I LOVE JAPAN. Kazuhiro Arai

Shusaku Endo’s Silence and Christianity (3)               Endo’s Silence stimulates me to consider what conditions a religion should satisfy to contribute to world peace and make all people happy. In this regard Christianity has obvious shortcomings because it divides people into Christians and non-Christians and allows the former to attack the latter. Christians always think whether people in question are Christians or not. It is certain that it cannot be a religion for world peace. It may be useful to know that unlike Christians Japanese people have been generous to foreign religions. But if a foreign religion does harm to them, the case will be altered. At present Christians and Muslims live together peacefully in Japan. Japanese culture is likely to be a buffer among many religions. It may have power to change them into more generous religions. In order to consider a condition for a desirable religion, imagin...

Shusaku Endo’s Silence and Christianity (2)               Shusaku Endo wrote Silence by assuming that all what Christians do is right and that a ban on Christianity is wrong. This is the fundamental reason why it is biased. It may be enjoyable for Christians to write and read such a novel but it is quite childish to do so. From the facts and logic discussed above, it is obvious that the author himself is wrong. Christian faith makes people blind to real facts. What is heinous regarding the work is that Endo describes the missionaries with dignity but both Japanese Christians and non-Christians with coarseness. This is more conspicuous in the movie by Martin Scorsese. Kichijiro, a very important fictitious supporting actor, plays a role of dishonoring Japanese people. But there have been very few Japanese like Kichijiro. Japanese Christians were known as honest and earnest. This was a reason exceptionally many died...