“MADE IN OCCUPIED JAPAN”
“MADE IN OCCUPIED JAPAN”
“MADE IN OCCUPIED JAPAN”
Logan J. Fox In recent years I am sure that many of you have bought something at the store and found stamped on ‘it the words, “Made in occupied Japan.” Those words stamped on merchandise in the stores of our country have a story to tell. It is a story of tremendous significance to all of Asia and to the whole world, but especially important to two countries—• Japan and the United States. The story of Japan and the United States is an old story, and for the most part it is a story of friendship. It took the U. S. Navy under Admiral Perry to first open Japan for contacts with America in 1853, but the two nations soon became fast friends. You will remember that Japan was one of the major allies of the United States in the first World War. In the light of this traditional friendship it 'is all the more tragic that beginning in 1941 these two countries were for four years locked in the bloodiest and costliest war of history. Propaganda on both sides of the Pacific was effective in whipping up the hatred without which wars cannot be fought, and on the scattered islands of the peaceful Pacific men were slaughtered while on the homeland the character of the enemy was equally slaughtered. I well remem-, her during those dreadful years how often I was told by American Christian friends when they heard of my intention to go back to Japan to preach the gospel after the war, “Why the Japanese don’t have a soul. They aren’t human. You can’t convert them.” And the average man in Japan was saying even worse things about people in America. Then the atom bombs, the surrender, and the occupation. The Japanese and the Americans again, in an almost miraculous way, became fast friends, and the general of the conquering enemy armies for all practical purposes came to replace the emperor-god of the Japanese people.
There is no doubt about the historical importance of the American occupation of Japan. Yet as Christians we must view things in a different perspective. We cannot but view the war as unnecessary, tragic, and wrong. It solved no important problem and created many more complex than those with which we were faced before the war. As Christians we cannot, of course, glory in victory, nor can we think of the military occupation of a nation as anything but an unpleasant but necessary sequel to war. Yet it would be a dreadful mistake to think that God has no way of working in this world of tragedy and sin. Even as of old, God is able to make the imperfect, selfish works of man serve his purposes. We must never think the spread of the gospel depends in any way on the sword. The kingdom of the Lord did not need the sword in the Garden of Gethsemene, and it does not need it today. And yet it is equally true that opportunities for the spread of the gospel may come as a byproduct of many human tragedies, including war. Many a man has been willing for the first time to listen to the gospel after he has been imprisoned for theft or murder. But surely no one would advocate crime and imprisonment as a means of spreading the gospel. So with our situation in Japan. We have used the tragedy of war and its aftermath for the sake of the Kingdom. People whom pride prevented being reached before were reached with the gospel. People who were satisfied with false gods when we tried to reach them before, have now been reached because the war shattered their false gods. Thousands have heard the gospel for the first time because the power of a police state was broken and gospel preachers for the first time were free to preach unmolested. So it might be said that one of the greatest opportunities for gospel preaching in history was “made in occupied Japan.” In other ways and at other times the story of the progress of the gospel in post-war Japan has been itold. I am sure that you are well acquainted with the major features of that story. In brief it is this: a nation which had been one of the most unfruitful mission fields in the world, in the space of four short, but awful years, became one of the most fruitful fields ever known. In five years after World War II as many people were baptized and as many congregations were established as in fifty years before the war. And today churches of Christ have sixty congregations in ten Japanese states, twenty American missionaries, fifty Japanese preachers of varying ability, six kindergartens, four Christian schools, one orphan home and one old people’s home, and about five thousand members with about half of them active. The story of the revival of the church program in Japan after the war is a thrilling story that I wish I had the time to tell you. Some day I hope that it will be in print so that you may read it. This much I will say: it is a story of cooperation, and it is a story of careful planning, and prayers; of young hopes and mature interest; a story of how the passion to evangelize a lost nation hungering for the gospel succeeded in spite of fears, mistakes, opposition, and the blundering attempts of men who frankly admitted they weren’t always sure just what they ought to do or how they ought to do it, but who were sure the Lord wanted them to do the best they could in the best way they knew.
Those of us who went to Japan after the war to take* Christ to the Japanese people found a beaten nation' with many, many needs. The people were hungry and cold and confused and afraid. Everything about, them was changing and no one seemed quite sure about what ought to change and what ought not to change. And from every side voices cried to the people: here is the way, this is your hope. As Christian workers two needs impressed us most deeply: the need of the people for the gospel, and the need of the church for' Bible training.
We did not take lightly the need for food or clothing and we did what we could for hungry and cold people with whom we came in contact. Hundreds of boxes of clothing were shipped over by you good people here in the States and they were distributed in the name of Christ to those who needed them the most. This kind of work was not directly linked with our preaching efforts. In other words, we did not offer a man a meal or a coat if he would listen to a sermon. We believed that if a man was hungry he should be fed, and if he was cold he should be clothed. Of course it was always our prayer that he might be led to obey Christ, but we felt that deeds of charity need no justification other than the real need of the recipient.
It was the need of the people for the gospel that moved us most. Our reason for going to Japan was of course the belief that without Christ the Japanese people were lost and that their only hope was in the gospel. After being in Japan a while this conviction was made only firmer. No words so aptly describe the condition of the people we say as the words, “sheep without a shepherd.” Their nation had fallen, their god had abdicated, their economy had collapsed, and their culture was outdated. Teachers who had ruled by authority found themselves uncertain and confused and had no idea which way to lead the students, who rapidly got out of hand. Parents who in the past were obeyed as gods found their authority gone and many of them took orders from the youngsters who came home and told their parents all about the modern, new, and acceptable way of life as they saw it portrayed in the Hollywood-made movies to which they flocked. The government knew that it was supposed to be democratic, but it didn’t know what democracy was, and so while it halted and-stumbled the communists almost took over the country. And Buddhism and Shintoism, the heathen religions to which all people were supposed to adhere were discredited leaving the people with no moral or spiritual guides of any kind.
How could we but preach the gospel to such people. Feeling as Paul did, “Woe is me if I preach not the gospel”, we preached in season, out of season, night and day, publicly and from house to house. We preached in the cities, in the towns, in the mountains, and by the sea, and sometimes standing in the rain. We drove over roads that some American mules might even refuse to attempt, we rode bicycles, we rode what they called buses but might more aptly be called bone-crushers, we rode unheated trains in cold winters, and we worshipped in screenless buildings in mosquito-ruled summers. We preached five minute sermons, thirty-minute sermons, one hour sermons, three hour sermons, six hour sermons, and one eleven hour sermon is on the record. We preached to the high, to the low, and to the average. And always we preached Jesus Christ and him crucified. We preached nothing but the gospel—the gospel you can find in the New Testament, the faith once for all delivered to the saints. We haven’t needed any modern theories or ancient traditions, and we haven’t upheld any ism or hobby. Just the gospel, the story of Jesus Christ and the response God wants all people to make to it. And let me tell you, there is no thrill in all the world that can equal the thrill of preaching to people who have never heard the gospel before, not even in a perverted form, and of seeing such people believe the gospel and obey it. It is always a miracle to me. After all, we haven’t the time if we had the ability to prove the things we say about Christ. We just tell the story, proclaim the gospel. And people find themselves believing and obeying it! They find they can’t shake it off. The gospel is true and the truth 'in it convinces people. I have found the gospel self-vindicating. It doesn’t take eloquence, I know, because the language I first used was surely pitiful, but even though as I began to speak I saw a few smiles as I put together a brand new version of the Japanese language, soon the people would be caught by the message back of the strangely put together words, and finally heads would nod assent, eyes would blink back tears, and hearts would surrender to Chiist. I tell you again, there is no thrill like it. And there are still uncounted millions throughout the world who have never heard the story of Jesus, who have yet to hear the sweetest story ever told. Wouldn’t you like to go somewhere and tell the grand old story for the first time to somebody?
Besides the need for gospel preaching, we found in Japan an urgent need for Bible training. The Christians who were baptized before the war were never adequately trained because the war interrupted plans for teaching them. The few churches that managed to survive the persecution of the war years were badly in need of revival. And all the lmw converts being baptized at the rate of nearly a thousand a year were desperately in need of teachers to teach them and leaders to lead them in the activity of the church. But with a few exceptions, the church in Japan was without preachers, teachers, and leaders. There could be no question about the need for a thorough program of Bible training. The question of how to meet the need was not so simple, but as people will do, we fell back on our own experience. Practically every American missionary in Japan had been trained for Christian service in what are commonly called Christian colleges. Harding, Lipscomb, Pepperdine, Abilene, Freed-Hardeman, and Florida Christian have sent graduates to Japan. Among other methods of Christian training and leadership development we are using in Japan a method which has worked so well in America. We have set up a Christian college called Ibaraki Christian College and we are making every effort to prepare Japanese young people for lives of Christian service.
Today in Ibaraki Christian College we have around three hundred students with about fifty of them preparing to be preachers. Thirty percent of those who enroll in the school are Christians and when they graduate, seventy percent are Christians. Every student studies the Bible for an hour a day, besides attending a daily worship service. Christians arc teachers, Christians are associates, Christians arc counselors. We have a standard high school, standard junior college, and a special two year course in the Bible for church leaders.
It costs us seven dollars a month per pupil to give a Christian education at I. C. C. We charge two dollars a month tuition, and we go in the hole five. Ours is one of those businesses where the more customers we have the worse we go in the hole. We have been enabled to keep operating so far because some Christian people have believed that the work we were doing was a good work and that Christians ought to support it. We can continue to offer this training to Japanese young people if three hundred people in the United States will say, “Let me make up the difference for one of those students. I’ll add five dollars to his two, and see to it that one young Japanese gets the training he ought to have.” I am hoping some of you here will button-hole me and tell me that you will sponsor one of our students at five dollars a month during 1953. We have fifty who have already promised, so we need just two hundred and fifty more sponsors.
It should be obvious, I think, that we do not consider Ibaraki Christian College to be a secular endeavor. We are not in Japan to educate the Japanese people, nor are we there to run a business. We are in Japan to serve the Lord, and don’t think that we would continue our Bible training and leadership development program another day if we did not believe it to be for the good of the Lord’s kingdom. At the same time, no one is more aware than we who are engaged in this work that no human undertaking is perfect. We know there are problems, both theoretical and practical. We believe that we have profited from the honest discussion of the issues involved. We do not absolutize any method we are now employing and we are striving to remain open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit through his Word.
We do know this, however: there can be no Christian school without the support of Christian people, and the work of teaching the Bible and training leaders for the church is not somebody’s private business. In Japan, then, we have found two great needs, the need for gospel preaching and the need for Bible teaching, and we have tried as God has given us strength and wisdom to meet these needs in the way most pleasing to him who will judge all of us on that day. Pray for this work, and pray that God will teach you what he wants you to do about it.