Worries about Japan—25 Years Ago and Now

Do you remember the first week of January 1989? That was 25 years ago, but I remember it well as that was a time of significant transition in Japan where I then lived.

Emperor Hirohito passed away that year on January 7. Born in 1901, he became the Emperor of Japan in 1926 and at the time of his death had been Japan’s longest-reigning monarch. When a new emperor accedes to the throne in Japan, a new era name is chosen and the calendar starts again at year 1. So Emperor Hirohito died in Showa 64.

Crown Prince Akihito became the 125^th Emperor of Japan upon the death of his father and chose Heisei (“peace everywhere”) for the name of the new era. So last week was the beginning of Heisei 26 in Japan.

In the weeks before Emperor Hirohito’s death there was considerable anxiety among many Christians, and some other non-traditional Japanese people. Accordingly, “Showa, X-Day and Beyond” was the theme for the thirtieth Hayama Men’s Missionary Seminar, held on Jan. 5-7, 1989, at Amagi Sanso in Japan.

“X-Day” was the name given to the unknown day of the Emperor’s approaching death—and he died while the seminar was in progress. I had the privilege of giving the final paper at that meeting.

Part of the Christians’ concern at that pivotal time in Japanese history was the possibility of a surge of nationalistic (Shintoistic) fervor that would be detrimental to the Christian presence and activities in Japan. Even though religion and the state are to be separate according to the Japanese Constitution, there was considerably anxiety about that not being honored after X-Day.

Looking back, Emperor Hirohito’s death 25 years ago seems to have had minimal long-term effects on the religious or political situation in Japan. Things did not turn out as negatively for Christians, or others, as feared.

But now, quite unrelated to any religious affiliations or affectations, there seems to be a growing nationalistic movement in Japan led primarily by the current head of the Liberal Democratic Party, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who is now in the thirteenth month of his second stint as head of the Japanese government.

PM Abe (pronounced ah-beh) became the 90th Japanese Prime Minister in September 26, 2006. He was then Japan's youngest prime minister since World War II—and the first to be born after the war. But he served as prime minister for less than a year the first time, resigning on September 12, 2007.

Since his election again in December 2012, Abe has taken a hawkish position that is currently a concern for many Japanese—and people in nearby countries. The end of month, as the Washington Post reported, “Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited a Shinto shrine Thursday that honors Japan’s war dead, including 14 war criminals, and is seen by Asian neighbors as a symbol of the nation’s unrepentant militarism.”

That visit to Yasukuni Shine is, of course, much opposed by Christians, and others, in Japan. But much of their opposition last year was due to PM Abe’s expressed intention to change Article IX of the Japanese Constitution, which outlaws war as a means to settle international disputes involving the state.

Less than a week after his ill-conceived visit to Yasukuni, in his New Year message last week PM Abe reaffirmed his resolve to change the nation’s pacifist constitution. No wonder not only peace-loving Japanese but people of the neighboring countries, and elsewhere, have worries about the direction Japan is headed.

In Recognition of George Washington Carver

What do Walt Disney, T.S. Eliot, J.C. Penny, Harry Truman and Mark Twain have in common? As many of you may have soon recognized, they were all born in Missouri and are among the most famous Missourians of all time.

But in this column I am writing about another Missourian who deserves to be near the top of the list of notable people from my home state.

The slave boy who came to be known as George Washington Carver was born on a farm near the village of Diamond in the southwest corner of Missouri. The date of George’s birth is not known for sure, but it was probably in the spring of 1865, not long before the end of the Civil War.

We do know when Carver died: January 5, 1943. Later that year his Missouri birthplace was declared a national monument.

Three years later President Truman, who was born in Lamar, Mo., about 40 miles due north of Carver’s birthplace, signed a Joint Resolution on December 28, 1945, saying, “I do hereby call upon officials of the Government to have the flag at half staff on all government buildings on January 5, 1946, in commemoration of the achievements of George Washington Carver.”

Around that same time Public Law 290 was passed, designating January 5 of each year as George Washington Carver Recognition Day.

Since it falls at the beginning of the new year, perhaps Carver’s “recognition day” isn’t observed very much. To be honest, I don’t remember knowing about it before I started reading about Carver recently. Like most of you, I knew that he was known for all his inventions using peanuts. But I didn’t know anything about his early life, some of which I will share with you here.

Shortly after his birth, George and his mother were kidnapped by “bushwhackers” and carried off into nearby Arkansas. Even though Moses Carver, who owned Mary, his only slave, and her children including James (b. 1859) and George, he was a Union sympathizer. He was so concerned about their welfare that he asked a neighbor, who happened to be a Union scout, to search for baby George and his mother.

The scout found George and brought him back to the Carvers, but Mary was never heard of again. Still, Moses was so grateful to have little George back he gave his three-hundred-dollar racehorse to the neighbor in appreciation. Then Moses Carver and his compassionate wife Susan reared George and his older brother as if they were their own children.

George was an avid learner from a young age—but it was not easy for a black boy to get an education in the 1870s. He learned much from his parents and then at the Lincoln School for Negro Children in Neosho. Then he went on to study in other schools, finally completing high school in Kansas when he was about 20.

Later he was able to enter college in Iowa as the only black student in Simpson College. He moved on to what is now Iowa State University, where he graduated and then completed his Master’s degree.

That year, 1896, Booker T. Washington, the founder of Tuskegee Institute, invited Carver to head its new Agriculture Department. He accepted the invitation and taught there for 47 years, becoming one of the greatest botanists and humanitarians of the 20^th century—and a man who certainly deserves to be recognized today and on January 5 each year.

2013—The Best Year in Human History!?

So, what do you think? Could it be that this year, which ends tomorrow, has been the best year in human history? That is what some are saying. Do you agree? Why or why not?

Earlier this month, Zack Beauchamp, a reporter/blogger for ThinkProgress.org, posted an engaging article on its website. The title of his thought-provoking piece is “5 Reasons Why 2013 Was the Best Year in Human History.”

Some of you may have seen Beauchamp’s article, for it has been shared on Facebook more than 20,000 times and referred to in numerous other places.

(A similar article was posted on the website of “The Spectator,” the British weekly conservative magazine that was first published in 1828—in print, not online! It is titled, “Why 2013 has been the best year in human history: The world’s still getting better – here’s the proof.”)

As I write about in my book “The Limits of Liberalism,” many liberals tend to be overly optimistic, and this may be true for Beauchamp. But he also makes some good points.

Briefly, these are the five reasons he gives for contending that this year has been the best in human history:

1)   Fewer people are dying young, and more are living longer.

2)   Fewer people suffer from extreme poverty, and the world is getting happier.

3)   War is becoming rarer and less deadly.

4)   Rates of murder and other violent crimes are in free-fall.

5)   There’s less racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination in the world.

While some of Beauchamp’s assertions may seem questionable at first blush, he gives considerable supporting evidence. Some of that support is subjective, but longevity rates and murder/violent crime statistics and the like are quite objective—and quite impressive.

Dr. Steven Pinker, a psychology professor at Harvard University, is one of the scholars Beauchamp cites in his article. Canadian Pinker (b. 1954), whom I was first introduced to by an atheist friend, is the author of the captivating book “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined” (2011).

In May of this year, Pinker delivered a speech as one of the prestigious Gifford lectures at Edinburgh University. That talk had the same title as his book, but with a different subtitle: “A History of Violence and Humanity.”

Although Pinker’s lecture is over an hour long, it is well worth listening to—in spite of some questionable assumptions and conclusions.

Of course, there are those who disagree with Beauchamp (and Pinker). Just five days after posting Beauchamp’s article, ThinkProgress.org posted “9 Reasons Why 2013 Was Not the Best Year in Human History.”

Those nine reasons are all related to problems concerning climate change and environmental destruction—but they are primarily problems looming in the future, not ones experienced so much in 2013.

If Beauchamp, Pinker and those who agree with them are right, does that mean that the words quoted by MLK, Jr., and President Obama, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” are becoming more evident? Maybe.

Or could it mean that the seeds of the Kingdom of God sown by the followers of Jesus are growing and bearing visible fruit? Perhaps.

If you disagree with the main contention of Beauchamp’s article, let me then ask you this question, If 2013 wasn’t the best year in human history, what year would you suggest as being the best year for the people of the whole world?

Saint Nicholas

On this day before Christmas it is fitting to give some thought to Saint Nicholas, better known now as Santa Claus. “Jolly Old Saint Nicholas” is a traditional American Christmas song, one of many referring to St. Nick. In such songs, of course, that name always refers to Santa.

As most of you know, there really was a historical person who came to be called Saint Nicholas. He was born in 270 and died on December 6, 343. Nicholas, also spelled Nikolaos or Nicolas, became the bishop of Myra, a city in modern-day Turkey on the northeastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea about half-way between Tarsus, the Apostle Paul’s hometown, and Ephesus, the important city on the southwest side of Turkey. Thus, the man behind the Santa Claus legend was often known by the name Nikolaos of Myra.

Much can be learned about the real Saint Nicholas from the wealth of information about him at www.StNicholasCenter.org. And just last year a book by a college professor named Adam C. English was published by Baylor University Press under the title “The Saint Who Would Be Santa Claus: The True Life and Trials of Nicholas of Myra.”

The town that formed where Columbus landed in Haiti on December 6, 1492, came to be known as Saint Nicolas, named for the fourth century saint whose feast day is Dec. 6, and there is a Church of St. Nicolas there to this day. Two Baptist churches in Liberty, where I live, have recently done relief and missionary work in St. Nicolas du Mole, also known as Môle Saint Nicolas, Haiti.

The historical Nikolaos (Nicholas/Nicolas) had a reputation for secret gift-giving, such as putting coins in the shoes of those who left them outside their door—or perhaps in socks hung by the chimney to dry. Centuries later, his kind deeds became the model for Santa in modern times. Saint Nicholas came to be called Sinterklaas in Dutch, and then that name became Santa Claus in English.

Kenneth Woodward, longtime religion editor of Newsweek magazine, has written that a saint is “someone through whom we catch a glimpse of what God is like” (“Making Saints,” 1996). The fourth century bishop of Myra was such a godly man, evidently, that he came to be designated a saint. By observing him, people were able to get a glimpse of what God is like.

So perhaps that is what we can say about Santa Claus. In spite of all the commercialization and clamor that clings to the contemporary conceptions of Saint Nicholas, he is still a type of saint who helps us grasp something of the true meaning of Christmas. Santa can be seen as a symbol of grace, that is, unmerited favor seeking nothing in return.

Some children may leave cookies for Santa as a token of their appreciation for the presents they expect him to bring. And some parents use Santa to encourage (manipulate?) their children to be good. (“You’d better behave, or Santa won’t bring you anything.”) And even one of the Christmas songs refers to Santa having a list of who’s “naughty and nice.” But that’s a perversion of the real meaning of the Santa Claus story.

The actual story of Saint Nicholas, and of Santa Claus, is about giving and not asking, or demanding, anything in return. Similarly, God’s Christmas gift, the baby Jesus born to be the Savior of the world, was the epitome of gracious giving. Thus, an adequate understanding of Saint Nicholas can help us get a glimpse of God’s amazing grace.

MERRY CHRISTMAS to you all!

Without Papers

Painting by John Lautermilch

On this Friday before Christmas, I am writing first about an event that took place sometime after that first Christmas when Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

According to Matthew 2:14, having been warned of King Herod’s evil intentions, Joseph took the child Jesus and his mother Mary and fled to Egypt. As far as we know, the three of them entered Egypt “without papers.” That is, they were undocumented immigrants, although later—and we don’t know how much later, maybe a year or two—they went back to Palestine.

Similarly, many USAmericans who read this have ancestors who for various, but mostly economic, reasons came to this country without immigration papers. The first restrictive federal immigration law was not passed until 1875—and it was enacted to prohibit the entry of immigrants considered “undesirable.”

Specifically, that 1875 immigration law was passed to “end the danger of cheap Chinese labor and immoral Chinese women.” But, in general, immigrants from around the world were welcomed into the U.S., no papers necessary.

In 1883 as a part of the fund-raising campaign for the Statue of Liberty, American poet Emma Lazarus wrote “The New Colossus.” Then in 1903 the following well-known words from that poem were inscribed on a plaque that is now in the museum in the base of the Statue:

. . . . Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Later, other immigration bills were enacted to keep “undesirables” out of the country, but the first law to restrict the number of new immigrants was not passed until 1921. Mexican immigration was restricted for the first time by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.

But now there is a major national problem over “undocumented immigrants” in the U.S. There are nearly 12 million of them, with about 3/4 being from Mexico and other Latin American countries. Some people think that most, if not all, of those here without papers ought to be deported. But such people are in the minority.

The majority of U.S. citizens, according to recent polls, think that there should be immigration reform that includes a road to citizenship for those now here without papers. Moreover, in June of this year the U.S. Senate passed a comprehensive immigration bill by a vote of 68-32.

That bill (S.744) is the “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act.” But the House has failed to act on it. In spite of widespread support by Republicans as well as Democrats, the bill has not yet been brought up for a vote. Once again we see bad results from the “tyranny of the minority.”

In recent weeks there has been an ongoing fast on the National Mall by those seeking to get the House to pass the immigration bill. The slogan of that group is Fast for Families, and people across the country, including some members of the House as well as at least one regular reader of this blog, have gone on short fasts in solidarity with the D.C. fasters. But to no avail—so far.

Since the bipartisan budget bill was passed this week, many are now hopeful that the immigration bill will be passed in January. For the sake of the millions of people, especially the many children, who are living in this country with fear, uncertainty, and often exploitation, let’s hope and pray that those here “without papers” may soon be on the path to becoming productive citizens.