Christ Presbyterian Church Mission Anabaino Collaboration October 21-22, 2013 Contextual Diversity J.

Nelson Jennings, PhD Overseas Ministries Study Center

One of the people I know best is someone I have never met. His name is Takakura Tokutaro, he died in 1934, and he was the man I researched for my PhD dissertation. Through digging into his writings and through speaking with family members who did know him personally, I became a world expert about this Japanese Christian theologian, pastor, and leader. Several things attracted me to Takakura for my dissertation work. First, he was a second-generation Protestant leader in modern Japanese Christianity, and as a missionary in Japan I was working together with second-generation Japanese Christian leaders in the post-war Nihon Choro Kyokai (Presbyterian Church in Japan). I reasoned that understanding an earlier second-generation leader would help me understand my current colleagues. Second, Takakura addressed important themes that I needed to understand better for ministry in Japan, for example ecclesiology. Third and perhaps most practically, at the time of my doctoral research twenty years ago, English-language analyses of Takakura consisted of a single chapter in Charles Germanys Protestant Theologies in Modern Japan (IISR Press, 1965). PhD dissertations are supposed to contribute something new, so anything I wrote in English about Takakura would be new and thus meet that criterion. Going into my research, I expected to find a great deal that would be familiar. After all, Takakura was known as the theologian who introduced Calvin studies to Japan. His best-known book was entitled Fukuinteki Kirisutokyo (Evangelical Christianity). He was a preacher, theologian, and church leader, all familiar territory for me. However, the more deeply I entered Takakuras world, the more apparent it became to me that the familiarity I anticipated was proving to be elusive. Much about Takakuras thinking, emphases, and convictions were tough to pin down. Takakuras strongly espoused Evangelical Christianity was not exactly like mine or other versions that I knew. Indeed, the process of researching and understanding Takakura became rather unnerving because of the differences I was encountering between my own belief and this man who was no less committed to the centrality of the Bible. I could not tell if I was entering a quicksand of cross-cultural mystery or new vistas of evangelicalism that previously I had simply missed. Before going any further into analysis related to my PhD research, I need to let you know a few particulars about Takakura himself. After doing that, we will look at various aspects of his context before laying out some wider implications of our relationship to someone like Takakura so familiar at first

glance but profoundly different after further investigation and reflection. Lets look first, then, at Takakura the man. I. Takakura Tokuraro (1885-1934) Note Multidisciplinary Analysis (Inagaki), i.e., analyze him in various aspects of his humanity (socio-economic, historical, national, etc.), not just as an abstract theologian. a. Life Highlights i. Born in 1885 ii. Studies in Tokyo in 1906 iii. Conversion and theological studies under Uemura in 1907 iv. Pastoral work 1910-1921 v. Studies in Britain 1921-1924 vi. Church, seminary, and writing until death in 1934 b. Theological Development i. Uemura ii. German and British theology iii. Takakuras distinctive Fukuinteki Kirisutokyo II. Takakuras Context Note the importance of Context (Walls, Bosch); not simply a meaning-form distinction, but an incarnational concreteness of divine-human relations (revelation, belief and practice, etc.) a. Japan (Sanneh) Christianitys translatability preeminently linguistically, but in a total contextual sense as well both relatives and sanctifies contexts. b. Language (Bediako) The vernacular articulation of Scripture embodies good news to and within human communities. c. Historical Period Meiji-Taisho-early Showa Japan d. Christian Input i. Early Meiji Christianity, especially Uemura ii. Western European Christianity iii. Direct e. Family Religious Heritage i. Non-Samurai ii. Jodo Shinshu (True Pure Land Buddhism) III. Wider Implications a. As Christians we need a self-understanding of being heirs of worldwide history God is the God of the nations, not just of our clan (not just of European and Euro-American history). b. Relatedly, as Christians we need a sense of the inherently multidirectional spread of Christianity (not just to the northwest out of Judea)

i. Acts 2 Note the list in vv.9-11 of devout men from every nation under heaven (v.5) in Jerusalem at Pentecost. ii. The regional enclosure of Christianity within Europe, and subsequent spread out of Europe accompanying the worldwide migration of Europeans, is a modern anomaly. iii. Contemporary world mission if more everywhere to everywhere than ever before. c. Christianity inherently exhibits both unity and diversity as well as universal and particular traits. i. Ecclesiastical classifications strongly bear local traits, e.g., Chaldean Syrian, Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian, Coptic, Ethiopian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant (against RC). ii. Confessional commitments are positive answers to particular questions and challenges. iii. Practices, whether ecclesiastical, individual, or otherwise, strongly bear particular contextual marks as well as wider human ones. The Christian faith has an inherent diversity. Even the original enscripturated revelations were given in multiple languages and contexts, plus those revelations have been in an ongoing process of being translated within the worlds languages and contexts. In this sense of being translatable, Christianity resembles Buddhism more than it does Islam or Judaism, the other so-called Abrahamic Religions. Furthermore, part of the essence of the Christian gospel is that it is good news for all kinds of people. All who call on the name of the Lord shall be saved, and Whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Even so, Christianitys inherent diversity is not the same as an unbridled relativism. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism. The universal-particular, pilgrim-indigenous tension within Christianity is a healthy one. Where we as Jesus followers need to be careful is slipping into one side of the tension at the expense of the other. A recurring phenomenon is to insist on uniform actualization of particular traits in the name of their being universal and normative. Perhaps the contextual particularity of Jesus Incarnation is as steady of a North Star as any in keeping us walking as culturally particular Christians who are part of the one holy catholic Church. Broadly-shaped wisdom and discernment including critical examination of and a healthy suspicion toward confident and confining biblical claims that are uninformed by a wide contextual range of input are needed to walk faithfully and prophetically as Jesus universal-particular, pilgrim-indigenous people.