God covers our nakedness

When it comes to communicating the gospel in Japanese to people whose cultural worldview focuses on such themes as shame and saving face, missionaries raised in a very different cultural context often encounter barriers to communication. Thus, the question we face is how to communicate the life-giving message of Jesus Christ in an honor–shame culture.

A cardinal principle of communication is that we can only do our best to put the meanings we intend into words, tone of voice, gestures, and so on, and hope that the other person can decode all of that and understand the meaning we intend. But the person receiving that message can only do that within the framework of his or her own culture and personal experiences. So how does that play out in real-life situations in Japan?

Lost in translation

If I try to communicate the message in terms of “you are a sinner and you need to receive God’s forgiveness,” the typical Japanese person will usually not perceive that as a message relevant to their situation. For one thing, the Japanese language has not developed in a way that clearly communicates such a concept. The word used to translate “sin” is tsumi, but that same word can also be translated as “crime.” There is no clear distinction between the concepts of our “sin before God” and criminal activity. You can, of course, explain the difference, but the concepts themselves are not differentiated in Japanese. Thus subconsciously, a typical Japanese person will react to a sin-and-guilt-oriented message with indifference because, after all, “I’m not a criminal.”

The difference between shame and guilt orientations is not that great when one is talking about actual crimes. But the difference becomes much greater with more so-called subtle sins. In a group-oriented culture, the fear of shame provides for strong social control. Shame is a far more relevant and recognizable feeling for people living in group-oriented cultures.

Suffice it to say that no matter how one categorizes Japanese culture with respect to shame and guilt, when it comes to communicating the gospel using traditional Western concepts—such as all human beings standing guilty before a holy God and therefore needing a Savior to take away their sin so that they can be made acceptable to God—adequate communication is rarely achieved. When there is no concept of a last judgment before an almighty, transcendent, holy God for the sins one has committed, then an evangelistic approach based on that—no matter how biblical it is—will bear little fruit since the cultural soil has not been prepared to receive and nourish that kind of gospel seed.

Sin and the forgiveness of sin are central to the Christian message. But since there is no distinction made between the concepts of sin and crime in Japanese, Christian ministry has had to limp along with an inaccurate translation for sin that doesn’t express its biblical meaning. Thus, for the typical Japanese who has little or no biblical understanding, using this aspect of the gospel as one’s basic evangelistic approach will produce little fruit. I’m not saying that we should not talk about sin but only that it should be discussed in a context where its true biblical meaning can be understood, which isn’t feasible in initial evangelism in the Japanese context.

Old Testament paradigms of shame

In thinking of how this barrier can be overcome, I’ve tried the approach of using the concepts of “shame” and the “covering of shame” to present these same truths. Shame is a very important aspect of Japanese culture, and it is also an important Biblical concept, particularly in the Old Testament. The Hebrew culture of the Old Testament was a very group-oriented culture with many points of similarity with Japanese culture. These all point to a shame orientation rather than a guilt orientation, and thus shame is a far more important concept in the Bible than most Western readers are aware.

A look at a few references will give us an idea of how the Bible deals with the concept of shame. Traditionally, Western theology has emphasized the original sin that taints all of humankind. It is interesting to note, however, that the term “sin” does not even appear in the Genesis narrative until chapter 4 when Cain kills Abel (v. 7). The Fall of Man narrative does not use this word but instead describes humankind’s disobedience in terms of “shame” and “nakedness.” Thus, instead of “original sin,” we might just as well formulate the effects of Adam and Eve’s disobedience in terms of “original shame.” After all, it is rather difficult to think of a newborn infant as “sinful” since, to use the biblical symbolism, they have no “filthy rags” of their own deeds yet. All of us, however, are born into this world totally naked, and that symbolism naturally points to our “original shame.” Hebrews 4:13 points to this when it says, “There is nothing that can be hid from God; everything in all creation is exposed naked and lies open before his eyes. And it is to him that we must all give an account of ourselves” (GNT).

Adam and Eve’s physical nakedness is also symbolic of their spiritual condition before God. Before their disobedience, they were in perfect harmony with their Creator and had nothing to hide. Afterward, however, their feelings of shame led them to try to cover up with the only thing available to them—fig leaves! This is symbolic of all humanity on the spiritual level as we try to cover up our shame before God with our own efforts. It is just like trying to make clothes out of fig leaves. They fall apart at the first move!

How God covers our shame

As the narrative continues, however, it is God who takes the first step to solve this dilemma. He does not banish Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden naked but instead clothes them with “garments of skin” (Gen. 3:21 NIV). This is only the first step in God’s great plan to solve this problem of shame and to restore harmony again to his creation. While not explicitly stated, it is obvious that an animal or two had to be sacrificed to provide a symbolic means of covering Adam and Eve’s shame. From that time on the sacrifice of an animal became a central part of the worship of God.

With the establishment of Levitical law, God instituted through Moses an intricate sacrificial system with various festivals and sacrifices for a variety of situations. The purposes of these sacrifices were multifold as they served as object lessons through which God could communicate truths about himself to the Israelites. And they all, in some sense, pointed back to that original sacrifice in the Garden of Eden when God took the first step to cover humankind’s shame and restore harmony between himself and his creation. They also pointed ahead to the final sacrifice on that hill overlooking another garden when God would complete what was necessary to give us eternal garments to cover our shame—our spiritual nakedness before him.

Isaiah 61:10 uses the symbolism of being covered by the robe of righteousness to describe salvation: “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall exult in my God: for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness” (ESV). On the other side, then, our own righteousness in the presence of God becomes nothing but “filthy rags.” Zechariah 3:3–4 says, “Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments. And the angel said to those who were standing before him, ‘Remove the filthy garments from him.’ And to Joshua he said, ‘Behold, I have taken your sin away from you, and I will clothe you with rich apparel’” (RSV). The filthy garments God removes symbolize sin, and he replaces them with clothes that symbolize righteousness.

Shame is similar, except that, instead of filthy rags, its symbolism is the nakedness beneath those rags. In this sense, it is the more fundamental of the two as it cannot be removed, only covered. As we stand before God, if we say we have no sin and take off our filthy rags according to the symbolism, what is left is the shame of our nakedness. Either way, the only covering that will do the job is the robe of righteousness Christ offers us in faith. Christ counsels us to receive from him “white garments to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen” (Rev. 3:18 RSV). Those garments are Christ’s “robe of righteousness,” which we receive by faith.

Creating cultural resonance

This only scratches the surface of the treasure trove of biblical resources we have available for reformulating the message of salvation through Christ in terms that can resonate with people in an honor–shame culture, if we only search it out with culturally sensitive eyes. Happy treasure hunting!