Catholics as remnant in Japan: after turbulent past, church still culturally at odds with Japanese

National Catholic Reporter, Sept 30, 1994 by Gary L. Chamberlain

The church was well-prepared, the attendants were ready and the wedding music began. The bride, in long white dress, walked slowly down the aisle and met the shy groom. The wedding continued, in Japanese, as the priest performed the traditional Christian marriage.

One thing was unusual: Neither bride nor groom was Catholic, nor even Christian. After the reception, the couple participated in a traditional Shinto wedding ritual.

Christian weddings for non-Christians are a fairly new outreach for the Catholic church in Japan. At the Western-style church complex where I stayed in Kyoto, the American pastor has scheduled such weddings as far as two years in advance. Indeed, the weddings constitute a major portion of his pastoral ministry.

While such ministry has the blessing of the Japanese bishop of Kyoto and is found throughout Japan, some Christians question whether it expresses an authentic gospel message or merely exploits the Japanese fascination with Western weddings. Christianity has, however, carved out a portion of the Japanese spiritual ethos: Shinto for births; Buddhism for funerals; and Christianity for weddings. Such a division may seem strange to Western thinking, but religion as ritualized patterns of behavior well suits the Japanese character in a country where official numbers of adherents of "religion" outnumber the actual population,

This new form of ministry has replaced English language classes as church outreach. Usually several sessions precede the actual wedding. These classes are not "evangelization" in any traditional sense. Instead they are a translation of the church's teachings surrounding marriage into language and patterns that the Japanese can understand.

The classes emphasize the dynamics of love, the place of communication, problem-solving and conflict-resolution strategies, the equality and mutuality of the married couple, the natural family-planning approach to birth control and the church's teachings on abortion. Given the predominant place of abortion and condoms as birth control, the church's teachings in this area appeal to a certain segment of Japanese society.

The Japanese have their own form of natural family planning, called the ogino method, which originated after World War I and is used by one-fourth of Japanese couples. Thus these sessions reinforce some traditional Japanese concerns and introduce a Christian set of values surrounding marriage much needed in Japan.

In Family Planning in Japanese Society, Stanley Colman pointed to the contemporary "moral void" in the area of marriage. After World War II, the separation of sex from procreation through contraception undermined the traditional support for family life. Recreation emerged as the purpose for sex, especially among Japanese men. Although attitudes toward marriage are gradually shifting from "arranged" to "love" relationships, for many Japanese the separation of sex from reproduction poses problems.

Christian weddings also offer Japanese couples a more personal approach to their wedding than traditional Shinto weddings, which emphasize the union of families rather than the couple. Because friends are also invited to the Christian wedding, the churches reach many Japanese they might not otherwise contact. The wedding ceremony introduces observers to a small aspect of Christianity and challenges hostile attitudes that remain from 250 years of persecution.

250 years underground

Christianity came to Japan on Aug. 15, 1549, when Jesuit Fr. Francis Xavier arrived at Kagoshima on the southern island of Kyushu. Under the protection of the local lord, Xavier and his companions were given permission to preach. From his earliest encounters with Buddhist monks, Xavier thought Buddhism and Christianity shared many common beliefs and even similar rituals. Though plagued by poor understanding of Japanese culture, Xavier and his men had early success. Eventually Xavier turned against the monks and lashed out at such practices as abortion and infanticide with what one historian calls his "intemperate tongue."

By 1582 the number of Catholic converts had grown to 150,000 served by some 200 churches, seminaries and educational institutes.

By 1603, despite scattered persecution, there were about 300,000 Christians out of a population of 25 million.

In 1614, Ieyasu Tokugawa banned Christian missionaries as part of Japan's seclusion policies. Commerce with the West was restricted to Dejima Island in Nagasaki harbor. Persecutions began in earnest in 1617, and for the next 250 years, Christianity and its strange beliefs about heaven and hell, afterlife and a redeemer son who was crucified to save others went underground.

It was not until 1862, in the Oura Roman Catholic Church in Nagasaki, staffed by the French to serve traders in the newly opened Japan, that the "hidden Christians" re-emerged. Without benefit of clergy, schooling or public expression, they had preserved their version of Christianity for some 250 years. By 1873, Christians were allowed to practice again as part of Japan's opening to the West.