Martin Scorsese is finally filming “Silence” a film
based on the book by Shusuku Endo about the persecution of Japanese Christians
under the Shoguns. (This story recently made the news because someone was
killed in an accident on the set.) Scorsese has talked about making this film
for decades. (The book has already been adapted to a film in Japan.) Shusuku Endo was a Japanese Catholic Christian.
In this book, Endo chose to tell the story of persecuted Japanese Christians through the perspective of European missionaries. I felt that it would have been better to tell the story through the perspective of the Japanese, as Endo does in "The Samurai" about Hasekura Rokuemon Tsunenaga (or "Francisco Felipe Faxicura", as he was baptized in Spain) who crossed the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in a failed hope to bring the Gospel and global trade to Japan, and in "Final Martyrs."
It would be interesting to see the story of Amakusa
Shiro (as told in “The Nobility of Failure” by Ivan Morris). Anakusa Shiro was
a teenage Samurai who fought to protect Japanese Christians from persecution.
The revolt of Japanese Christians against the oppression is called the Shimabara
Rebellion (which took place in the 1630s). Eventually, he was captured and
executed. Many Japanese Christians consider him to be a saint. (However,
although he died as a martyr, Shiro threatened to return in one hundred years
to exact vengeance for his death. Interestingly, Chinese Nestorian Christians
also accepted the idea of reincarnation. They preached that Christ freed the
believer from the cycle of reincarnation.)
Japan was being won to Christianity through the
efforts of Catholic missionaries. The English and the Dutch then convinced the
Shogun that the Catholics represented a threat to his rule. (As the result of
their Calvinistic beliefs, the British and the Dutch believed that the Japanese
were non-Elect and as such, Jesus did not die on the cross for them. The
British had strictly financial and trade interests in the East and at the time
had no interest in sharing the Gospel with the local peoples, at that time.
They viewed the success of Portuguese missionaries as a threat to their
economic interests. At this time in history, Catholics engaged in missionary
work and Protestants did not. In fact, William Carey was not allowed to
Evangelize in British India and the British allowed barbaric customs such as
suttee, in which the widow was thrown into her husband’s funeral pyre, to
persist for decades under British rule.) As a result, the Shogun brutally suppressed
Christianity and closed Japan from any foreign contact (sakoku) until Commodore
Perry forced Japan to open up to the rest of the world in 1852-1853. Until that
time practice of Christianity was a capital crime.
The long sustained persecution of Japanese Christians
devastated the church-however, it did survive. One of the fascinating things
about the Japanese is that Japanese Christianity survived underground for centuries.
The Japanese who retained the Christian beliefs and
practices, often in garbled forms are called the “Kakure Kirishitan” meaning
the “Hidden Christians. (They attempted to write down the Bible stories as best
they could. The Kakure Kirishitan scriptures are a very interesting read. It is
admirable, how these people maintained their Christian beliefs the best they
could, without access to the Bible or missionaries.)
Approximately 30,000 secret Christians, some of whom
had adopted these new ways of practicing Christianity, came out of hiding when
religious freedom was re-established in the mid-19th century, after Perry’s
visit.
(Note: America dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, one
of the centers of Japanese Christianity. In fact, ground zero was very near the
Urakami Cathedral, which was destroyed in the explosion, but subsequently
rebuilt. Many Americans believe that it was necessary to use the atomic bomb to
bring a swift end to a long and terrible war. My personal feeling is that,
while it may have been necessary to develop the technology for the bomb, lest
the Nazis or Communists gain that knowledge first, it should never have been
used, especially on civilian targets as it was. I respect other peoples’
opinions, but in mine Hiroshima and Nagasaki repent crimes against humanity. Of
course, the Japanese committed many war crimes, as can be seen in the book and
the movie “Unbroken,” but a “Christian” civilization should be held to a higher
standard. The Japanese who committed atrocities against Mr. Zamperini and
others and at the Rape of Nanking should have been arrested and punished.
Unfortunately, the man who tortured Mr. Zamperini was able to get amnesty.)
After Japan was opened again to the West, Nicolai
Kasatkin was able to found the Japanese Orthodox Church, which flourished until
the Russo-Japanese War, but endured through, and survived the conflict. This
was due to the respect that Saint Kasatkin was held in by the Japanese. (The
Nichorai-do, or Holy Resurrection Cathedral, founded by Saint Kasatkin still
stands in Tokyo.)
Endo often wondered why Christianity has never been
able to gain ground in Japan. It seems like the one opportunity to win Japan to
Christ was blunted by the British and the Dutch. Today, Japan is less than 1%
Christian.
Christianity has had several starts in China as well.
It thrived in the Nestorian form under the Chinese and Mongolian emperors. Nestorian
churches still stand in China. They look like typical pagodas. But this is an
example of how Christianity is able to adapt to different cultures. The
Nestorian Church declined and endured as a persecuted minority until the small
and dwindling Nestorian Chinese were converted to Roman Catholicism. It is
interesting that later a form of Christianity almost took over China.
Hong Xiuquan claimed to be the brother of Jesus Christ
and led the Tiaping Revolution (which took place roughly the same time as the
American “Civil” War). His new religion could be described as perhaps a Chinese
equivalent to American Mormonism. The story is told in “God's Chinese Son: The
Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan” by Jonathon Spencer. Hong Xiuquan
tried to pass the state test in order to become part of the Chinese bureaucracy. He failed, as did all
but 5% of those who took the test. (At
the time, China portrayed itself as a meritocracy in which anyone who passed
the state tests could rise in government.) In the height of his power, Hong
Xiuquan ruled over 30 million people. However, at least 20 million people in
the Tiaping revolt. The Manchu government was able to crush this
quasi-Christian revolt, with the help of the British and the French. (So we see
that the British were instrumental in crushing Japanese Christianity, and in
crushing a large professed Christian movement in China.)
The Chinese government currently holds that the
Tiaping revolution did bring needed social reform, such as sexual equality and
social justice for peasants.
It is fascinating to see how China and Japan have
responded to the Gospel.
Endo’s “Life of Jesus” is a retelling of the story of
Jesus from a Japanese perspective. Endo feels that the reason that Japan has
been resistant to the Gospel is because of the way it is presented from the
patriarchal Western perspective. According to Endo, it is the matriarchal
approach that the Japanese would find more appealing. This is surprising seeing
that Japan has been a strongly militaristic culture in the past. Endo’s “Life
of Jesus” is based on serious historical research. It isn’t as though Endo has
created a new Japanese Zen-Buddhist Jesus, in the way that Jesus is seemingly
presented as a Taoist sage in some of the “Jesus Sutras” Nestorian Chinese
literature.
The movie “Silence” could be effective in telling the
story of the terrible persecution that Japanese Christians suffered, a story
that many in the West are unfamiliar with, and perhaps encourage people to read
Endo’s other works, such as his life of Christ, and look at the Gospel message
through a totally different, and non-Western perspective.
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