Christ in Japan

The Lamb of God, an ancient symbol dear to most Christians, is an offensive notion to the Japanese. To them the lamb is "a dirty, stupid and cringing animal." The word lamb is "an epithet of contempt and derision . . . perhaps the vilest word in the language." Thus, in Christianity and Crisis last week, wrote George S. Noss, Japan-born son of U.S. missionaries, himself a missionary in rural Japan for eleven years, now a teacher of Japanese at Columbia University. His thesis: the reason Christian missionaries to Japan have converted only one-half of 1% of the population is largely that they have presented Christianity in terms incomprehensible or repellent to the Japanese.

For the lamb, ex-Missionary Noss would substitute the mirror popular in Shinto temples. Says he: "For the Japanese, Jesus the Mirror of God would be a tremendous symbol." He would also adopt the cherry blossom as a Christian symbol.

To Japanese, cherry blossoms are the "symbols of the supreme beauty of sacrifice." The Japanese, he declares, never feel at home in "the ugly and incongruous West ern chapel," or "even in a fine Gothic church." He recommends that future Christian churches in Japan be built in "the shrine form of architecture, with its clean lines and austere beauty." He would even have the churches include the Buddhist torn (ceremonial gateway). The churches should not stand on streets, but be "hidden in groves of trees with torn and mossy stone steps, fountains of water, and old flowering shrubs." He also 'recommends drastic changes inside the buildings. Noss says the Japanese are repelled by a minister who "wears a frock-coat sort of dress, and often walks about the church chancel in his stocking feet." He would have ministers borrow "the clean and flowing blue-and-white robes of the Shinto priests." Bible translations are in language that the average Japanese does not understand.

They should be revised in modern idiom.

Hymns also need revision. Japanese are horrified by such expressions as "washed in the blood of Jesus." The Japanese like nature hymns.

Noss would also discard the Western collection plate, substitute a wooden box at the door. Says he: "The Japanese do not have our matter-of-fact attitude to ward money. For example, to give a tip to a hotel maid by handing her the cold and bare coins is to show one's lack of breeding; one will wrap the money in clean white paper, and if possible put this little parcel on a tray. Perhaps the Christian people are used to it now, but lifting the offering to the sound of clinking and jingling coins is often quite shocking to the casual visitor."

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