WHEN YOU CROSS CULTURES - World Evangelical Alliance

34 WHEN YOU CROSS CULTURES
CHAPTER SIX
AN EXAMPLE
OF CONTEXTUALISATION
AMONG JAPANESE
My colleague, Goro Ogawa1 has had an effective ministry among his own
extended family members and his people, 99 per cent of whom have
little or no understanding of the Gospel.
Ogawa realised that in communicating the Gospel to Japanese, he had
to consider the worldview of his own people and to build bridges of
understanding. What has the Scripture to say about themes related to the
Japanese mind? Ogawa carefully looked into the Bible, from Genesis to
Revelation, and developed a message that would be relevant to the Japanese.
Strictly speaking, the communication of the Gospel should not be termed
“cross-cultural” for Ogawa, as he is Japanese. However, Ogawa has been
concerned that for the message to become more relevant to the Japanese, he
had to work at improving its presentation in order to communicate to the
Japanese mind.
In the past, the approach of communicating the Gospel, learned from
missionaries, emphasized the vertical relationship between God and Man. This
approach neglected the essential ingredient of Nature which is foundational to
the Japanese mind. With changes made, communication has become more
meaningful with more encouraging response to the Gospel.
THE JAPANESE CONTEXT
Japanese culture has traditionally been Nature-centred. Shintoism,
Japan’s main religion, was born on the basis of Nature worship. It is rooted in
Animism. The Japanese worldview consists of a horizontal world of nature,
man and gods. These three are integrated with no clear lines of distinction
between them.
Shintoism teaches that nature is a world of many gods. Gods are for the
benefit of man, and not man for gods. Man considers himself a part of nature
and will become a god himself after death. Man must be at one with nature,
1 Goro Ogawa is serving on the staff of The Navigators in Japan.