The perspective of Aisa 2

1. Theological Education and Luther Studies for the Lutheran Church in
Japan

Dr. J. A. B. Scherer and Dr. R. B. Peery, the first missionaries sent by the United Synod of the South held the first Lutheran worship service in Japan on Easter, April 2, 1893 in Saga prefecture, which is located on the island of Kyusyu. In the first several years they were assisted by Japanese evangelists who had been educated in other denominational backgrounds. Ten years later, a training program of pastors began in Saga. In 1909, Rev. A.J. Stirewalt started the first full program of theological education for training Japanese pastors in Kumamoto, called Japan Lutheran Seminary. The desire of missionaries and Japanese congregations was to have Japanese pastors in order to proclaim the gospel to Japanese people. Just as Luther made a German translation of the Bible for German people, it is quite reasonable to train Japanese to become church leaders for the church’s mission and evangelization efforts.
Forming Japanese pastors was one of the most important tasks in the Lutheran church. The Gospel must be proclaimed in the mother language, through the Holy Spirit. That means the Gospel should take root in the soil of the distinct religious culture of Japan. For that purpose, Japanese pastors must be trained with the right understand of the Gospel, according to the Lutheran tradition.
Luther studies also started at this seminary and produced Japanese Luther scholars. Shigehiko Sato (1887-1935), who studied Luther under Karl Holl, focused on Luther’s religion of conscience. Kazo Kitamori (1916-1998), who is well-known because of his theology of the pain of God, used the Japanese cultural tradition in order to grasp the core of the Gospel. Yoshikazu Tokuzen (b. 1932) who was the first head of the Luther Studies Institute, founded in 1985, has led Luther studies in Japan and introduced Luther’s theology to lay people in the Lutheran church by writing many books, including his translation of Luther’s works. He is a leader in the area of ecumenical dialogue in Japan.
A Characteristic of theological education and Luther studies in Japan is its practical application as well as its academic concern. Of course, there have been many scholars of Luther studies outside of the seminary and even outside of the Lutheran church, but Luther studies based on the church’s mission of proclamation have been done at the seminary and have led Luther studies in Japan.
Regarding practical concerns, two things should be pointed out. First, theology and Luther’s studies in Japan have been done from a Japanese perspective of mission. Sato chose the concept of “conscience” in order to describe a characteristic of Luther’s theology. It is not his original view, but is taken from Holl’s Luther studies. However, the concept of “conscience” must be appropriate for proclamation of the Gospel in Japanese culture, in which most people are highly educated in regards to moral issues. Kitamori developed his understanding of the Gospel under the idea of the “pain of God”. The “pain of God” means that God loves the object of his wrath by giving his only son to death on the cross for salvation. He used an analogy of the pain of God based on human pain taken from Japanese concept of “tsurasa.”
Second, Lutheran theology in Japan has served the ecumenical movement in Japan. Tokuzen and other scholars of the Luther Studies Institute have led ecumenical dialogue in Japan, including both Lutheran-Roman Catholic and Anglican-Lutheran relations. Ecumenism is really important, especially in a non-Christian context like Japan. For the Christian Church can hardly share the gospel of the one God and Lord if the Church of Christ itself is divided into factions that fight one other. It has been an extremely important, yet difficult question since the Meiji era when Christian mission work was officially allowed in Japan. So ecumenism is not driven merely by theological discussion for the purpose of agreement on doctrinal issues, but it is also a matter of agreement and cooperation among denominations for mission work in Japan and the witness of the united body of Christ to a divided world.