Unyielding faith and ministry in the midst of severe persecution

In the 1930s, when Japan was about to plunge into war against China, one Christian group in Gifu Prefecture, the Mino Mission, persisted in refusing to practice shrine worship and suffered persecution for this act of faith. In commemoration of the mission’s 100th anniversary, the group hosted special meetings on November 3–4 at Ogaki Bible Church, the place where it started. Tasuku Asō, an assistant professor at Ritsumeikan University specializing in the geography of exclusion,¹ gave three lectures. They were titled: “Preparing for the future by learning from the past,” “The relationship between society and Christians,” and “The relationship between the nation and believers.” Participants, who gathered from neighboring churches, learned lessons from the past.

The Mino Mission was founded by an American female missionary, Sadie Lea Weidner, in 1918. Having resigned from her position as principal of Miyagi Girls’ School in Sendai, she chose to work in the city of Ogaki in the Mino region—“the most difficult place for mission work in Japan.” With a firm biblical faith and a passion for people’s salvation, she had great compassion for the socially vulnerable and for minorities. She protected single-mother families and women who worked in the cotton mill and also started a Korean church with a Korean pastor.

One incident triggered the harsh persecution and rejection of the group in the 1930s. One of the Christian schoolchildren refused to join the shrine worship at school events, which led the local authorities, the community, and even Christian churches to denounce the Mino Mission for years.

What is so noteworthy about the Mino Mission in Japanese church history is its uncompromising, crystal-clear faith in the God of the Bible. The group clearly defined and rejected the political system and its ideology as idolatry (the Meiji government had established a Constitution of the Empire of Japan, in which the Emperor was clearly stated to be the head of the Empire and State Shinto was superior to all other religions).

During the Sunday service on the second day of the 100th anniversary event, Isaac Ishiguro (the fourth chief director), preached from Psalm 103 on “Those who have received God’s grace.” He exhorted the congregation to praise the Lord in response to God’s unmerited love and as an expression of their testimony and outreach.

From Christian Shimbun, November 25, 2018
Translated by Nobue Tachiki

1. “‘Geographies of exclusion’ refers to the ways through which some social groups are signaled as being unwelcome in urban and rural spaces.” https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118786352.wbieg1052