Lessons from Japan’s early Christians

Last year, I joined a tour of the filming location for Silence, a movie based on Catholic writer Shūsaku Endō’s historical novel about Jesuit missionaries facing intense persecution in 17th-century Japan. A Protestant curator of the Twenty-Six Martyrs Museum in Nagasaki showed us crosses that had been carefully kept hidden for generations and statues of the Virgin and Child in the guise of Kannon (a Buddhist deity). She said, “I sometimes ask myself, if Protestantism had been introduced in that period of persecution, would it have been passed down in the same way that Catholicism has?” Those words have been ringing in my ears ever since.

In 2016, UNESCO rejected a bid to World Heritage-list churches and related sites in Nagasaki and Kumamoto, but a more recent nomination was successful, reframed as “Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region,” with a focus not on architectural beauty, but rather on the communities of early Japanese Christians who endured severe persecution for almost 250 years.

The World Heritage listing covers 12 sites: from the remains of Hara Castle, where local Catholics clashed with the Tokugawa Shogunate during the Shimabara Rebellion; to Ōura Cathedral, where hidden Christians were miraculously discovered. Until the local government started maintaining sites related to hidden Christians due to their World Heritage listing, most of them had been neglected and forgotten, not even appearing on local tourist maps. I see their new level of recognition as an indication that the Christian faith has finally been accepted in Japanese society. I rejoice that God’s time has come at last, and that Japan’s history of Christian suffering and faith can be utilized for preaching the gospel.

The recognized sites are so spread out around Nagasaki and Kumamoto that it would be difficult to visit all of them in one trip. Here are some reflections based on my own experience of visiting a number of them over my 14 years living in Nagasaki.

From the perspective of a Protestant, it’s a great opportunity to humbly learn from history. There were undoubtedly human-rights violations and discrimination issues during Japan’s period of national isolation (sakoku) and the ban on Christianity. Yet we can’t deny that persecution was partly caused by the way missions were conducted back then—the policy of church-state unity, intolerance of other religions, and discord and infighting within missionary groups. These are not issues confined to the past, and we should seek God’s guidance as we consider our approach to local mission today.

I also recommend visiting churches that aren’t included in the World Heritage listing—those that were built from the Meiji Era onward with joy at the return of Christianity from hiding. For example, Tabira Cathedral is not just a beautiful building—constructed with bricks baked one-by-one by its poverty-stricken members and with its stained-glass windows—it is also a powerful witness to those who held onto their faith through a time of silence. Since the Reformation, the Protestant church has shifted its focus away from the appearance of buildings and sought simplicity, but I cannot help thinking that Catholic churches like this one provide a stepping stone for the unreached to encounter God’s love in a visible way.

In 2002, during my ministry at Nagasaki Baptist Church, we organized a 100th anniversary concert to reach youth through gospel music, and gathered a choir of 100 people. The first applicant was a woman working at City Hall in Shimabara—home to the ruins of Hara Castle, which were long shunned by locals as a cursed place and had not even been excavated when I visited around 2000. This lady became a Christian following the concert, and later even ended up directing our church choir. When UNESCO’s World Heritage announcement was broadcast live from Bahrain in July, she performed a hymn she had written and publicly professed her faith. She said, “I was asked if I am a Christian, and I said ‘yes.’ I was given an opportunity that day to stop being a hidden Christian and proclaim my faith.”

I hope that the World Heritage listing of Christian sites in the Nagasaki region will go beyond just recognizing the faith of Japan’s early Christians as a thing of the past. May we learn from history, and humbly and boldly proclaim the gospel of Christ’s love to the world.

From Christian Shimbun, August 26, 2018
Written by Yasushi Tomonō, Senior Pastor of Tokiwadai Baptist Church
Translated by Nobue Tachiki