“The Church in Japan and India”—E. W. McMillan

“The Church in Japan and India”—E. W. McMillan “THE CHURCH IN JAPAN AND INDIA”
Lecture by E. W. McMillan, February 21, 1950,
at Abilene Christian College (9’30 a.m.) In the onset of this address I would like to share the opening remarks of Brother Smith when he made ref erence to the high privilege which is ours on occasions like this, to come from far places in America and abroad, and to assemble m a place of this sort that, together, our hearts may blend as we worship God. While he was speaking, I thought of our freedom as American citizens and as members of the Lord’s church. In the full rights of these freedoms, we have met here to worship God, inspire each other, then go home resolved upon greater service. There is no greater privilege.
I am exceedingly grateful, unwilling to use the word “honor” though there is honor attached to the present responsibilities. I feel humbled in the presence of God and in your presence. To whatever extent there is an honor in this opportunity, the greatest part of it is the honor of being a servant to you who are kind enough to be here. To whatever extent I might fail in that service, to that same extent I would be untrue to the trust reposed in me. .
It is encouraging to know that hundreds of gospel preachers are in this audience. I am past the days when the glamour of place and prestige has any kind of a gloss for my attention. In the remaining years of my life there is one holy desire, and only one. That desire is to make some kind of a contribution that is worthwhile. Throughout this audience there are gospel preachers with the same noble aim. Some of you are younger; some of you are older, but through and through that is the structure of your spirit. Just being a member of a religious fellowship with that holy aim is one of the highest privileges that God ever granted.

Brother Morris worded my subject, “The Church in Japan and India.” Such a subject could be painfully dry or glamorous and impractical. All of us would pray that this lecture may be void of superficial glamour, and that it may linger in memory as a simple recital, humbly given, of some great truths which inspired us.

We live in a great land. We also live during a most encouraging progress of the church of Jesus Christ. But prosperity of every kind sometimes blinds the judgment. Prosperity feeds the pride which always “goes before a fall.” As this lecture unfolds the opportunities in Japan and India; and especially as the enchanting story of progress is told, duty dictates that all of us shall be humbled under the trust reposed in us, that we rejoice in the progress being made, and pledge ourselves to the largest possible use of our trust.

Two years ago, standing here, I told you about oppor-tunities that existed and the hopes for the use of those opportunities. I told you about an excited, frenzied people in Japan, who were pleading for a share in Christianity, which, to them, had made America what it is. Today I am standing here looking back over two years, to tell you what has taken place since that time. Japan is not so frenzied today. India is not so frenzied. Japan and India are more deliberate. Japan especially is settled in a saner mind now, at times arguing, always inquisitive and deliberating, exercising its own judgment. Men are standing up in our assemblies and saying, “I do not believe that, and here is my reason for not believing it.” They are no longer a dangerous opportunity; they weigh values and make their choices on an intelligent basis. This lecture, therefore, is about a new Japan: not about opportunities which we hope will be used, but about what has been done and is being done. The church in Japan two years ago had eleven struggling, small, discouraged congregations. Today we have a total of thirty-three congregations, most of them active, pulsating, thriving, enthusiastic groups, planted in four sections of Japan. The total membership on this day of 1947 was around 250, the best that we could know. Today there are between fifteen hundred and two thousand living, active, enthusiastic, working Christian men and women. A total of preachers in Japan two years is said to have been eleven, most of them not preaching much. But today we have not only these eleven preachers, most of them more active than they used to be; we have seventeen student young men such as you have in schools) like this, who are daily taking their education in a college that is standard, studying the Bible as a part of'that education, and going out on the Lord’s day to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a common sight, from the campus of Ibaraki Christian College, to see young men on foot, or on bicycle, or train going with sermon in heart and Lord’s supper in hand to serve small groups whom they baptized during revival meetings last summer.

These congregations are scattered over four states. One group is in Shezuoka, 140 miles southwest of Tokyo on the shore of the ocean. Shezuoka has five congregations. That is where Miss Hettie Lee Ewing and Miss Sara Andrews have done most of their work. Miss Andrews is there now. We need at least two Christian families from the States to go there and give leadership. Fifty miles southwest of Tokyo is Otsuki, in Yamanashi Ken. “Ken” is the Japanese word, “Prefecture” is the English word, “State” is the word we use in this country; so let’s just be American and say “state.” Yamanashi state. Yamanashi is the place where a man said two years ago, “Tori- zawa is a town of 4,,000 people, without a doctor, without a nurse, without a store for medicine, without a building of worship within ten miles. I am the only Christian in this town or in this state. If missionaries could come here we could take this country for Christ.” That little story was told in a dozen places, or more, and it finally struck fire over here in Hamlin. The elders of Hamlin said, “We’ll take that part of the country for our responsibility.” Ed Brown and Edna are there today, supported by Hamlin and Anson. They graduated from this school last June, as you know. Soon Bill Carrol and his wife will go, under the direction of the good Sears and Summitt church in Dallas, to join the Browns in labor. Money is already in Japan for the building of a house of worship and a home for the missionary. Bill will carry the money for his home when he goes, and they are to sail, come summer. In the town of Otsuki, the church numbers now nearly one hundred Christians; three doctors are in the church, having returned from medical college the last two years and been baptized. In Tokyo and Yokohama we have three congregations. One of them is the congregation that Brother and Sister McCaleb worked in for a long time. Brother Saito, a native Japanese, converted from Presbyterianism, is the preacher. They have a membership of around fifty. In Yokohama, there is a congregation of between seventy-five and one hundred, where Brother E. A. Rhodes is preaching and teaching’. Then, there is the more newly started work of “Central Congregation” in Tokyo, where Brother 0. D. Bixler is the leading influence. Associated with him are three other American couples, working in a downtown area. More about that a little later. The most aggressive and fastest growing work is in the state of Ibaraki, a hundred miles to the north of Tokyo. There we have thirteen missionaries. R. C. Cannon and his wife, Joe Cannon and his wife, Logan Fox and his wife, Harry Robert Fox and his wife, Charles Doyle and his wife, Virgil Lawyer and his wife, and Dr. Campbell, on leave*of absence from George Pepperdine College, teaching mathematics in our College, and a Bible Class on the Lord’s day. Whereas in 1947, we had four struggling congregations in Ibaraki, we now have twenty-two. At that time, we had 125 members, now we have between a thousand and twelve hundred. We then had four Japanese gospel preachers, and not one single missionary, we now have thirteen missionaries, five experienced Japanese preachers, and seventeen student preachers, who are either interpreting for American missionaries in daily Bible classes and on the Lord’s day or they are themselves going out on the Lord’s day preaching. Here is a little amusing and promising incident. Two of those young preachers live in the home of R. C. Cannon and his wife, receiving their education and their training at the expense of the Cannons. A short while ago Saito San said, “Mr. Cannon, I am going over here to my regular appointment Sunday, would you help me a little bit?” And Carrol helped him get his sermon up in good shape. Face radiant at the breakfast table Monday morning following, Saito San said, “I didn’t preach the sermon you gave me Saturday.” He explained, “Well, I was riding along the way Saturday going over and I heard a conversation right in front of me; a man from my prefecture was talking about farming. He said, we have to have the right kind of soil, the right kind of seed, and we have to fertilize, enrich, pulverize, and cultivate ground; and we have to nurture the plants in order to produce a good crop. I thought of the parable of the sower: it was a better sermon/than the one I had.” So, he added, “I just got up Sunday morning and I told the Japanese the trouble with some, of them is that they are wayside soil, harden in heart.” His further recital indicated that he preached a good sermon. But his initiative and originality is what impressed me. Probably he had a better sermon than he had borrowed, because it grew out of the fertility of his own life, and that always improves a sermon. We are growing that kind of preachers over there. Last year we held 23 meetings in Ibaraki; 354 were baptized, and a letter the first of January said 25 were baptized during the cold month of December. The total baptisms during 1949 exceeded 400 in Ibaraki. However, it is estimated that every story has a “but” in it. When a man says, “but,” you understand he has driven down a stake and he is going to say something different. I have to say “but” in this story.

If the work in Japan is to succeed permanently, it must retain the confidence and the respect of the brethren in the States, it does not deserve to succeed unless it maintains that confidence. And if it retains that confidence it must remain in harmony with the Bible. I speak not only my sentiments today, but the sentiments of the missionaries that are in Ibaraki state. They expressed the same convictions to me. We all believe this, not only in order to retain your confidence and support, but because it is right. We recognize the fact that harmony with the Bible consists not in generalities but in very definite specifics. At this point I am obligated to correct something that I said here two years ago. It was said then, that Japan knows nothing about certain false doctrines that are taught in the States. I told you that because I had been informed to that effect and believed my informant. I told you that it would be a tragedy to introduce premillennialism in Japan, believing the Japanese minds not ready for premillenialism. I believed it would be a tragedy to introduce it if it had not been introduced, and I believe yet it would be; But when I told you that Japan knew nothing of premillennialism, I was wrong. I believed I was correct, but I was not. I learned last summer that I had been wrongly informed. I am not saying that anybody intentionally misled me; I have no way of knowing about that. I am setting myself right because you are entitled to know the truth. Pre-millennialism as a doctrine is well known throughout religious circles in Japan and has been well known for years. It has been taught in some measure in Tokyo and Yokohama the last three years. It has become necessary for us to correct the belief of one of our own brethren in Ibaraki state on the subject. We have deemed it wise to fully inform the Japanese brethren working with us in our school in' Ibaraki state on these matters; we have enlightened them on the whole issue of premillennialism in the church in the States, and have given them what we believe is the truth upon the subject.

Two years ago, you were promised an honest report on all these developments when, and if, they ever came: I am giving you that report now. In giving these facts and corrections, I am occasionally accused of trying to restrict religious liberty; but it seems to me that all of us at times are too sensitive. Some of us probably have been too quick to criticize and probably some of us have been too sensitive toward criti-cism. We have constructed a number of glamorous statements. We have talked about “religious freedom” and “religious liberty.” I do not believe, and I have never believed, that criticizing a man for what he believes is a restriction of his religious liberty. Paul talked about stopping the mouths of some men in what they teach; he was not restricting their liberty. He merely recognized that.his right to oppose equalled others’ rights to teach. Others had the right to express their conviction and he had the right to say their mouths ought to be stopped. Now, when a man today criticizes another man for what he taught, he is not restricting that man’s liberty. He is just correcting what he believes is error. If that correction is a restriction of the other man’s liberty, his criticism of my opposition is a restriction of my liberty. On that basis, nobody could correct anybody for anything. And that is not preaching the gospel. So, let not prejudices and sensitivities deceive us through the use of false terminologies. Every teacher and preacher should willingly face the consequences of his teachings. Now, that others have introduced premillennial teachings in Japan, it is being opposed by the missionaries in Ibaraki, not because they want to please American brethren but because they believe that way. Two years ago I urged the use of Brother Bixler’s influence and talents in Japan as long as he main-tained silence on premillennialism; but you were further promised all the facts if that silence was not maintained. My course today is the fulfillment of that promise. But this small beginning of premillennialism should not diminish our efforts to carry the pure gospel to Japan. If possible, it increases our obligations.

Now, within a few days you will know something of an alteration in my relationship to the work in Japan. I am happy to say that the Japanese work today is at least one year ahead of what I had any right to hope a year ago that it would be today. I cannot, therefore, justify going on and being a heavy expense to the Memphis Church, trying to enlarge the annual support from others for Japan. I have urged, therefore, a release from my responsibilities. That release will come the first of September, at which time I shall go into other primary responsibilities. But, my interest in, and devotions to, the work of the Far East is not diminished. The roots of my life are buried deep in that work. I am pledged to make speeches for it when the opportunity comes. And though I hope that I shall never have to cross another ocean for anything, if the time should come when it seems best, and when my new responsibilities would permit, I am committed that I will make one more trip over there, for whatever goo'd I may be able to do. I believe that the work deserves confidence and co-operation. It will receive mine. The responsibilities in the school are well delegated there. I know the hearts and the minds of the men that are in it. Brother R. C. Cannon is the executive vice-president of the school and Brother Logan Fox is the executive dean. Their responsibilities are well defined. They are as fine a team of young executives as I have ever seen. They deserve your confidence and your co-operation. They are honest, sincere, and devout. They deserve your Confidence and support. The same is true of the others in their responsibilities.

Now, a word about India. Seventeen years ago a man of less than 150 pounds in weight but with a heart as big and heavy as the world stood up in a Presbyterian assembly and dared to challenge one point of Presbyterian practice. It was in the city of Shillong. Shillong is the capital of the most eastern province, Assam, reaching up through the K & J Hills toward Tibet. This, of course, caused the man to be cast out of Presbyterian fellowship. Fourteen walked out with him and they began studying the Bible independently. Those men and women from 1932 to this day have had no commentaries, no books of sermons, no religious journals, no quarterlies and no anything except honest hearts and minds opened before the pages of God’s word. They had no idea that anybody else in the world believed what they came to believe, but this is what they have learned. (1) Sectarian denominationalism is entirely unauthorized in the Scriptures, so they cast it all aside and they call themselves churches of Christ. (2) Rules of faith and practice written by men are wrong, therefore, they have discarded them and they take the Bible as their only rule of faith and practice. (3) Ecclesiasticism is wrong, therefore, they use congregational independence and faith. (4) Instrumental music is unauthorized in the New Testament, and therefore it will have to go out, and so out goes the instrument. (5) They have discarded all forms of baptism except immersion for the remission of sins. In some respects they are behind us; they have never caught the idea of the Lord’s Supper every Lord’s day, but Brother Glenn Wallace well and easily showed them the truth on that, and they gladly accepted it. But they are ahead of us in some respects. One of them is this: the leaders in the eight congregations, with a total membership of about 800 meet for Bible study at stated intervals two or three days at a time. They walk barefooted ten to twenty miles to-those meetings, as well as to preaching services on the Lord’s day. They study a given subject that was assigned beforehand. They exchange their views about it. They still have no book to help them but the Bible. They can come to an agreement about what this book teaches, they go out and preach it; but if they cannot, they break up and go home to study it more. No man preaches his individual opinion on that subject until they can all come to an agreement that “this is what the Bible teaches,” without doubt. So they have no issues, no parties. They have no great church leaders; they have no followers. They have no hobbies; they have no hobbiests. They are all one in Christ Jesus. As brethren over here have been told this story, they rise up and ask, “What can we do to help them?” My first answer is, “Leave them alone.” To me, they are the finest example I have ever known in action that the gospel is the power of God and an all-insufficient guide in faith. Yet, there is help that can be given. They need some books; but books can be dangerous, as well as helpful. We also can take their four preachers off their secular jobs and let them give full time to preaching. Money is available to support them, and that is going to be done. The college church here paid my expenses from Japan over there and back to Japan in order to make the investigation. It is is perfectly logical and right that they should take the lead in receiving and sending the money on; that money is waiting, ready to go, and a letter from India says that the men are ready to start. So, in India within a few weeks, we shall have four men giving all their time to preaching the gospel. What will happen later remains to be seen. But that is the story to the present.

Now in closing, allow me to offer some very poiuted observations on the work in the Far East concerning its needs, reasons for success, and suggest some things for a better understanding among us in America. First of all, I pay a tribute to the missionaries that have gone to all foreign fields. I was deeply moved last night by what Brother Harper said along that line. I doubt not the sincerity of brethren who have referred to those trips as pleasure trips; but let me suggest kindly that you take some of them. Nobody wants to rob anyone of that pleasure. Those missionaries over there are not on pleasure jaunts, my beloved. They are there under an honorable trust. When a man and his wife go to Japan to stay five or ten years, work there on from two-fifths to a half of what they would be paid in America for less work; and when today, in addition, undergo the many hardships in-volved, there are not on a pleasure trip. I pay a tribute to the men and women who have gone and have stayed. I do not deserve the title of a missionary. I a?n not a missionary, have never been a missionary. I have only been a visitor on mission fields, and while there have been given the very best that could be given there. I was given the best of transportation; no limit set on cost for my comfort. But my hat is off, and my heart is fervent in thanksgiving, for the men and the women who have had the love of God in their hearts to leave home and friends and go there to serve as missionaries.

There is another group of noble men that we too often overlook. They live over here. One of the primary differences in the church today in comparison with twenty to fifty years ago is in the leadership, called elders. There has come a marvelous improvement the last twenty years in the churches of Christ. Fifty years ago they were built around McGarvey, Lipscomb, the Campbells, Stone and other such men. Today, congregational work is built around the Bible, under the decisions of a group of honorable men, called elders. There is no longer a preacher, thank God, who can lead the church off into the wilderness. In each independent congregation, there is a group of godly men who, for the love of service, free of charge, are at the helm of the direction of things. These men, like old man river, go moving along toward a great destiny. They are farsighted, they are making long-range plans, working day and night for the love of service. These men are planning and directing great services. Thank God for them. There is not a more noble thing in the whole world than a godly man, who is worthy of the title, ‘‘elder of the church,” or a good Christian woman that lives with him as a wife and shares his life nobly. There is not a more worthy, valuable, or potent factor in the church than a man or a woman like that. Leaders of that kind have developed in the church. They have vision and are bringing these dreams into reality.

Then, throughout the membership of the church, there are godly men and women who have made money. They know they will not be able to take it with them when they die. They cannot preach, but they will have stars in their crowns because they supported those who did preach. They consider their money a matter of trust from God. All the way, from the widow that washes to the people who have struck oil on their land, they are saying, “Here is my money; use it for the salvation of the world/’ Brother Morris made an announcement last night that he thought was true, but it just wasn’t as he put it. He said the only appeal that is going to be made for money during this lectureship is that Thursday night collection. He was wrong; I am asking you for money today. I want some money. I do not want any of that special collection. You just make up your mind to double what you gave last year to it, then you will still have some left. There are some men and women around here with money in the bank who have not decided where to give it. I know a very good place you can give it to. I would like to get some $100 checks; and everybody else around here that talks about a field of need would like to have some money too. Now, Brother Morris knows me. He knows that is not a veto of what he said, and if he were not quite so modest he would stand up out in the audience and say “amen.” I know his heart. But allow me to urge you, friends, it is going to take more money; that is needed very much; and it will be needed for growth in the years to come. Though I am taking myself off the payroll of the Memphis church, I am not taking my heart out of the mission effort. Don’t take your money out of it.

Five minutes more. Let me give a word of caution. The most significant factor in the influence that trains church leaders today is what we call Christian Colleges. We have about a half dozen of them throughout these states. I was amazed in the extensive travels of the last three years to meet so many students from my Bible classes in Abilene Christian College years ago. I am tempted to estimate that 90% of the leading influence in the churches of Christ throughout these United States has been thus trained. It is- equally true of the missionaries at home and abroad. Does not that say something? To me, it says that the colleges are making large contributions to the spread of truth everywhere; it also says that colleges must continue to watch their teaching and training work. I’ve never been afraid that the schools would try to dictate to the congregations; 1‘m not afraid of that now. I think they know better than to try to do that. These elders that I have talked about are men that are not going to take that. Nor, do I believe they want to do that; our colleges have men that are devoutly anxious to make the right contributions there. But a word of caution is still in place, for others will be carrying on when we are dead. We must see local church work and mission work fifty years from now and give our present training a direction which will promise security then. With little exception, congregational work goes apace with its local leadership. But those leaders are trained largely in the Bible classes of Christian schools. And the much more serious truth is that those teachers must secure their advanced degrees in schools whose teaching is either sectarian or atheistic, often both. I am not casting stones: I was also trained in such schools. I am not speaking against any person. I am only trying to give a message that will stand in the Judgment. The men and the women who sit before other teachers to be taught for their doctor’s degrees—the men and the women who come back to teach Bible classes in schools like this one—they are the custodians of souls in the world to come. There is no greater responsibility than that. We have the sacred responsibility of a trust from God, to see to it that we stand true to that old Book. Brethren, it is a serious trust. I have no words with which to describe the joy that leaps in my heart when I hear men like Brother Thomas, stand-ing here Sunday night, LeMoine Lewis, who stood here yesterday morning, and Frank Pack, going to stand here tonight; Homer Hailey and Paul Southern, who are leading- influences in the Bible faculty of this school—not to say anything of these men with grey hairs and more years that are soon to pass on and look back. I have no words with which to describe the joy, after they return from this advanced training when I hear them speak out of an untarnished faith, an unadulterated life—a life that still believes in God, and still believes in the Bible, and still believes in Christ, in the old fashioned way. My brethren, God never wrote but one book. That Book and its message are sacred to me. I do not remember ever to have thrown away a Bible. I dislike the mutilation of a single page. God knew how to write it; He knows how to preserve it. I am acquainted with the arguments about “textual criticisms” and “historical introduction.” I do not have the answer to all questions, nor a solution to all problems.

I do not have all the arguments that will satisfy the atheist—I may not have one to satisfy him; but, to me, the Bible is still the book of God. I do not have one single red mark through one single line or one single word in my book. I believe it—I believe it from lid to lid. This I know: every time the spade of an archaeologist has upturned new evidence, it increased the reasons for believing what atheists formerly said was not true. And when God gets ready, he can upturn something that will make living fools out of all the men now who dare to sit in judgment on the inspiration of the word. I intend to die by that faith—I believe every word of it. The importance of these factors becomes more impressive when we face the mission work in foreign lands, not because the truth there is more important there than it is at home, but because circumstances and demands over there so much more frequently remind us of this importance. The heathen are inclined to accept all the Book or none of it. -Sectarian teachings and their deletions of the Scriptures are disgusting to their assumptions of what a perfect guide should be. Churches of Christ, with their simple plea of perfect faith and perfect unity have what Japan and others in foreign lands believe the Christian religion should be. Not only that; we must see the church and mission work in all lands in terms of what the church should be fifty years from today. Since most of those missionaries are being trained in schools like Abilene Christian College, too much emphasis cannot be placed upon the importance of a training that will send them from home with an implicit faith in, the Bible as the revealed word of God. I have every reason to believe that every Bible teacher in this school believes that way. May it ever so be in every school among us that claims to be Christian.

I do not understand the power that made the world, but I belive that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. I do not understand the great power that made a highway through the Red Sea, or through the floods of the Jordan, enabling a million Jews to go home; but I believe the Bible story of their journey. I may never understand the efficacy of a few drops of blood that fell from the side of Jesus to cleanse the sins of all the world; but, Lord, I believe that in his death, a fountain was opened for sin. I do not understand how or why being submerged in the waters of baptism would wash a man’s sins away; but, Lord, I believe “he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” I do not understand how God can remember where the ashes of all men’s bodies lie, or the power that can raise them to life again; but 1 believe that all in the graves shall rise when the trumpet sounds. Yes, Lord, I believe thy word. Brethren, whatever else we learn, whatever scholarship we may gain, our lives must never waver from a simple, trusting faith. The Bible is God’s Book. We need no other; and we must not delete it. The world needs men who believe it and will preach it; men that are too big to be little about it, men that are too large to be envious about it; men who believe it as a message for all the world and will sacrifice to get it to them. And thank God that we see in this respect a dawning light. The church of the Lord is now preaching the world around. I am glad that I live in this age and can be a part, though a very small part, of that great ongoing of God’s truth.