Those numbers add up to 212.63 million, "far greater than the Japanese population," the agency observed. It's a discrepancy with high significance for Seventh-day Adventists, I believe, in regard to the challenge and the promise of Japan.
That position finds support, he says, in the prevailing selectivity in the society with regard to religious observances and practices, as the agency's report also noted. For funerals, for example, people would go to the Buddhist temple. For New Year's observances, harvest festivals, weddings, and other (joyous) ceremonies and celebrations, most people prefer the Shinto shrine (and to a lesser extent, the Christian church).
It's in this syncretistic context that our church must try to function in Japan. And the going is tough. Consider the following quick facts, gleaned from my interview with Kinjo and listed more or less at random to provide a peek at the situation (I will let you interpret the figures yourself):
The birth rate is decreasing in Japan, making student recruitment tough. The children are just not there anymore. As one pastor said to me as we traveled together, some of our schools may have to close.1 Without the financial support of the Japanese government, Kinjo said, our schools could not operate.2
It's not a pretty picture, and I was pleasantly surprised to run into a president willing to put the bare facts on the table, without embellishments.
Signs of Hope
Adventists began work in Japan in1896 when onetime president of Pacific Union College, W. C. Grainger, accompanied by a Japanese student from America, started an English Bible school in the country. It took three years before they saw their first baptism, Kinjo told me. "Japanese people have difficulty making the decision," he said, "in contrast to the situation in South Korea, where 25-30 percent of the population is Christian."
Kinjo is absolutely correct. The going is tough. But I think I see at least three signs of hope:
1. The Beehive Vision
My stopover in Japan had one overriding purpose: to get a sense of the state of our work in the country at the moment. Inquiries ahead of the visit had alerted me to the existence of something called Beehive, a youth outreach program of the JUC.
The program operates out of the Tokyo Central Church (TCC), in the commercial heart of the Japanese capital. Literally surrounded by huge department stores and other business establishments, the complex accommodates two Adventist church entities. A Japanese congregation (with a full attendance the day I was there) meets in the main sanctuary on the ground floor, while an international congregation meets in a hall on a lower floor. After taking the service for this second group the Sabbath I visited, I shook hands with people from Antigua, Australia, Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Mexico (where TCC pastor Hugo Alor hails from), Myanmar (Burma), the Philippines, Puerto Rico (where Pastor Alor's wife, Olga, comes from), Samoa, and the United States.
As I waited (several hours after lunch, as it turned out) for the opportunity to witness Beehive Live, Volume 71,3 I had opportunity to sit down with Pastor Norihiko Hanada, Japan Union youth director and Beehive's director/coordinator.
A beehive is a place with many small rooms, Hanada explained in answer to my curiosity about the significance of the program's name. Bees go out, come in, go out, and come in again. And that's how the group is designed to function--members leaving the safety of the group, going out, and inviting others to come in. Yes, the group has a Web site, but word of mouth, he said, is their most effective outreach approach.
And there is another reason for the name. Just as bees are associated with honey, Hanada said, the name serves as a reminder that the Word of God is "sweeter . . . than honey and the honeycomb" (Ps. 19:10).
The basic idea of the program (launched in October 2001) is change. "The expectation and goal is that those going out to bring others in so they may experience change will be changed themselves." Attendance at Beehive Live usually runs about 60 people each Sabbath afternoon, he said, with about 10 percent of these non-Christians. A time of refreshment and fellowship follows each meeting, with soft drinks, hot beverages, cookies, etc., served. Small group discussions follow; also Bible studies, instrumental practice, and other mission-related activities.
In his pep talk to participants the day I visited, Hanada admonished them (based on Revelation 3:16) to allow their lives to be open to God so they can be open to others and be a blessing. Then there was prayer.
However, 34 minutes into the program itself only about 40-45, all told, were present. Nor did I notice any new face "from the outside" that I'd not seen before. But what deeply impressed me was the intent of the group--the conscious purpose to reach out. Three persons were baptized last year as a result of their efforts (see photo p. 23). One of the three had been a participant with the Beehive group. The second had been invited by a visitor whom a Beehive member had brought to the meeting. The third, after coming into contact with Beehive through the program's Internet café, attended, became interested, and was baptized.
I see potential--and hope--in this outreach venture. But it needs support. The area is tough. One has to be on the ground to see it. Members, when they come to TCC in the morning, stay the day because it's not easy to leave and return. Hardly anyone comes by car--there's nowhere to park. And the subway is not cheap. Then there is distraction, distraction, distraction. And rampant secularism. That's the story of Japan.
Are there Japanese-speaking Adventists who live outside the country reading this article? Might they network and see what kind of help they as a group can bring by spending three weeks of their vacation giving a lift to these brave, committed young adults at the TCC within the next 12 months? And how about the evangelistic teams that go out from North America and other areas to foreign fields? Might they consider Japan--or some other tough area of the world?
Yes, I see potential here. And hope.
2. Community-valued Service
The Adventist Church operates three hospitals and a health food factory within the territory of JUC. It also runs 10 English language schools. But these are not the institutions I have in mind when I refer to community-valued service on the part of the church. Not that they're not providing valuable service, don't misunderstand; but I did not get the sense that they are potential heavyweights for the future--at least, not according to the union president.
The institutions I saw as having potential for a very positive resurgence of our work in Japan--if you can believe it-are our facilities for those who are elderly and those who have disabilities.
With JUC secretary Pastor Katsumi Higashide, I had the opportunity of visiting a senior citizen home as well as an assisted-living facility, both in the Yokohama area. With regard to the nursing home, for example, I found it a well-kept place, clean, tidy, inviting. Yes, there was the usual somewhat depressing element of old age. It was lunch time for the home when we arrived, and many of the residents, unable to help themselves, needed to be fed. What impressed me in this setting was the tender loving care of the nursing attendants (who weren't immediately aware they had visitors).
Perhaps this marks the first time I'm giving any focused attention to such a facility. After all, these are not usually places to write home about. But I sensed something here, whose significance went beyond itself. Here were men and women totally devoted to some of the most helpless members of the society, members of the society who, in a sense, had become children again. And the thought came to me: Is this not what the ministry of Jesus is all about?
That kind of ministry always attracts; and I was not surprised to learn that there's a waiting list of 800 who want to be admitted to the home.
In the afternoon Higashide took me to Yokosuka, site of Shalom Uragamidai, an Adventist home for people with physical and other disabilities. With 53 staff (in shifts, of course), the facility serves 50 residents. Opened in April of 2002, Shalom stands on one of the choicest pieces of real estate in the surrounding area--on high ground, with a spectacular view of Tokyo Bay.
But it's the story of the institution's founding that clinched in my mind the unusual idea I'm suggesting here, an idea that had been building ever since my visit to the nursing home in the morning.
Nineteen years ago the Adventists established a nursing home about three miles from the spot where Shalom stands. Its sterling reputation created so much goodwill in the surrounding communities that local authorities asked the church to build and run a facility for people with disabilities, as well. So with much financial aid from the city of Yokosuka and four other nearby towns and cities, the facility was constructed on the prime land provided. Its operations, as well as the expenses of the residents, are healthily funded and subsidized by the government authorities involved--both local and national. Many of those served are outpatients, but others, whose families are no longer able to take care of them at home, become permanent residents of the facility.
It is this widespread goodwill being created by such exemplary Christian service that I see as another sign of hope in Japan. In other words, any future evangelistic thrust will have something solid on which to build--a reservoir of goodwill among local authorities and in the community at large.
3. The Pioneer Mission Movement
Kinjo told me about something called the Pioneer Mission Movement, a creative initiative by the Northern Asia-Pacific Division (NSD) that can have a long-term positive influence on the Adventist work in Japan. A global mission project of the NSD, it plants churches in previously unentered areas of the division, with an immediate goal of sending 100 pastors to conduct cross-cultural missionary work in countries other than their own.
It's an ambitious undertaking, but as necessary as the need is real. According to a brochure put out by the division, "about 1.5 billion people, nearly one fourth of the world's population, reside in the NSD territory." The brochure continues: "Among this huge population only 3 percent are Christians, and the remaining 97 percent are Buddhists, Shinto believers, Muslims, shamans, and atheists." It's this overwhelming challenge that inspired the creation of the Pioneer Mission Movement.
The first wave of missionaries from South Korea hit the ground in Japan this past April--five pastors and their wives. They'll spend the first year immersed 18 hours a day in the Japanese language and culture. After that each couple will move to some unentered area of Japan and work for one year, with the aim of establishing a church. That process will repeat each year for five years and will involve 25 pastors over the course of the exchange period.4 The goal for each pastoral team, working in tandem with the 1000 Missionary Movement,5 is 10 baptisms a year (a high number when compared with the 2 or 3 baptisms a year averaged by the Japanese pastor).
I see a great deal of hope in this cross-fertilization--for this region and elsewhere. Typically, the people living in a particular place, thoroughly familiar with all the proscriptions and taboos of that particular culture, become stuck, immobilized, paralyzed, by what they know cannot (or should not) be done. And sometimes it takes fresh blood from the outside--people who, unaware of all the cultural taboos, go ahead and simply do it, often with astonishing success.
Japan needs that. And so do a number of areas around the world.
What Holds the Future?
As I noted at the beginning, the Japanese people are very polite; but also very secular. In a devastating observation, the agency report cited at the beginning noted the infrequency of temple attendance in modern Japan. Today "very few young people" go to the temple, it said, and "most people seldom go . . . except for funerals." The temples' most frequent visitors today, it says, are tourists.
From the Christian standpoint that reality could be seen as either a negative or a positive: positive, in the sense that a relinquishing of the old can make room for the new; negative, in the sense that that same spiritual malaise can dog efforts to introduce the new. And perhaps it is this latter that the situation on the ground has demonstrated up to now. "Most Japanese people are interested in church if it makes them feel good," Kinjo said, "but commitment to Christianity, as such, is quite another matter." Only 0.8 percent of the population is Christian, and less than 1.5 percent of that small number is Seventh-day Adventist, he noted.
I look back on my visit to that fascinating country with a heavy dose of reality. But also with hope. Here is a church with some 90 percent of its attending members returning the tithe, a level of giving unheard-of in any other place I know. (And the goal of the union is to increase that percentage to 95 percent!) If nothing else, this says commitment.
The task in Japan is huge. Our believers are few. But I wonder if they're not doing more than meets the human eye. And I wonder if they're not on the cusp of something big and unexpected.
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1 At the moment we have a total of 21 schools: 5 kindergarten, 10 primary, 3 junior high, 1 senior high, 1 junior college, and 1 senior college.
2 Kinjo insists, however, that the church's experience of complete religious freedom is not compromised by its acceptance of such aid. The common view in Japan, he said, is that the church is providing a service to the community and the country and deserves to receive financial support for such service.
3 That means it was Beehive's seventy-first Sabbath of operation.
4 Japanese pastors will make exchange visits to South Korea in the future. Pastor families will also be sent to other parts of the division to and from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, and China.
5 This is an organization that trains and equips young adults for missionary service in unchurched areas of the world.
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Roy Adams is an associate editor of the Adventist Review.
WELL REMEMBER MY ARRIVAL AT TOKYO'S Narita Airport in the early hours of March 12, following a five-hour flight from Bangkok, Thailand. As I prepare to take the airport bus to the Yokohama City Air Terminal (where I'll be picked up for the ride to the Japan Union Conference headquarters), I observe the dispatcher. She steps on board, signs what appears to be a passenger manifest near the door, steps up one more level to the driver's deck, turns to face the passengers, bows to them (as if in appreciation for their patronage), steps back down to the sidewalk, and bows to the driver one more time as we make ready to leave. With that, we're off-dead on 9:40, the scheduled departure time.
The agency's own interpretation of the differential is that it's "partly because the religious corporations surveyed did not report the number of people who ceased to be followers." But when I sat down for an interview with the Japan Union Conference (JUC) president, Pastor Kenyu Kinjo, it was clear that he saw things slightly differently. Without necessarily discounting the agency's explanation, Kinjo suggested that the discrepancy indicates widespread syncretism on the part of the Japanese people.
