What history can teach us

By the Rev. Mark Boorsma, Ascension Lutheran Church of Albert Lea

Published Friday, February 5, 2010

On this date in 1597, a gruesome spectacle unfolded on Nishizaka hill in Nagasaki, Japan. For their “crime” of being Christians, 26 people were hung upon crosses with chains and ropes. Some suffered in silence, some sang, and the gifted Paul Miki preached passionately to the gathered crowd until he was lanced to death. A complicated religious and political history had led to this terrible event.

Francis Xavier and fellow Jesuits arrived from Spain in 1549, desiring to bring the Catholic faith to Japan. By focusing their energies on the ruling class, they were very successful in gaining a large number of Japanese converts to the faith. Japanese leaders saw economic advantage in befriending these Europeans, as they hoped for improved trade relations with Spain and Portugal. Such synergy of trade, politics and faith bore impressive results. By the end of the 1500s, there were as many as 300,000 Japanese who had embraced Christian belief and Western ways.

In this embrace of the West, Japanese rulers also spotted an inherent threat. They remembered that earlier religious conversions in the Philippines had resulted in Spanish colonialism there. When a Spanish galleon San Felipe — well loaded with merchandise from the Philippines — became stranded in Japan, its cargo was confiscated and its crew was imprisoned by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The ship’s captain is said to have bragged to his captor about the military power of Spain and the purpose of missionaries being to prepare the way for conquest. This greatly angered Toyotomi. He took the captain’s boast as proof of his suspicions. In December 1596, he ordered the arrest of Christians. For maximum effect, he ordered that the Christians he condemned to death be marched 600 miles, to Nagasaki — historically the Japanese city with the largest concentration of Christians.

Toyotomi intended the display to discourage Christians and stop conversions. But as Tertullian had written 1,400 years earlier, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” The courage and conviction of the Nagasaki martyrs inspired others to follow them in faith.

Too often in human history, clashes between cultures and religions have been a bloody mess. Too many people of many faith traditions have died in cruel and unnecessary ways. Understanding and compassion are in short supply. Respecting the beliefs of others requires dialogue, and dialogue requires both the courage to speak of faith and the capacity to listen, especially to those with whom we may disagree. That we so often resort to angry words means we still have a lot to learn.

I wonder whether much of the anger in and between communities of faith springs from a failure of real dialogue. Feeling unheard or misunderstood, we stop speaking and stop listening. We find ways verbally or socially to “crucify” others whom we judge wrong or misguided. Agree to disagree, perhaps, but keep talking. Persist in conversation. Somebody’s life and well-being might depend on it.

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