with its Declaration to be mindful of these theological findings in all their decisions concerning Church and State. It appeals to all concerned to return to unity in faith, hope and love.
Tragically, as State and religious actors joined hands and plunged Europe and the world into a horrific war, Barmen’s inspiring words went unheeded. In our own age of advanced nuclear weapons systems and AI, I believe the stakes have never been higher.
The challenge of Christian mission in Japan
Beginning with the October 2023 issue and ending with my final editorial in the April 2024 issue, what follows is the second of three reflections on the missional situation of the Japanese churches. Dr. Soojin Chung, who will take over as editor beginning with the October 2024 issue, will write the editorial for the July 2024 issue.
The “religious division of labor”
Thesis: Japanese Christianity is an individualistic religious phenomenon with an ambiguous relation to the family, local community, nation, and humanity.
One of the characteristics of the religious division of labor in Japan is that, with few exceptions, social relationships intersect with several religious traditions across a lifetime. It would not be inaccurate to say that, as a general rule, most Japanese tend to be Shinto when they are happy, Christian when they are in love, Buddhist when they confront death, and Confucian when they think, speak, and act within their families, schools, and workplaces. Babies are blessed at local Shinto shrines, and a significant majority of people make the annual hatsumode visit to a shrine at New Year; fathers take home Christmas cakes; couples go on a “Christmas date,” and many choose a church-styled wedding ceremony; Buddhist priests are often called on to offer prayers for the dead who are buried in temple graveyards visited by families during the festivals of obon and ohigan; and the largely unspoken ethical ideal for social relationships is still the “five bonds” of Confucianism, which are characterized by “benevolence” (jin in Japanese, ren in Chinese, between Ruler and Ruled, Father and Son, Husband and Wife, Elder Brother and Younger Brother, and Friend and Friend).
Of all “religious” observances, wedding and funeral patterns seem to be most in flux. For example, in 1982, an estimated 90 percent of all weddings were performed in the “Shinto style,” and only 5.1 percent were “church-style.” By 1998, “church style” ceremonies had increased to 53.1 percent, while Shinto weddings had declined to 32.3 percent. 1 These days, fewer funerals are performed in the traditional Buddhist style, and especially in urban settings, there is a marked increase in private and so-called “natural funerals” (shinzen sō). 2 Nevertheless, while wedding and funeral practices have been shifting, sometimes dramatically, the total number of confessing Christians has remained constant between 1–2 percent.
One unchanged factor is that Japanese religious identity is drawn from multiple sources. While some Japanese Christians may be embarrassed to admit this, they are not immune to this phenomenon. For example, David Reid reported that 25 percent of the Protestants he surveyed have a Buddhist memorial altar (butsudan) in their home.
3
There may be some variance between mainline, evangelical, and Roman Catholics on this point. Still, regardless of individual faith conviction, one cannot avoid the reality of religious hybridity while living in this society. Sociologist Roland Robertson offers the following analysis of the situation:
In any case, the critical point is that the very structure of Japanese religion as a whole and the syncretism of everyday individual life are both based upon and encourage the tendency to make an identity from various sources, which themselves vary in terms of “native” and “foreign” references. Thus the popularity of “Christian” marriages ritualistically confirms selective Japanese orientations to the West, while involvement in Buddhism confirms, inter re, an orientation to the universal and humanity in general.
4
Despite more than 150 years of massive efforts by foreign and Japanese Christians, I think Robertson is correct to assert that Buddhism, not Christianity, links the Japanese people to “the universal and humanity in general.” This may sound surprising, counterintuitive, or even ironic, since Christianity has a strong notion of “catholicity” or “universality” at the heart of its confession. 5
Everlyn Nicodemus was OMSC@PTS’s 2022–23 artist in residence. The painting, entitled Mother and Son (oil on canvas, 43 × 30 inches), depicts a tender scene of a mother reading the Bible to her child at night. It comes out of Everlyn’s personal experience growing up in a Chaga Lutheran family at the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Published with permission of the artist. (A color version is online.)
While struggling to negotiate the vexing theological questions of how Christians should approach various Shinto and Buddhist religious practices—commonly practiced in Japanese families, local communities, and workplaces—Japanese Christians continue to be identified with the modern West. One obvious reason for this is that Japan’s most recent pivotal encounter with Christianity came on the heels of US “gunboat diplomacy,” which forced open Japanese ports to international trade after more than two hundred years of self-imposed isolation. In The Japanese and the Bible, theologian Kitamori Kazoh tells a personal story that clearly illustrates the identity problem facing Japanese Christians.
Actually, in my own case, since I was born into a Buddhist family with absolutely no connection whatsoever with Christianity, I remember the first time seeing a church as a child and feeling immediately, as I walked by, that this must be the foreigners’ residence. Nowadays, such old buildings have become popular tourist spots, but in those days, those places looked extremely strange from our naive and unsophisticated perspective. In my child’s heart, I remember thinking that the people who congregated in those churches were somehow different from the rest of us Japanese. I remember feeling offended because I knew that un-Japanese Japanese people were attending that church. I think this is still the normative view of Christianity among the Japanese. Without a doubt, part of this reaction is a result of the guardedness Japanese have felt toward Christianity since it was declared an outlawed faith in the Edo Era (1609–), but if we dig deeper, we find that there is some sense in which being Christianized means losing one’s Japaneseness and becoming non-Japanese.
6
With few exceptions, Japanese Protestants have reinforced this historical and cultural identification with the West, in contrast to identifying, for example, with the churches and theologies in neighboring Korea, China, and Taiwan or other places in the world.
I found evidence for this claim by examining Japanese language books in biblical studies, historical, systematic, and practical theology that were in circulation as of December 2003. 7 Out of 765 theological books, a shocking 405—or 53 percent—were translations, mostly from English or German. Of the remainder written by Japanese authors, the majority treated Western theological figures or subjects. On the one hand, this output of translated theological works is impressive by any global standard. Japan’s strong tradition of translation began in earnest with the Chinese classics and Dutch texts during the Tokugawa Era and then turned mainly to German and English texts during the Meiji Era. 8 Given this enduring and almost obsessive interest in the theology of Europe and North America, one might expect to find Japanese theologians writing articles and books in English or German. However, with few notable exceptions, such as Uchimura Kanzō, Kagawa Toyohiko, and Koyama Kosuke, Japanese theologians have not contributed significantly to international theological discourse. 9
Today, especially with the shrinking number of foreign missionaries to report on the situation of the Japan’s churches and theology, European and North American theologians know almost nothing about Japanese theology, but the opposite is clearly not the case. In spite of Ohki Hideo’s often-cited 1961 call for Japan’s churches to break free from what he called its “Germanic captivity,” 10 seminaries and churches in Japan continue to teach and preach theologies forged in the radically different historical, ecclesial, and cultural contexts of Europe and North America.
This enduring dependence on the West becomes clearer when we situate Japanese Christianity within the broader religious division of labor.
How does Christianity as a religion of individual choice function within this religious ecology? We should note that the Meiji Era (1868–1912) saw some cases of entire families converting to Christian faith, usually as a result of the decision of the father (head of the household). However, beginning in the Taishō Era, it was individuals who chose to come forward for baptism. These included individuals struggling to find existential meaning and purpose in the face of the stresses and strains of modern urban life. Though their stories still await telling, Japan’s churches, generally led by men, have been held together by a majority of women, many of whom were seeking a temporary escape from the heavy demands of the household. 11
I will close with a story from my own experience that dramatically illustrates the ambiguous relationship to the family and, by extension, to the nation. Several years ago, I was invited to preach and give a lecture at a Japanese church, and since I was a professor of Christian education at Tokyo Union Theological Seminary at the time, I spoke on my usual theme of “the challenge of passing on the faith to the next generation.” Several years before my visit, the pastor and elders from this church had become concerned that they were failing to retain even the youth from Christian families, so they had begun a serious conversation about passing on the faith. Since they knew I had written on this subject, the decision to invite me to speak at their church was a well-considered consensus decision of the whole church.
Drawing on biblical passages from Old and New Testaments and from church history, I spoke for 90 minutes about the family’s pivotal role in passing on faith in Israel and in the history of Christian churches up until the present. When I had finished speaking, a middle-aged man who was visibly shaken by my lecture stood up and recounted the following story:
From the Meiji Era until today, most of us Japanese Christians encountered some crisis in life; at that time, we happened to meet a pastor. Then, under the teaching of that pastor, we heard the message of the Bible for the first time, and—in many cases contrary to the will of our families—at some point, we surrendered to Christ. In today’s world, when I think, for example, of my two daughters living their lives happily, I doubt that they will experience the kind of personal crisis that led me to Christ. Frankly, as a parent, I do not want them to go through such an existential crisis. As an individual, I am certainly grateful that I surrendered to Christ and was led to the church, but given the realities of Japanese Christianity, I think your lecture about the critical role of the family in passing on the Christian faith is entirely irrelevant.
12
While I was grateful for this church elder’s honest response and confession, his comments were a turning point for me in my work as a professor of Christian education. I mulled over his words as I rode back to Tokyo on the bullet train. Of course, I realize that this one story does not objectively reflect the reality of all Japanese churches or Christian families. However, it accurately captures the enduring challenge of Christian mission within the broader religious ecology of other deep-rooted religious beliefs and practices touching family and nation.
