Featured Japan may be facing a shortage of pastors

Actually, you have yet to be courteous.

Now, since you think I'm a heretic, I'll just put you on ignore, and we'll both be happy.

 

I have mentioned Dispensationalism zero times on this thread except in response to you, when I said I'm not going to discuss it.

 

Hopefully, you will understand my views of Antichrist still seated in the temple of God through His false teachings. One of which is Dispensationalism based on Jesuit lies meant to deceive Protestants. Even Clarence Larkin claims this.
"In its present form it (Dispensationalism) may be said to have originated at the end of the Sixteenth Century, with the Jesuit Ribera, who, actuated by the same motive as the Jesuit Alcazar, sought to rid the Papacy of the stigma of being called the “Antichrist,” and so referred the prophecies of the Apocalypse to the distant future.

This view was accepted by the Roman Catholic Church and was for a long time confined to it, but, strange to say, it has wonderfully revived since the beginning of the Nineteenth Century, and that among Protestants.

Dispensational Truth; pg. 5 Clarence Larkin

 

I mentioned it possibly as a reason to avoid fellowship with you. But you keep dredging it up. With respect, I responded to you even though you were taking the discussion off-topic.

 

Yes, Japan needs 20,000+ pastors

JMO

 

Seriously, at the end of the war

I heard Gen D MacArthur said send me all of the misssionaries that you can and then some

not sure if true or not

 

I have heard this many times and believe it to be true, but I have never been able to source it.

 

Japan my be facing a shortage of pastors but there is no shortage on here... And since John Of Japan is knowledgeable of Japan, he can lead the parade... To you old timers on here, this is just a suggestion?... So who is going to pack their bags?... Brother Glen

Btw... I grew up with many pastors but I'm not one myself, so I won't be going!... But back in the day, I was in Okinawa courtesy of the U.S.M.C. (a stop off during Vietnam, not WWII).

 

I know several who were in Japan with the Marines, then went back as missionaries. It seems that Marine training is good for missionaries!

The very first to do so was Jonathan Goble (1827-1896). He joined the Marines in order to be on Commodore Perry's ships, so that he could learn about the country. His goal was to someday be a missionary to Japan, and he ended up being the first of many Baptist missionary to go there.

 

Back in 1991, thirty years ago, Christianity Today ran this article.

Siegfried, Buss & Shin Funaki (April 8, 1991). "In the Shadow of the Rising Sun: In 1946 General MacArthur called for 10,000 missionaries to come to Japan. Here is what has happened since." Christianity Today.

"What has happened to Japan’s church? Even Christian leaders in Japan refer to an “invisible church” in a highly visible land. Indeed, the number of Christians in Japan is astonishingly small. Despite the presence of a number of historic denominations and independent groups, most counts reveal that Christians make up less than 1 percent of Japan’s 123 million residents. This is all the more striking in light of the burgeoning Christian population of one of Japan’s closest neighbors, South Korea, where Christians make up almost a third of the population."​

 

Good post, and on target.

Reasons for the success of the Gospel in Korea:
1. Complete dismantling of their culture by Japan while thet ruled Korea, creating a spiritual vacuum.
2. Tremendous revivals there at the beginning of the 20th century, led by Jonathan Goforth and others.
3. The early implementation of the "Three Self" indigenous policy by John Livingstone Nevius and other missionaries.
4. The simplification of their difficult written language by dropping the 1000s of Chinese characters they were using.
5. The openness of the Korean people, who opened their hearts to the missionaries and their Gospel message in spite of their history as the "Hermit Kingdom."

Reasons for the poor reception of the Gospel in Japan
1. The complete opposition and outlawing of Christianity by the Shogunate, rulers of Japan, in the 16th and 17th centuries.
2. The extreme difficulty of their written language, perhaps the most difficult in the world. They retained the Chinese characters, which in Japanese may have many different pronunciations, unlike in Chinese.
3. The radicalness of the Japanese versions of Buddhism and of Shintoism. The rise of "state Shinto" before WW2 was very damaging.
4. The pride and nationalism of the Japanese, which rejects things and people not unless they can be modified to fit Japanese thinking.

 

I find this to be interesting. What distinguishes Japanese thinking from other cultural thinking? It would have to be part of their language. I only know my American English, and am a Californian.

 

1. They are an honor/shame culture. As you thought, that means that honorifics are very important in the language.
2. They re highly imitative, meaning that they prefer to copy and improve rather than invent. This is why there are so few Japanese Nobel winners, and those winners usually work outside the country.
3. They are a group culture rather than individualistic. A famous proverb is, "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down."
4. The samurai ethic, and thus Confucianism, is still prevalent. Thus, relationships are more important than facts and truth.

I'll attach my lecture notes for Confucianism here, if you are interested.

 

Thank you for the notes.

That concept, that can be an obstacle. This causes me to think of John 14:6 to also mean, ". . . I am the relationship, the truth and the life, no one has a relationship with the Father but by me." I might be wrong in this, but this is what came to mind.

 

I can see that point.

 

Item B on your first page of your given notes beings to mind in Matthew's gospel "kingdom of God" is also quoted as "kingdom of heaven."

 

True. To the Jews in Aramaic, Heaven could mean God. So there is no disjunct in Matthew using them as synonyms when the other Gospel writers only used Kingdom of God.

 

How can we help Japan John?

many ideas?

yes, I will add prayer for Japanese pastors to my group

TIA