Commentary

ello frens..its always nice to have a blogging thingy for trips and events like this..and of course..being a bit of a veteran blogger (if i do say so miself)..i think i'll try to do a bit of the bloggers' thing here...

about ministry in Japan: the first christian missionaries arrived in Japan in the 1400s...these were mainly Jesuits from Rome..even though certain apocryphal sources state that St Francis Xavier travelled to Japan in the 1100s, and, finding a cold reception there, went to China since the way into Japan traditionally is always through her larger neighbour, China..thats how buddhism came to Japan in the 800s along with chinese temple architecture..

anyways, the Jesuits came at the right time when local warlords or daimyos were looking into ways in which to break free of the Tokugawa's control..so of course they adopted christianity of the Roman Catholic variety in places like Nagasaki and various other areas..interestingly this is the same Nagasaki that would eventually receive another gift whole-heartedly from the west in the form of the A-bomb in 1945..historical ironies eh?

and of course, persecution of Christians began in earnest and culminated in the 1600s with the expulsion of western people from all Japan..except the Dutch, who were confined to a small island outside Tokyo..being Dutch Calvinists i wonder if it had anything to do with God's pre-destination?

as for the japanese Christians, their struggles are documented by the japanese Catholic author Shusaku Endo...but suffice to say, japanese Christianity never fully died out..it went underground and emerged after 1850 when the Americans forcefully opened Japan under Commodore Perry's literal gunboat diplomacy..when a fleet of American gunboats sailed into Tokyo harbour unmolested..and then the japanese Christians emerged from hiding wanting to partake of the Lord's Supper and be readmitted into communion with the Universal church of Jesus..

i would like to meet descendants of these "native" japanese Christians who were saved through the faithful perserverance of their forebears under persecution rather than through the work of missionaries in the last 100 years..i wonder if they still exist and if i'll get a chance to meet them this time?

well, enough of my rambling..next time i shall blog about Christianity in japan within the last 100 years..so apologies on the long history lesson..but i do believe its neccessary since church history is a continuous unfolding process throughout the ages until Jesus returns and not a series of discrete stages which are divorced from one another..it just doesnt start from Martin Luther and the Reformation unfortunately much as i respect that German monk..