So, I have to say beforehand that part of this blog is to present ideas that are still works in progress (maybe all of our ideas are works in progress….). But I want to say this beforehand because when I make some comments about this or that…I’m still sometimes fleshing out ideas and not coming to conclusions. And to avoid backlash, I want to say that now is such a time.
Failure in Japan is not tolerated as much as it is in the states. I know I still need to read up on this more, but there is less tolerance for mistakes and more condemnation for people who slip up on the job. The positive outcome is that orders at McDonald’s are 98.9% accurate. The downside is the pressure to go on without mistakes is so great that many people just give up on life (through various methods). Quality in Japan is so high, and so work in the church also takes on much the same mindset. From talking with various elderly pastors, it seems the rule of quality in society is set against the job of the church (and usually in context, the pastor I’m talking with is speaking down about other leaders and churches that tolerate low quality work). Now, there is truth to these statements (there is always truth in any statement!), but the times and places I’ve heard this makes me worry that the church will often take the rule of society and hold that to be the rule of the church. This I think causes the church to be less the church and more just another form of secular society with religious ideas.
For example, the numbers of church goers is getting smaller (as of 2025) and I am in a meeting with many church leaders. Things aren’t going as planned, numbers aren’t as great as we hope and, even though people are working with no sabbath nor rest…the resounding call is for us to all repent. In other words, the result (small numbers) must be the result of our laziness or lack of work. It is due to human error and can be corrected if people just put in more time and effort. Now, I don’t think anyone there would state things in such a way, but the resounding understanding of success and failure is not so much “faithfulness to God”, which is quite hard to measure, but numbers, results and quality. There is an assumption that if a person is faithful, God will give the numbers. If a person is a true Christian, God is bound to bless.
On the flip side, this means that churches with small numbers, churches that struggle in harsh environments…are ultimately not faithful and the pastors are just doing shoddy work. Failure means both shame before people and in a sense and shame before God. Perhaps a person gets fired from a job and its hard enough, but for a pastor who doesn’t “succeed”, there is no place to go since they are, in a sense, shoddy in their work for people and in their faith towards God. Or at least that is how things can be spun given the prior logic of effort and result. I think this makes the pastoral work of Japan all the more dangerous and even tragic. God is no longer loving, but becomes almost like an unforgiving and unrelenting boss. Sure there was grace given at the outset, but now He becomes the boss with arms folded and head shaking in disapproval…without tangible results, we then become the disappointment of God.
While I admire the passion, and perhaps humility in repentant attitudes…I worry if a person who repents when there is nothing to repent of…if that action is indirectly claiming that all things are up to the responsibility of the person. In a sense, we think that we are in control. Is there any room for God’s plan in this emphasis on works and results? He seems to be absent, or rather, only mechanically pouring out or withholding with result to the quality of our work. So then, are these attitudes humble? Or are we still hanging on to karma and causation found in Buddhism. Because in Japan, if something goes wrong somewhere, you can be sure that it is someone’s fault. Perhaps we have imported this into the church…and this does not help the church but hurts it.
Well, at least that is my hypothesis right now. But I might be coming from a Western perspective where Christianity has been the majority…and I simply haven’t known what it is like to be in the hard pressed situations where the Christian population is negligible. But one other consideration gives rise to caution within me against the sentiment I’ve been talking about. Japan has had historically low percentages of Christians…while other surrounding countries (Philippines, Korea and even China) have had much stronger numbers of Christians. Using the prior logic, then we would have to conclude that all other countries besides Japan have been more faithful and done longer and better work. But that isn’t true. There have been so many faithful pastors and Christians, even facing some of the fiercest persecution…so maybe we should reconsider some of these cause and effect attitudes and have a stronger sense of God’s centrality over the harvest. That might be the greatest step we can take…it might seem like a step back as we turn to relax rather than hunker down and sacrifice ourselves “for the kingdom”…but perhaps this step back is a step of faith and an admission that we cannot control God through our effort. (and again, it is hard to say, because perhaps this thought comes as a result of wanting to just “take it easy”…it would be good for others to give their insight.
Quinby 