Re: [asa] Isolated humans

Merv wrote:
"I have heard Christians (including young-earthers) speculating that perhaps Christ reveals himself to them in his own way (maybe even after physical death) and that all will have a chance to accept or reject him one way or another.??"

Christine wrote:
"God's revelation is by His grace and we are only held accountable for whatever revelation we have received."

The issue is perhaps a little more personal to me than for many other people on the list because I live in Japan, a country that?has at most?a population of Christians around 1%. I've lived here for long enough that I have some friends here, some of them Christian (praise the Lord) and some of them not.? Some of them are Buddhist.? I appreciate that we can talk about our points of agreement and?difference without conflict, but it is not an easy matter by any means. With real living people here who are my friends and not just abstract individuals I imagine in my arm chair, these issues of predestination and how the gospel should be preached really does matter (as both?Christine and Merv?have also raised in?their respective?comments).

They say?Japan is Buddhist, but I think?that is a stretch.? I think for the most part, it is secular and religion plays a minor part in day to day life.? A country like Myanmar or Thailand may be different because life is far more difficult there, but science and technology is the "one true god" in the mind of most both here and in the US, and probably Europe.?

To some extent, it might seem easier to think people should go to perdition if the earth were only?6000 years old and all this radiating out and separate languages happened after the flood and the tower of Babel.? But I don't see YECs any less compelled to preach the gospel, that is for sure.? It is not even clear that YEC is an impediment, though I do see often enough people falling out who are intelligent.? I think the confidence and lack of reserve that one with a YEC view has can often draw people in need here to the church, but sustaining them seems at least as often to end up in the hands of those of us who don't agree with that view as those who do.? I'm really not sure, as life and the?pressure to conform to "the group" are very hard and ingrained in Japan, but some we have lost may have fallen because of doubts?about the foundation of?that over confidence about "the truth".? It seems that many people in Asian and Africa don't really care that much about the issue of
 evolution vs creationism.? It is largely an issue the polarizes the US, but probably the majority of Christians from all over the world who end up here don't really care that much about the details of Gen 1-11; if it is 6000 years, fine, if it is evolution and 4.5 billion years, also fine.

At any rate, it's true you can find temples everywhere like you find churches in the US (I don't know so well Europe but maybe similarly). Yet there are also Shinto shrines almost everywhere you go.? So there is also a largely animistic religious life as well. Still, as far as I can see, in the day to day life, it is mostly secular and ceremonies?play a?largely perfunctory role.? They say that Japanese have a ceremony for birth at a Shinto shrine, a Christian ceremony for the wedding, and a Buddhist burial.??Perhaps it does reflect?an Asian temperament to try to stand?somewhere in?with the 99 and not become the 1.?In essence, maybe not so different from the supposed 80% or whatever?that believe in God in the US.? The form is different of course, but the cast is the same.

Japanese can "hear" about the Gospel.? Amazingly, the holy spirit somehow does bring some around to repent and accept Christ.? But I also observe that before many ever end up in a church here, they have been battered pretty hard by the troubles of life.? Most people would never think to come because it is a "foreign religion" (I don't know exactly what Buddhism is since that comes from India, but anyway Christianity is to be defined as "foreign").? To be fair, so-called Christianity has made a bad name for itself during the colonial period, so we have done much by our own sin to soil the good name of Christ in the eyes of the unbelievers.??It is therefore as much a protective stance, much as the foreign quarters in Shanghai served in the 1870's in China, as it is an excuse.? At any rate, both distortions that our own sin in history generates, distortions that result from a vastly different language and cultural understanding, and the sin that makes us all unable to turn to?Go
 d without Grace,?conspire to make it?quite difficult to repent?and turn to Jesus for salvation for most Japanese.??

I don't think we should just give up and do nothing.? We have to pray for those we love and care about.? Did Moses say "blot them out" or "blot me out"?? We have to ask God to work in our lives in a way that we can reach them because we do want them to be saved. Though many times, I feel abandoned, oppressed, ignored, and sometimes even shattered, still?I have to go on and pray that, though I?feel I have failed in many cases,?somehow some?will still hear or see something in my life here in Japan and be saved.? Perhaps predestination is even more hard in that sense, because we have to pray to God to spare their lives; at least those we come to know.

Anyway, it is certainly not an easy answer.? It is quite different now than it was those many years ago when I could sit in my armchair and talk about so many Japanese and Chinese who don't know Jesus.?

by Grace we proceed,
Wayne (ASA member)

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Received on Fri Nov 2 21:13:43 2007