Japan is known throughout the world as
a country that blends ancient traditions together with modern life
into one society. How is this even possible? This is what the
Japanese call Iitoko-Dori, and
it resonates strongly within Japanese culture. From ancient times
Japanese culture has been known to blend elements together from
differing world-views to create a unique society. At one time in
ancient history Japan was at the end of the Silk Road, which made it
the place where many ideas ended up. Traditionally a Shinto nation,
Japan later encountered Buddhism as well as Confucianism and
Christianity. The 'best' elements were taken from each world-view to
combine together into a uniquely Japanese culture. The harmonizing of
seemingly conflicting ideas took precedence over focusing on any one
idea as the only or best truth to behold.
As Japan opened up
to the world during the Meiji Era its leaders realized that they
needed to modernize rapidly. During this era they gathered information from Western
nations in order to carefully chose the elements of those societies that
they deemed were the best and set forth to modernize Japan. Unlike
other countries with ancient traditions, they were successfully able
to rapidly change their nation while retaining many ancient beliefs.
After World War 2 Japan was able to quickly adopt a new belief system
of materialism and rapidly rebuild their nation while keeping to many of their ancient beliefs. Even today Japan is known as a country
that tries to find the best ideas from other nations to either absorb
or improve upon as noted in the successful automobile and electronics
industries.
How
can this belief impact missionary work? On the positive side there is
very little religious conflict. In Japan the people often have a
difficult time believing that there is only one truth. In Japanese
society it is perfectly acceptable to hold to multiple religions with
conflicting ideas by only holding to parts of each respective
system. It is said that Japanese are born Shinto, have a 'Christian'
wedding, and a Buddhist funeral. However, when rapidly adapting new
ideas there has been little regard for the impacts on the people. For
instance in modern Japan material success has become the main goal
with the cost being a society in which competition is high from a
young age, stress is high, work hours are long, and suicide rates are
high. Change is slow in this area since ethics are considered to be
relative due to a combination of belief systems. Japanese know that
these societal conditions are not normal, but will not speak out
against them until the entire group desires a change. Please pray
that the Japanese will realize that Iitoko-Dori
is not the ultimate truth in life!
