Memories of Dr. Hinohara

Doctor Shigeaki Hinohara, one of Japan’s most famous doctors, passed away on July 18, 2017 at the age of 105. Chairman emeritus of St. Luke’s International University and honorary president of St. Luke’s International Hospital, he had continued to see patients until just months before his death.
Dr. Hinohara dedicated his life to preventive medicine and terminal care. But he also encountered some dramatic situations in his lifetime. When doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo released deadly sarin gas on the Tokyo subway in 1995, he worked to save more than 600 lives.

Hijacking

He was also caught up in the Yodogō hijacking of 1970, in which radical communists seized control of Japan Airlines Flight 315. Soon after his flight departed Haneda for Fukuoka, where he was to attend a medical conference, nine members of the Japanese Red Army Faction, armed with samurai swords and pipe bombs, announced that they were hijacking the plane to defect to North Korea. They repeatedly threatened to blow up the plane in the four days before hostages were finally released.

During the hijacking Hinohara tried to keep calm by reading. From a collection of books offered by the hijackers, he chose Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. On the title page he found John 12:24—”Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” (NIV). He wondered if the young Red Army members would understand the deep meaning of this passage if they read it after they landed in North Korea. The words of Dostoyevsky’s Father Zossima stuck with Hinohara—“Jesus Christ is always with you.”

Once a plan had been established—Japan’s vice-minister of transport, Shinjirō Yamamura, would board the plane in Seoul in exchange for the release of passengers and most crew members—the hijackers and the passengers had more opportunities to talk to each other. The young Red Army members, one of whom was just 17 years old, insisted that they would be part of an international revolution and bring down the bourgeois Japanese government. “People in Japan must listen to its young people and take them seriously in order to avoid this kind of situation,” Hinohara said. “In a way we felt hurt, much like their parents must have felt at being betrayed by their own children. [Ed. note: many young people in Japan around that time were attracted to communist ideology. Their parents were those who worked hard to rebuild postwar Japan.] Something more must be done for future generations in Japan.” Hinohara often recounted this as a life-changing experience, saying that he felt privileged to survive. “That’s when my real life, living just for God, began.”

A life recognized

Prior to his death, Dr. Hinohara had been scheduled to be a main speaker for Love Sonata Tokyo Leadership Forum, a Korean mission event for Japan held on July 26. A video recording of his 2016 interview with music producer Tōtarō Wajima (VOICE FACTORY LTD.) was shown instead. According to Wajima, “Dr. Hinohara would say that relationships between individual people are more important than relationships at the national level. That is why we need to relate to each other in love.”

In 2005 Dr. Hinohara received the Order of Culture (Bunka-kunshō), Japan’s top award for contributions to culture. He was also recognized with a Japan Gospel Service Award (Fukuinkōrō-shō) from the Japan Gospel Promotion Committee in 2011.