Note: As I continue to learn the Japanese language and culture, these Spotlight posts seek to highlight things I find curious, interesting, and meaningful. The relationship between language and culture runs deep. In fact, there are many points where it gets hard to tell one from the other. “Language is not merely an indifferent mechanism for cataloguing men’s experience but the language itself affects the cataloguing process…. The language system of each culture is a fluid factor in culture; it varies with each generation and serves as clue to its thinking as well as actually coloring and molding this thinking.” In other words, if I am going to learn how to reach Japanese people, I need to understand how Japanese people think. The process of how they think is intimately intwined with the language they use. Unfortunately for us, it goes far beyond simply using “Google Translate” to come up with the right vocabulary. Language embeds the foundational concepts of culture into everyday interaction. So, deeper we go into this wonderful world of language exploration! Much of this information comes from Charles Corwin’s Biblical Encounter with Japanese Culture (Tokyo, 1967).
Japanese society has a collectivist nature which often gets overlooked by those of us in the United States. It governs nearly every interaction of daily life in Japan and drives many of the internal impulses that make people behave the way they do. The Japanese concept of sin is no different. A New Testament understanding of sin is fundamentally about how an individual has broken an intimate and personal fellowship with God. The fallout of sin includes all of the things we see in a person’s life such as hurt, injustice, and other negative consequences, but the root of the sin always comes back to how the sinner has fallen short of God’s intention for how life should be lived.
When a Japanese person thinks of the word tsumi, however, they tend to merely think about such things as police stations, law courts, crime, and criminals. It is a term that is primarily technical. One does not become a “sinner” until they are convicted by a human court. Sin is seen more in the context of purity than in relation to a Creator. If a moral fault is discovered by another person and brought out into the open, the person at fault is overwhelmed with a sense of shame, but the idea of sin doesn’t really enter the equation yet. Instead, the error of the sinner is seen in light of how and to what degree it disrupts the surrounding community of people. Maintaining social relations and harmony with nature is paramount for maintaining honor in Japanese society, and sin is primarily seen in those terms instead of spiritual ones.
Biblical sin is an interruption of man’s relationship with his Creator. It is all of the ways that people fall short of God’s purpose or break the boundaries God has set, leading to rebellion and a perversion of God’s ways. These perverted ways lead humans further down into a spiral of self-idolization, pride, and moral distortion. Scripture returns again and again to this issue of sin between man and God. No one can escape the inevitability of sin and its damaging effects. Or, as Paul puts it, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:23).
This bright spotlight on our human shortcomings is admittedly distasteful and off-putting for many Japanese people. They have spent centuries attempting to reach a pristine concept of humanity living in complete harmony with nature. However, this spotlight on sin also helps to highlight the positive. Christ’s work on the cross accomplished a perfect forgiveness and deliverance from the condition sin places us in. Or as Paul continues in the verse above, “and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24).
One reason for the slow advance of Christian missions in Japan may be traced to an inability to understand and value the redemptive work of the Cross. In order for the Japanese to fully appreciate the gains won by the empty tomb, we first have to back up and help them discover what has been lost through a correct understanding of sin. Man at his very best is still a sinner before a Holy God. If we can help them understand this reality, then we will be able to help them discover and experience the awesome wonder of the Good News!
~ Clay
Fowlers in Japan 