Where Everybody's Crazy

I'm finding myself getting very busy and very tired these days; I have a lot of things I want to write about but I'm finding it hard to catch up. This entry has been sitting in my editor window for four days. Let's see if I can finish it today...

Saturday was fantastic. I mean, fantastic. In the morning we headed into Kyoto's Tofukuji, to join a meeting of a Kyoto deaf church. Henrietta and I both independently had an interest in deaf evangelism for a while now, and we've both come across more deaf people in the past year than one would expect. H took a course in sign language while she was at university; I always wanted to but never got to it. And last week, at the house church conference, we met an American couple who are working as evangelists to the deaf here in Japan, and they gave us an introduction to a church in Kyoto, and volunteered kindly to interpret for us.

After worrying that we might be a bit of a nuisance, we were incredibly warmly welcomed by the church there, and gave testimonies and received prayer. And it was a strange and very moving experience to be in a silent church service; even the worship was done purely by signing, and somehow it gave it an added meaning. It was also interesting to contrast deaf Japanese culture and hearing culture - they told us that deaf Japanese were a lot more "straight talking" than hearing ones!

I don't know whether we will be involved in deaf ministry in the future - I know I am someone who has many plans and projects and only a few of them come to pass - but I sure hope so.

In the afternoon we went on to a gospel concert; H is in a couple of gospel choirs and one of them was giving a concert in one of the Kyoto underground stations - supported by Kyoto City Transport Department. There were about forty or fifty people there, and between the songs the leader explained the Christian message behind them.

This really, really, impressed on me the difference between what I will call centripetal evangelism and centrifugal evangelism. As those with better elementary physics than I will remember, centrifugal force flings things outwards; centripetal force tries to pull things inwards. Most of our evangelism is centripetal. At our missionary conference this year we had a great talk by a pastor in Tokyo whose church runs all kind of small groups and activities. And people come along! But his basic model is that the church puts on activities which people come to. Come to the church! Come to the church! And people come.

But there are a couple of problems with this. First, surely we don't want the church to be an inward-pulling organisation which plucks people from the surrounding society so that they can join the sacred communion of the saved, but rather to be an outward-pushing body which gets people into the highways and byways and get the message out there where it belongs. Church surely has to be outward focused, not inward focused; centrifugal not centripedal. Second, pragmatically, putting on loads of small groups and activities and events takes a whole load of time and effort.

You try putting on an event in your church in Japan and getting forty or fifty non-Christians to hear the gospel. I'm sure you can do it, but it'll take you a year of planning and probably quite a lot of money. And yet we've got this gospel choir, made up of both non-Christians and Christians, and when they want to spread the Gospel, they get the city council to provide a prime location, lay out the seating, do the advertising, put the banners up and bring in the punters. All the choir needed to do was just go out and share the Gospel, which is what it's supposed to be about, isn't it? Surely being a missionary is about just going out and sharing the Gospel, not working on providing venues and preparing events and organising the damn seating.

On Monday I spent the day at our mission camp site, getting ready for the summer camps we host. In other words, me and a bunch of others in our mission spent a whole day as missionaries providing venues and preparing events and organising the damn seating. Maybe, just maybe, we've missed the point of what this is all about. Still, it was good exercise.

Tuesday didn't get any better. The morning's prayer meeting was worthwhile, and in a sense the afternoon's Shiga county pastors' meeting was a good opportunity for fellowship and cross-denominational unity. We watched a very interesting video about the Gospel in Bunraku, a presentation of the Gospel using traditional Japanese puppet theatre. And then, unfortunately, we tried to do something together, and that's where it all fell apart.

Next year is the 150th anniversary of Protestant mission in Japan. So it would seem like a good opportunity for all the Protestants to get together and do something. Maybe put on various consciousness-raising events throughout the year. But oh, no, that might actually achieve something. And besides, we're not Protestants, we're Evangelicals and none of our denominations have a 150 year history, so why should we care about the 150th anniversary of Protestant mission in Japan? Obviously working with the non-Evangelical churches is impossible - obviously! - and if we did something without them it would look like we're in disunity and be a bad witness. (Even though we actually are in disunity and it's a bad witness, and this would be a good way to get over that. But that would be impossible. Obviously.)

In a consensus-based society like Japan, a group proceeds at the pace of its least-imaginative member. (Incidentally, WEC International is a concensus-based society.) So we're doing nothing.

This works for me. After all, the hallmark of Protestantism is to subdivide into innumerable tiny factions, close yourself off from everyone who doesn't completely agree with you, and make enemies out of people who really ought to be your friends. So our way of celebrating 150 years of Protestant mission seems strangely appropriate.

So that was Tuesday.

Today I spent the whole day writing my sermon for Sunday, because it needed doing.

I haven't spoken to a non-Christian this week. I haven't had the time.

This video has been doing the rounds of late; I was tipped off about it by an Internet forum, and then I was handed a copy of it. It asks three questions:

• Is there evidence of the Creator God in Japanese history and culture?
• Is there a connection between the Tea ceremony and Communion?
• Is it contradictory to be Japanese and a Follower of Jesus?

It focuses on the first question - hence the name of the video - but really it's laying the third question down as a big subtext. The subtext is "Should missionaries throw out Japanese culture?" Well, that one ought to be a slam-dunk, but apparently not. But let's deal with the face-value question. Is there evidence of the Creator God in Japanese history and culture?

The introduction to the film claims that the question was occasioned by some interesting reading of Romans which says that there is evidence for Creator-worship in every country and culture. No, I don't follow it either. I thought the whole "different cultures" thing came from Babel, but there you go.

Speaking of interesting readings, one of the introductory cutaways had this on the screen:

In the beginning God (Literally "gods"; ie. the Trinity) created the heavens and the earth.

I found myself involuntarily assuming my best David Tennant voice and mouthing "No, please, don't do that." (Google for "elohim" and "trinity". It's just a idiom, people. Don't get so darned excited.)

So anyhow, I'm going to spoil the secret for you. After years of painstaking research, the best they come up with is this: There is a Japanese "creator god" concept in the Kojiki, called Ame-no-minaka-no-nushi. He's one of the three uncreated gods - Oh look, three, that must be significant! - and is worshipped at the oldest shrine in Japan.

And very few Japanese people have heard of him, because he's actually a very minor figure in the Kojiki. In the Kojiki, Izanagi and Izanami and all the gods created from them do the majority of the creative work. I cannot think why this was omitted from the DVD. Only serious scholars of Shinto would have heard of Ame-no-minaka-no-nushi. If this is, per Romans, how God has made himself known to all people, He's done a really bad job of it.

But the really odd thing about this section of the film is that it just left me thinking "So what?" Because it didn't actually make any claims. Of course it would be seriously dodgy to come out and identify the three uncreated gods with the Trinity, so they just leave it as a leading question: "Could it be...?" (Expecting the answer "yes".) Sorry, but that's just a device for avoiding responsibility while at the same time playing with emotion.

I'm happy to come out and say it plain: No, they're not the Trinity. Just because you know the name of the "creator god" concept, that tells you nothing about his ontology, or character, or indeed anything, really. And so it's no wonder that the video makes no direct claims about this god. Because where do you start and where do you stop? Obviously we're not going to accept the whole Kojiki theogeny idea - heck, I believe the reason Genesis 1 was written was to provide a monotheistic creation story for the people of God, in contradistinction to the various theogenic near-Eastern creation myths that were going around at the time. And yet at the same time, we have this "three uncreated gods" idea that we desperately want to appropriate into our story, and yet we have no good way of doing so.

I'm trying to see the up-side here. I think this section of the film can give missionaries a hint as to how to communicate the concept of a creator god with people who believe the Kojiki. Let me know if you actually come across anyone like that. And, if all this is true, then such people already get the idea of a creator god anyway. Oh well.

The second section - about the tea ceremony - is trying to sit between the two questions "is there evidence of a creator god in Japan" and "is it contradictory to be Japanese and a follower of Jesus." And it does so in a very awkward way: by following on from the first section, you get the impression that you're going to find another (or, at least "an") example of how God revealed himself to the Japanese people. But unfortunately right at the beginning of the section it gives away the fact that it's actually tied more to the third question. The video comes right out and says that Sen-no-rikyu, the author of the modern tea ceremony, was influenced by Christianity. Not exactly an amazing revelation of God in the culture, I'm afraid.

The section said a lot about the Hidden Christians, and how the tea ceremony may have developed to allow the Hidden Christians to perform communion in secret. Pardon me for a moment, let me just check what the Hidden Christians believe.

One evening the Lord came down from heaven in the form of a butterly and lighted on the face of the Biruzen Maruya. At that moment he named her Santa Maruya of Korodo and flew into her mouth. Immediately she conceived... From Maruya's womb, the child heard the words both women had spoken to each other. This is why after his birth, the Lord made their words into two prayers: the Hail Mary and the Our Father. Because these prayers were both composed at the Abe River, they are called the Abe Maruya as a single unit of prayer.

Tenchi Hajimari - the Creation of Heaven and Earth

Okay. Where do we take this, then?

You see, again, I'm left thinking "So what?" There are connections between the tea ceremony and communion. And hey, there are connections between the yakuza and communion. Now what? This seems to be a massive exercise in eisegesis, like our quotation of Genesis 1. Exegesis is trying to pull things out of the text; eisegesis is trying to force things into the text. I think if you look at something as broad as the Japanese culture and something as long as Japanese culture, and if you're not prepared to give up, you will eventually find something that you're looking for. Whether it's there or not.

Which brings us to the third point. Maybe this is what the film is about: Japanese culture isn't 100% opposed to the Gospel. For people who have problems with that idea, then maybe the film is useful. But for those of us who think that Japanese people are just human beings, just plain folks like everyone else, then this won't come as a big surprise to us.

Or at least, it shouldn't.

How are you doing? We hope this letter finds you well - we believe you're in Ephesus at the moment. How are you managing with the local food? We just received your latest prayer letter, and were particularly impressed with your idea of taking the collection up to Jerusalem. This sounds fantastic!

However, it does raise some questions about your recent behaviour, and that is why we wanted to write to you. First, we have some concerns about your use of language. We are very confused as to how the person who wrote "let no unwholesome talk come out of your mouth" could use the sort of language that you did in your letter to the church in Caesarea Phillipi. (Phil 3:8) We can understand that you wanted to show a break from your Judaistic past, but perhaps you could have expressed your past achievements in more wholesome terms? The word σκυβαλον... well, we need not comment on it. But we hope that you will behave in a more dignified manner in the future.

Similarly, your attitude when writing to the Galatians was, it must be said, singularly unChristian. We are, after all, called to love our enemies, rather than wish emasculation upon them. Rather than sarcastic and ironic words, we would encourage you to teach your brothers and sisters using more encouraging and positive terms.

We might have been able to dismiss these as isolated incidents, were it not for the incident before the high priest, which has come to our attention. I believe you wrote to another church about the necessity for obedience to the authorities, and here we find you calling the high priest a "whitewashed wall!" Did you not know of Jesus's command to "turn the other cheek" when we are assaulted in his name, if not his command to love our enemies? Instead, when in a perfect position to turn the other cheek, you chose to again use your vituperative tongue to attack, rather than show love, and once again your talent for sarcasm was on public display. We would like to ask you to reflect on whether such behaviour is appropriate for a missionary of your standard.

Finally we have heard from John Mark about your treatment of our short-term mission workers. We are aware that John Mark did not have adequate cultural training to join you on your mission trip, but that was no excuse for the way you treated him. Again, do you not realise that Christianity is a religion marked by forgiveness and second chances? And yet you were not able to extend a second chance to a junior missionary in your charge!

Clearly there are some major issues with your character which we believe you should reflect upon. We recognise that you are one of our most successful mission partners, and this is what makes our position even more difficult - however, if you do not feel you can master your character in a more godly and more Christian manner, then we will have no hesitation in asking you to leave our mission.