Today is Friday 13th of July, an unlucky date. Therefore, I would like to write something worrisome about the Japanese Church.
IBMR (“International Bulletin of Missionary Research”)(Vol.30, No.1, January 2006) displays a very interesting but significant article on ‘The Congregational Leadership Crisis Facing the Japanese Church’ by Prof. Thomas John Hastings of Tokyo Union Theological Seminary and Prof. Mark R. Mullins of Sophia University, Tokyo. Some excerpts are shown below:
‘Still, Christianity constitutes only a small minority religion in Japan, unable to attract the loyalty and commitment of even 1.0 percent of the population.’
‘The third group (Note: ordained clergy who are not assigned to any church or Christian institution) covers those who have suffered some disabling psychological or emotional trauma in the course of ministry. As of March 2003, this group included 80 missing persons (15 percent of all unassigned clergy). Some of these missing clergy had served their congregations faithfully, but because of high job stress and low remuneration, they accumulated high credit-card debt and disappeared when they were unable to repay their debt.
‘Many other difficult issues are facing the Japanese church, even as many Japanese are becoming more suspicious of religion in general. For the past three decades, surveys have shown that the Japanese have a negative view of religion, regarding organized religion as “closed” or “gloomy.” Since the violence perpetrated by Aum Shinrikyo in 1995, many regard religion as potentially dangerous.’
As a conclusion, the authors wrote that ‘Without a significant transformation of Japanese Christian attitudes and a mobilization of the laity for greater participation in congregational leadership, the future of these Protestant denominations seems very much in question.’
