Lord's Servant

Ave Maria
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I read a wonderful novel by shūsaku Endō and it was a very hard read for me but in the end after I read the novel on publisher note it saids this
"Silence is the story of two men who risked their lives in order to follow the command of Christ during this period of brutal persecution. In the face of such devotion,shouldn't God bless them or at least protect them? Jesus says He would be present with them but where was He when the Japanese Christians were killed? Jesus said the Holy Spirit would give them power. Why didn't the power of God deliver them? And how would He judge the Japanese who verbally rejected their faith when faced with torture or death?" How do you respond to these questions? Also one more near the end of the novel the former teacher of the priest said "Certainly Christ would have apostatized for them(Japanese Christians)" In the novel the Japanese officials want the clergy members to apostatized so the Japanese Christians can lose hope and the former teacher said to the priest that the only way he could save these Christians was to renounce the Faith and the Christians would be free. Sorry for the long post.
 

chevyontheriver

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I read a wonderful novel by shūsaku Endō and it was a very hard read for me but in the end after I read the novel on publisher note it saids this
"Silence is the story of two men who risked their lives in order to follow the command of Christ during this period of brutal persecution. In the face of such devotion,shouldn't God bless them or at least protect them? Jesus says He would be present with them but where was He when the Japanese Christians were killed? Jesus said the Holy Spirit would give them power. Why didn't the power of God deliver them? And how would He judge the Japanese who verbally rejected their faith when faced with torture or death?" How do you respond to these questions? Also one more near the end of the novel the former teacher of the priest said "Certainly Christ would have apostatized for them(Japanese Christians)" In the novel the Japanese officials want the clergy members to apostatized so the Japanese Christians can lose hope and the former teacher said to the priest that the only way he could save these Christians was to renounce the Faith and the Christians would be free. Sorry for the long post.
It's a complex book. I put myself in the shoes of an ordinary Japanese peasant. I would expect a priest to be willing to die for my faith. I would not be encouraged to see that priest apostasize on my behalf. What kind of witness is that? Better we all die, if it's worth believing at all.

The book is about putting yourself in the shoes of others. Am I like Jesus? Am I like Judas? I'm not like that guy, who is like Judas. I'm like Christ, called on to sacrifice my faith so those guys can be saved from execution. No. The proper role is to be another Christ and refuse to sell out, no matter who dies. The rest is a clever mind game. IMHO.

Persecution in the USA is real but oh so petty. We are asked to touch our toe to the fumie almost every day. We can do it in our sleep. I think we are unprepared for the persecutions where people die, the kind that have gone on in Iraq under ISIS. We should ask some of those people their opinion of this book.
 
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Lord's Servant

Ave Maria
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It's a complex book. I put myself in the shoes of an ordinary Japanese peasant. I would expect a priest to be willing to die for my faith. I would not be encouraged to see that priest apostasize on my behalf. What kind of witness is that? Better we all die, if it's worth believing at all.

The book is about putting yourself in the shoes of others. Am I like Jesus? Am I like Judas? I'm not like that guy, who is like Judas. I'm like Christ, called on to sacrifice my faith so those guys can be saved from execution. No. The proper role is to be another Christ and refuse to sell out, no matter who dies. The rest is a clever mind game. IMHO.

Persecution in the USA is real but oh so petty. We are asked to touch our toe to the fumie almost every day. We can do it in our sleep. I think we are unprepared for the persecutions where people die, the kind that have gone on in Iraq under ISIS. We should ask some of those people their opinion of this book.
Yes it is a very complex book and unfortunately both of the priests apostatized in order to save the peasants earthly lives but they fortified their lives and salvation for them and ah I see then we are not called to judas but Christ because we would die for our faith unlike judas aka the priests who apostatized
 
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chevyontheriver

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Yes it is a very complex book and unfortunately both of the priests apostatized in order to save the peasants earthly lives but they fortified their lives and salvation for them and ah I see then we are not called to judas but Christ because we would die for our faith unlike judas aka the priests who apostatized
You could read the book on many levels, or come up with many interpretations. One would be a reading that apostasy is no big deal, favorable to letting someone else suffer. My read is that you just don't deny your faith. Not if you are ordinary people with plain ordinary consciences. In the days of the Roman Empire all they had to do was take a pinch of incense and toss it into a fire as sacrifice to Caesar and the Roman pantheon of gods. Ever so easy and we won't feed your children to the lions. What should we do there? Oh, it's no big deal? I hope I could be brave enough to refuse to go along with that.
 
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Lord's Servant

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You could read the book on many levels, or come up with many interpretations. One would be a reading that apostasy is no big deal, favorable to letting someone else suffer. My read is that you just don't deny your faith. Not if you are ordinary people with plain ordinary consciences. In the days of the Roman Empire all they had to do was take a pinch of incense and toss it into a fire as sacrifice to Caesar and the Roman pantheon of gods. Ever so easy and we won't feed your children to the lions. What should we do there? Oh, it's no big deal? I hope I could be brave enough to refuse to go along with that.
I also have a question for you who do was the voice that the priest to trample on the icon? Was it Christ,Satan or was he just imagining the voice in his head? And yeah and we shouldn't lose our faith in Christ even if we're in the priest shoes.
 
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chevyontheriver

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I also have a question for you who do was the voice that the priest to trample on the icon? Was it Christ,Satan or was he just imagining the voice in his head? And yeah and we shouldn't lose our faith in Christ even if we're in the priest shoes.
My guess is that he thought it was the voice of Jesus. But was it? What would Satan advise in that circumstance? What would an over-educated priest advise himself in that circumstance? It IS a complex book. I'm going to contend that in seeing himself as a Christ figure, he's deluding himself, and at best he's playing Judas.

So what would Satan advise? Don't apostasize? Stand firm and let the plain folk die as martyrs? I doubt it. But it is provocative.
 
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Lord's Servant

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My guess is that he thought it was the voice of Jesus. But was it? What would Satan advise in that circumstance? What would an over-educated priest advise himself in that circumstance? It IS a complex book. I'm going to contend that in seeing himself as a Christ figure, he's deluding himself, and at best he's playing Judas.

So what would Satan advise? Don't apostasize? Stand firm and let the plain folk die as martyrs? I doubt it. But it is provocative.
Personally I think it was Satan because I believe Jesus would never say apostatized even if it was a matter of life and death
 
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FireDragon76

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LS, this is really a book for the very spiritually mature, somebody who has faced hardship and can relate to being forced into repugnant choices. The message is more Lutheran, and you are going to have a tough time really connecting it with a lot of American-style Christianity. This book is a deep Theology of the Cross (as we Lutherans put it)

The words of Jesus in Rodrigues' head are meant to be the words of Jesus, it is Shusaku Endo's idea of the Japanese Jesus he wants to encounter. The Jesus that came into the world to be stepped on, spat on, and denied. It is only when Rodrigues, bound by two abhorent choices, tramples on this Jesus, the real Jesus, that the real Jesus can take hold of him in a hidden faith. It is this Jesus that turns out to be the hidden undercurrent of his life, and of all the hidden Christians in Japan.

This is not a story of a great Christian doing great things for God. It is a story of a God who became small for us, to be with us in our brokenness and failure.

Have you ever read the poem Footprints? That is as close as you are going to get in American Christianity to the theme of this story. And even then, it's a pale shadow.
 
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FireDragon76

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Understanding the author's background would probably be helpful too. Shusaku Endo was born into a Buddhist family but converted to Roman Catholicism as a young adult. He studied in university then moved to Paris to continue to study, where he hoped to be surrounded by a vibrant Christian culture (he was naive). But he was disappointed by the hollowness and lack of spirituality in Europe. Finding the world spiritually barren, with a religion that did not fully speak to his own culture, he sought out to try to find a way to make sense of Jesus Christ within his own experience of being Japanese- a country that has largely rejected Christianity in favor of Buddhism. That is what Silence is really about. It is about finding a more compassionate, almost maternal image of Jesus in the "swamp" of a world that has found him irrelevant or useless.

He was also struggling with the moral failure of Japan during and after WWII. He's trying to deal with the fact that in his mind, the Japanese have problems dealing with moral absolutes, and they are inherently humanistic, all to deal with a society that is heavily embedded in shame dynamics, where atonement for shame can be very costly (Japan has very high suicide rates). Endo sees a need for a Jesus with a human face that understands their failure and shame so that they can embrace a universe with moral absolutes and human dignity.
 
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Lord's Servant

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Understanding the author's background would probably be helpful too. Shusaku Endo was born into a Buddhist family but converted to Roman Catholicism as a young adult. He studied in university then moved to Paris to continue to study, where he hoped to be surrounded by a vibrant Christian culture (he was naive). But he was disappointed by the hollowness and lack of spirituality in Europe. Finding the world spiritually barren, with a religion that did not fully speak to his own culture, he sought out to try to find a way to make sense of Jesus Christ within his own experience of being Japanese- a country that has largely rejected Christianity in favor of Buddhism. That is what Silence is really about. It is about finding a more compassionate, almost maternal image of Jesus in the "swamp" of a world that has found him irrelevant or useless.

He was also struggling with the moral failure of Japan during and after WWII. He's trying to deal with the fact that in his mind, the Japanese have problems dealing with moral absolutes, and they are inherently humanistic, all to deal with a society that is heavily embedded in shame dynamics, where atonement for shame can be very costly (Japan has very high suicide rates). Endo sees a need for a Jesus with a human face that understands their failure and shame so that they can embrace a universe with moral absolutes and human dignity.
Yes I know some of the author background his parents divorced while he was young and his mother converted to Catholicism and also him at the age of 11 he went to France and to study literature I believe so and he suffered from tuberculosis all his life and he wrote a book on Jesus Christ where he apply a more feminine aspect of our Lord and savior like a mother in order to teach the Japanese people about Jesus because the Japanese don't like fathers I think so I believe he also won award from the Vatican and thank you for the information on the author it was helpful
 
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Lord's Servant

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LS, this is really a book for the very spiritually mature, somebody who has faced hardship and can relate to being forced into repugnant choices. The message is more Lutheran, and you are going to have a tough time really connecting it with a lot of American-style Christianity. This book is a deep Theology of the Cross (as we Lutherans put it)

The words of Jesus in Rodrigues' head are meant to be the words of Jesus, it is Shusaku Endo's idea of the Japanese Jesus he wants to encounter. The Jesus that came into the world to be stepped on, spat on, and denied. It is only when Rodrigues, bound by two abhorent choices, tramples on this Jesus, the real Jesus, that the real Jesus can take hold of him in a hidden faith. It is this Jesus that turns out to be the hidden undercurrent of his life, and of all the hidden Christians in Japan.

This is not a story of a great Christian doing great things for God. It is a story of a God who became small for us, to be with us in our brokenness and failure.

Have you ever read the poem Footprints? That is as close as you are going to get in American Christianity to the theme of this story. And even then, it's a pale shadow.
Yes I know it was for very mature Christians it was a hard read for me and can you explain about the theology of the Cross? Because I'm not very familiar with that. Ah I see then so it was Jesus that spoke to Rodrigues and it is Endo take on Our Lord in light of his life and Japanese culture and I've read a review by a Jesuit priest who said that Jesus was suffering alongside the Japanese peasants that He was not silent but was there with them and it was a story of God who is with us when we fail. Yes I read it several times actually and ah I see so God was there with the Christians not in silence
 
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FireDragon76

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I've read a review by a Jesuit priest who said that Jesus was suffering alongside the Japanese peasants that He was not silent but was there with them and it was a story of God who is with us when we fail.

That's more or less what the Theology of the Cross is about. It is a distinctly Lutheran concept. You will also sometimes find something similar in modern Catholic thought. That's why I think a modern Jesuit would understand the story. It requires a wise mind to grasp the depth of it. Honestly even many Lutherans here in the US could not appreciate it (sadly).
 
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Lord's Servant

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That's more or less what the Theology of the Cross is about. It is a distinctly Lutheran concept. You will also sometimes find something similar in modern Catholic thought. That's why I think a modern Jesuit would understand the story. It requires a wise mind to grasp the depth of it. Honestly even many Lutherans here in the US could not appreciate it (sadly).
Ah I see then I never knew that and it would make sense that a Jesuit would understand the story because it was written in the view of a Jesuit and yes it does require a wise mind to grasp that theology but it makes sense to me that Jesus would suffer alongside us
 
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FireDragon76

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Another "Theology of the Cross" moment in culture: have you read Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree? This is a well-know children's story and was one of the favorite stories of the author and preacher, Brennan Manning. My pastor also once read it at church and used it in a sermon.
 
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Lord's Servant

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Another "Theology of the Cross" moment in culture: have you read Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree? This is a well-know children's story and was one of the favorite stories of the author and preacher, Brennan Manning. My pastor also once read it at church and used it in a sermon.
Yes I have read "The giving tree" and interesting when I was a small child so that's book could be a metaphor about God and how He's always there for us and provide for us
 
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Quid est Veritas?

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I really enjoyed Silence, if 'enjoy' is the right word.

The Silence of God in the face of suffering, I connected with the Silence of God in our material world. In the same way that God was suffering with His people, He sustains the world - in spite of appearing absent. I doubt this was necessarily the author's intention, but it certainly comes out to me in Rodrigues' almost Atheistic moments of doubt.

I found the idea of Jesus saying "Trample, it is for you that I was born. I understand your pain. It is for that reason I am here", very poignant. For we suffer and God suffers with us on the Cross, the groaning of existence under Sin.

I also found the running theme of Judas, Kichijiro and Rodrigues himself with the line of "Go do it quickly" intruiging. Kichijiro is trying to be a good Christian, is seeking penance, just like Judas returns the money and hangs himself. That Rodrigues sees Judas as suffering when he betrays Christ, that this was an act of mercy by Christ, to allow and expedite His betrayal. Basically Rodrigues is saying God is beyond our understanding of mercy, that apostasy or outward signs are less than inner faith - this is why the children call him Apostate Paul, as if it is a form of circumcision of the heart, accepting and embracing his saviour by the paradoxical act of rejecting Him.
There is also an allusion to Peter going on here, but Ferreira is called Apostate Peter, perhaps pointing to Rodrigues as embodying the Church of Japan, the new Gentile Church as it were, as opposed to Ferreira being the traditional one and losing his faith, failing to adapt it to the 'swamp of Japan'. (Perhaps this is mirrored in the Christians in Japan calling the non-Christians Gentiles as well)

Incidentally, I saw the new film recently and was glad it followed the book as closely as it did, although I think it lost significant depth in translation to the screen. I do think it did it justice though.
 
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