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Japanese culture and Christianity

praying handsPray

  • Pray that Japanese Christians would see God’s redemptive analogies in their culture and use them to point people to Christ.
  • Pray that Japanese believers would have wisdom to make God-honoring decisions in their daily lives.
  • Pray that God would raise up more Japanese Christian artists to impact the culture in creative ways for his glory.
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God is not new to Japan. He was in Japan before the first missionary set foot here. So how can we see the God of the Bible clearly as he exists in this culture with all of its unique beauty? How can we see, hear, taste, smell, and touch God in a truly Japanese context?

Roger W. Lowther, The Broken Leaf (xii-xiii)

Broken pottery pieces in Japan, instead of being thrown away, can be put back together with gold resin. This is an art called kintsugi. Experts tell us that there are eleven different ways an item of pottery can break. A kintsugi artisan is able to distinguish between them and knows how to bring beauty out of each one.

A Christian Japanese artist once described God as the master kintsugi artist. God searches for the brokenness in our lives and has the power to bring beauty out of it. There are many redemptive analogies in Japanese culture that point to God and can be used to help explain the gospel.1

However, for many Japanese believers, culture often feels like something that pulls them away from God rather than pointing to him, or is just confusing to think about. Shrines and temples feature in festivals and holidays, significant life events, and school field trips. On Sundays children and adults have to choose between church and mandatory sports practices or company outings. Some Christians face conflict within their families regarding religious traditions and expectations, such as ancestor veneration. Godly discernment is needed on a daily basis.

Click photos to enlarge and view captions.

<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Preparing the hot water for a tea ceremony. "For the aroma and flavor of tea to come out, the leaf must be 'broken'... The broken tea leaves that bring healing point to Jesus, who must be broken for the world to be filled with the aroma and flavor of the gospel" (Lowther 2019, 3, 5).</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Two broken halves of a bowl.</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Repairing a broken ceramic dish using the </span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">kintsugi </em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">technique.</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Broken ceramics repaired with </span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">kintsugi</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">. "</span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Kintsugi </em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">displays the gospel, where the glory of God can be revealed in fragile and broken vessels. The glory of our lives and bodies, our value and our beauty, come from Christ displayed in our weakness--</span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">in our cracks</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">" (Lowther 2019, 8).</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The bon odori, a dance that traditionally welcomes the spirits of ancestors back home during a Buddhist holiday called Obon. This dance holds spiritual meaning for some; for others, it is mainly a community festivity. Thoughtful reflection is needed to engage with cultural aspects that carry religious nuances. In many cases, there can be a range of faithful responses, without one right answer or stance.</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Cherry blossoms (</span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">sakura</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">) in full bloom. The yearly </span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">sakura</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> season, which only lasts about two weeks, is a metaphor for the Eastern philosophical idea that life is transient, beautiful in its fleeting nature, and cyclic. In the West, faith has often been understood and explained in the context of Greek philosophy. In Asia, faith often needs to be understood against a backdrop of Eastern philosophies and religions.</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The character for "beauty" in Japanese, called </span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">bi</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">. The word "worship" in Japanese, </span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">sanbi</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">, is made up of the characters for "praise" and "beauty" (Lowther 2019, 39). "We cannot praise the glory of God without being overcome by the beauty of God, without finding the '</span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">bi</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">' in our '</span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">sanbi</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">'" (43).</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">A traditional family grave. Customs related to the family grave are another aspect of Japanese culture that requires prayerful and thoughtful reflection. Again, there can be a range of faithful responses, without one right answer or stance.</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Tears and holes in traditional paper (</span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">shoji</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">)</span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">doors are often patched-up rather than being thrown out. "Rather than plain rectangular pieces, [paper patches] are sometimes cut into the shape of flowers or other pretty objects. In this way, </span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">shoji </em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">repair becomes a deliberate act of making beauty in torn places" (Lowther 2019, 18).</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Preparing the hot water for a tea ceremony. "For the aroma and flavor of tea to come out, the leaf must be 'broken'... The broken tea leaves that bring healing point to Jesus, who must be broken for the world to be filled with the aroma and flavor of the gospel" (Lowther 2019, 3, 5).</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Two broken halves of a bowl.</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Repairing a broken ceramic dish using the </span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">kintsugi </em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">technique.</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Broken ceramics repaired with </span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">kintsugi</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">. "</span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Kintsugi </em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">displays the gospel, where the glory of God can be revealed in fragile and broken vessels. The glory of our lives and bodies, our value and our beauty, come from Christ displayed in our weakness--</span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">in our cracks</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">" (Lowther 2019, 8).</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The bon odori, a dance that traditionally welcomes the spirits of ancestors back home during a Buddhist holiday called Obon. This dance holds spiritual meaning for some; for others, it is mainly a community festivity. Thoughtful reflection is needed to engage with cultural aspects that carry religious nuances. In many cases, there can be a range of faithful responses, without one right answer or stance.</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Cherry blossoms (</span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">sakura</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">) in full bloom. The yearly </span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">sakura</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> season, which only lasts about two weeks, is a metaphor for the Eastern philosophical idea that life is transient, beautiful in its fleeting nature, and cyclic. In the West, faith has often been understood and explained in the context of Greek philosophy. In Asia, faith often needs to be understood against a backdrop of Eastern philosophies and religions.</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The character for "beauty" in Japanese, called </span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">bi</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">. The word "worship" in Japanese, </span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">sanbi</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">, is made up of the characters for "praise" and "beauty" (Lowther 2019, 39). "We cannot praise the glory of God without being overcome by the beauty of God, without finding the '</span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">bi</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">' in our '</span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">sanbi</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">'" (43).</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">A traditional family grave. Customs related to the family grave are another aspect of Japanese culture that requires prayerful and thoughtful reflection. Again, there can be a range of faithful responses, without one right answer or stance.</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Tears and holes in traditional paper (</span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">shoji</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">)</span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">doors are often patched-up rather than being thrown out. "Rather than plain rectangular pieces, [paper patches] are sometimes cut into the shape of flowers or other pretty objects. In this way, </span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">shoji </em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">repair becomes a deliberate act of making beauty in torn places" (Lowther 2019, 18).</span>
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Japanese culture and Christianity

praying handsPray

  • Pray that Japanese Christians would see God’s redemptive analogies in their culture and use them to point people to Christ.
  • Pray that Japanese believers would have wisdom to make God-honoring decisions in their daily lives.
  • Pray that God would raise up more Japanese Christian artists to impact the culture in creative ways for his glory.

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