Contextualizing the gospel in Japanese culture

“Japanese churches have largely failed to become Japanese in order to win the Japanese.” What do you think of this Japanese leader’s assertion?

Japanese culture remains one of the greatest challenges in missions. Faithfully communicating the gospel to the minds and hearts of Japanese people demands holistic and rigorous commitment by Christians to share the gospel with relevance in the Japanese context. Being faithful to Scripture while respecting Japanese culture requires profound discernment.

I have written in the past that one of the main reasons Japan is unreached with the gospel is the lack of a contextualized indigenous faith.

As I read, talk to, and email workers in Japan, I realize afresh the need for further clarity regarding contextualization. This article will highlight several essential principles of contextualizing the gospel in Japanese culture and some cautions related to the theory and practice.

What is contextualization?

The goal of contextualization is a vibrant community of disciples of Jesus rooted in the indigenous soil of a people. It is much more than solely using the Japanese language and expressions, adjustment and relevance to the Japanese culture, and good cross-cultural communication. Moreau helpfully defines contextualization as “the process whereby Christians adapt the forms, content and praxis of the Christian faith so as to communicate it to the minds and hearts of [Japanese] . . . The goal is to make the Christian faith as a whole—not only the message but also the means of living out of our faith in the local setting—understandable” (36).

Tim Keller writes that “contextualization is not . . . ‘giving people what they want to hear.’ Rather, it is giving people the Bible’s answers, which they may not at all want to hear, to questions about life that people in their particular time and place are asking, in language and forms they can comprehend, and through appeals in arguments with force they can feel, even if they reject them” (89).

Essential principles

We must be concerned for both the Scriptures and the context we work in.

Fundamental commitment to Scripture

Our ultimate commitment is to the Scriptures as the only truth and authority for faith and practice. Contextualization demands seeing the cultural context with theological lenses. Christian responses to culture may require the review and possible re-emphasis of several teachings of Scripture, while other responses will require theological development specifically for the Japanese context.

Each of us comes to the Bible from our own cultural perspective, and we gravitate to our preferred sections or cultural biases. We must engage the culture of Japan by viewing the Scriptures with fresh eyes. This freshness will, with the help of the Holy Spirit, enable us to discover new perspectives that include new application. As people desirous of indigenous Japanese churches, we must allow the universal absolute truths of Scripture to challenge us as Christ’s disciples and servants.

Respectful commitment to context

Andrew Prince encourages evangelicals to use an “approach [that] takes culture seriously but puts Scripture rather than context as contextualization’s starting point” (15). Though it’s in a secondary role to Scripture, cultural context should not be ignored.

As we are called by God to love and serve the Japanese people, we must be sympathetic and respectful towards their entire culture, including their practices, values, beliefs, and worldview. We need to present a Christ who is not foreign. Our communication should be clear to their hearts and minds. We should be flexible, as winsome as possible under gospel authority, and connect to the inner hopes and dreams of the Japanese.

Culture is manmade and by nature affected by the fall of man, so every culture has elements that are opposed to God and the Christian worldview. But, due to general revelation and the image of God in man, every culture also has some elements that more easily harmonize with Christian truth. The difficulty in contextualizing is not just adjusting and adapting to the culture but also discerning what elements are helpful and harmful for that process. Contextualization is a skill that involves much discernment, balance, and focus.

How is contextualization practiced?

What do we do when we hear of Japanese Christians worshiping idols in their home or young believers practicing Japanese divination? To appropriately respond, we need biblical discernment. Many have found Paul Hiebert’s widely referenced model of contextualization valuable. These are the implications for our practice of contextualization:

• We do not reject Japanese culture and its practices as completely evil (non-contextualization).
• We also do not accept Japanese culture and its practices as completely good (uncritical contextualization).
• We consider both the evil and good in Japanese culture. We must carefully discern through critical contextualization. This process is: 1) cultural understanding, 2) biblical understanding, 3) critical evaluation, and 4) contextualized practice.

Doing this will help us avoid an alien gospel and compromising our faith through syncretism.

Pitfalls to Avoid

In my experience of working with Japanese people, practicing contextualization means avoiding several pitfalls.

Ignoring your own cultural glasses

Recently I had an email discussion with another Western missionary about the problem of Japanese resistance to the gospel and the lack of contextualizing Christianity for the Japanese.

I wrote, “You and I are Westerners and have Western perspective . . . we are not trying to contextualize our Western Culture with Japanese Culture. We are trying to contextualize the Biblical Worldview and Beliefs with the Japanese Culture.”

We must understand that there are problems in both Western culture and Japanese culture when compared to the biblical worldview culture. We must first unpack our own Western culture and the history of Christendom to understand the biblical culture more clearly. We must remove our Western cultural glasses and see in a different way.

For example, we have not thoroughly thought about the influence of the Western church on Japanese church patterns and traditions including worship services and church architecture.

Our responsibility is to be profoundly discerning and wise. The subtle problem of not understanding the snare of our own culture can keep us from faithfully contextualizing our faith for the Japanese. We want Japanese living out the Christian faith in forms and practices that are truly Japanese and totally biblical.

Striving for relevance but becoming unbiblical

To appeal to the Japanese, some Christians advocate adopting beliefs and practices from Japanese traditional religion (Shinto, Buddhism, Taoism). They suggest adopting or embracing rituals and practices in Japan without considering the underlying worldview and beliefs. These suggestions vary from encouraging Christians to attend religious festivals (matsuri) to advocating the adoption of recently discovered obscure Shinto names for the Christian God. Simply adopting practices or rituals without considering the hidden belief or worldview supporting it presents possible danger.

Many years ago, I was invited to perform a groundbreaking ceremony for a church attendee’s new house. This Christian ceremony replaces the traditional Shinto ceremony. However, instead of a Shinto approach of appeasing local gods, the ceremony emphasizes the biblical creator God’s control and ownership of the property and his intimate care for both those who will build the house and ultimately live there. This was an immensely powerful reminder of how our faith speaks clearly to the needs and practices of Japanese.

We want to be relevant to the Japanese, but there is a danger at the same time of wandering from biblical moorings.

Seeking “the cultural key” with the wrong revelation

Some believe Japanese culture holds the key to ministry, and on the surface, this sounds reasonable. I often hear someone advocate for finding cultural clues or redemptive analogies in the Japanese culture. Like Paul, I also believe we should use all possible means to save the lost (1 Cor. 9:22). Along with exegeting the Scriptures, I am a great advocate of exegeting Japanese culture. However, we must keep in mind the vulnerabilities of any culture.

First, every culture is fallen. The Lausanne Covenant asserts that because “men and women are God’s creatures, some of their culture is rich in beauty and goodness. Because they are fallen, all of it is tainted with sin and some of it is demonic.” This sin of man refusing to worship God is both individual and corporate in its nature.

Second, God’s revelation in any culture is limited. Romans teaches that God has revealed himself in nature, sometimes identified as “common grace” or general revelation. We can make two mistakes from general revelation: expecting too little from it or expecting too much. The extent of God’s general revelation in creation and human conscience has limitations and qualifications. Though we believe that God uses general revelation, we must not lose sight of the fact that the clear message of the gospel is most clearly and ultimately found in special revelation (Rom. 10:14).

As we said above, our ultimate commitment is to the Scriptures. Seeking the “ministry key” in the Japanese culture instead of first seeking the key in the Bible can leave us vulnerable.

Pursuing answers in isolation

Contextualization involves everything from theology to everyday practices, but typical Western theological training (often common in Japan) is not designed to address every cultural issue discerned in Japanese religious and cultural beliefs. In my pastoring, when Japanese people had to contend with religious practices like Japanese funerals, I was never totally aware of the biblical or cultural issues. I always referred these people to a Japanese pastor friend, as he was studious and an expert on Japanese religion.

Missionaries have a limited role in this process of contextualization—the key is Japanese people who are exploring the answers in community with others. We all have blind spots, contend with problems like syncretism and theological error, and need to be cautious of excesses. One Japanese person I admire for his work in contextualization, both conceptually and practically, is Dr. Mitsuo Fukuda. I wish we had dozens of leaders just like him. We need a large community, with many Japanese believers and other Asian believers, to continually work on these issues and encourage cultural awareness and engagement.

If we walk alone on this journey of contextualization, we walk into hazards. We need a larger audience of participants that includes scholars and academics in cultural anthropology, sociology of religion, and missiology. And we also need practitioners in Japan, including workers, leaders, and pastors, especially those evangelicals who share the authority of Scripture. We need all of them in dialogue on these issues.

Moving ahead in contextualization

We really cannot avoid contextualization: we either do it well or we do it poorly. If we are committed ultimately to the Scripture and to respect the Japanese culture—understanding its beauty as well as its fallenness—then we need to find balance, avoid blind spots, and not pursue reckless approaches. This difficult process taxes all our abilities, but we should not explore contextualization on our own.

We need to intensify our learning posture. Let’s not stop listening, observing, or being curious about Japanese culture. Let’s ask questions and talk with others, especially Japanese, about cultural issues. Let’s strive not to solve the issues at first but to understand them well. As my college professor said, “Read, read, and re-read.” The list of references on this page is a great starting point for additional study as you continue to learn Scriptures and the culture, which will lead to a more indigenized Japanese faith.

Recommended references on contextualization

• Flemming, Dean. Contextualizing in the New Testament: Patterns for Theology and Mission. 2005.
• Fukuda, Mitsuo. Developing a Contextualized Church: As a Bridge to Christianity in Japan. 1993.
• Hiebert, Paul G. “Critical Contextualization.” Missiology: An International Review. 1984.
• Keller, Timothy J. Center Church. 2012.
• Moreau, A. Scott. Contextualization in World Missions: Mapping and Assessing Evangelical Models. 2012.
• Prince, Andrew J. Contextualization of the Gospel: Towards an Evangelical Approach in the Light of Scripture and the Church Fathers. 2017.
• Van Reheenen, Gailyn ed. Contextualization and Syncretism: Navigating Culture Currents. 2006.

Photo by Karen Ellrick