Posted on 04/07/2010 12:29:28 AM PDT by Rytwyng
It was early in 1945 when, as a war correspondent on Okinawa, I first came upon Shimabuku, the strangest and most inspiring community I ever saw. Huddled beneath its groves of banyan and twisted pine trees, this remote village of some 1000 souls was in the path of the 'American' advance and so received a severe shelling. But when an advance patrol swept up to the village compound, the soldiers stopped dead in their tracks.
Barring their way were two little old men; they bowed low and began to speak.
The battle-hardened sergeant, wary of tricks, held up his hand, summoned an interpreter. The interpreter shook his head. "I don't get it. Seems we're being welcomed as 'fellow Christians". One says he's the mayor of the village, the other's the schoolmaster. That's a Bible the older one has in his hand..."
Guided by the two old men - Mojun Nakamura the mayor and Shosei Kina the schoolmaster - we cautiously toured the compound. We'd seen other Okinawan villages, uniformly down-at-the-heels and despairing; by contrast, this one shone like a diamond in a dung heap. Everywhere we were greeted by smiles and dignified bows. Proudly the two old men showed us their spotless homes, their terraced fields, fertile and neat, their storehouses and granaries, their prized sugar mill.
Gravely the old men talked on, and the interpreter said, "They've met only one American before, long ago. Because he was a Christian they assume we are, too -- though they can't quite understand why we came in shooting."
Piecemeal, the incredible story came out. Thirty years before, an American missionary on his way to Japan had paused at Shimabuku. He'd stayed only long enough to make a pair of converts (these same two men), teach them a couple of hymns, leave them a Japanese translation of the Bible and exhort them to live by it. They'd had no contact with any Christian since. Yet during those 30 years; guided by the Bible, they had built a Christian community that truly honored God. How had it happened?
Picking their way through the Bible, the two converts had found not only an inspiring "Person" on whom to pattern a life, but sound precepts on which to base their society. They'd adopted the Ten Commandments as Shimabuku's legal code; the Sermon on the Mount as their guide to social conduct. In Kina's school the Bible was the chief literature; it was read daily by all students, and major passages were memorised. In Nakamura's village government the precepts of the Bible were law. Nurtured on this Book, a whole generation of Shimabukans had drawn from it their ideas of human dignity and of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. The result was plain to see. Shimabuku for years had had no jail, no brothel, no drunkenness, no divorce; there was a high level of health and happiness.
Next day, the tide of battle swept us on. But a few days later, during a lull, I requisitioned a jeep and a Japanese speaking driver and went back to Shimabuku. Over the winding roads outside the village, huge truck convoys and endless lines of American troops moved dustily; behind them lumbered armoured tanks, heavy artillery. But inside, Shimabuku was an oasis of serenity.
Once again I strolled through the quiet village streets, soaking up Shimabuku's calm. There was a sound of singing. We followed it and came to Nakamura's house, where a curious religious service was under way. Having no knowledge of churchly forms or ritual, the Shimabukans had developed their own. There was much Bible reading by Kina, repeated in singsong fashion by the worshipers. Then came hymn singing. The tunes of the two hymns the missionary had taught -"Fairest Lord Jesus" and "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name" - had naturally suffered some changes, but they were recognisable.
Swept up in the spirit of "All Hail the Power," we joined in. After many prayers, voiced spontaneously by people in the crowd, there was a discussion of community problems. With each question, Kina turned quickly to some Bible passage to find the answer. The book's imitation-leather cover was cracked and worn, its pages stained and dog-eared from 30 years' constant use. Kina held it with the reverent care one would use in handling the original Magna Carta.
The service over, we waited as the crowd moved out, and my driver whispered hoarsely, "So this is what comes out of only a Bible and a couple of old guys who wanted to live like Jesus!', Then, with a glance at a shell-hole,he murmured, "Maybe we're using the wrong kind of weapons."
Time had dimmed the Shimabukans' memory of the missionary; neither Kina nor Nakamura could recall his name. They did remember his parting statement. As expressed by Nakamura, it was: "Study this Book well. It will give you strong faith in the creator God. And when your faith in God is strong , everything is strong."
ping...
figured I’d better post this before I get banned again!
ping....
To those who wondered, the Christian doctrine of "turn the other cheek", is not a contradiction to the martial arts -- quite the reverse, it is a prerequisite. As any competent sensei will tell you, the only person who is fit to learn martial arts, is the one who is truly willing to "turn the other cheek" and "go the second mile" to deescalate, defuse, or just walk away from antisocial violence -- even at the cost of his pride -- reserving the use of martial arts only to the rare situation, so-called "asocial" violence, to use Tim Larkin's term, where force is truly unavoidable and necessary. (Luke 22:36, get a sword, etc.)
By all accounts, Kina exemplified this virtue. He was reported to be a very kind and gentle man. He could afford to be!
Another interesting fact about Kina is that, like so many other martial artists, he lived a long time. Accounts vary but he was somewhere between 97 and 100 at his death in 1981.
Kinda puts to death the old “America is a Christian nation” myth, don’t it?
Amazing how blind we as a nation are over here...we’re going the opposite way.
Thx. Will check it out.
Why do you get banned?
Great story.
Truth or fictiion?
Ahhhh. A true story.
Thanks.
Thought so.
In defense of that myth... Those who make that assertion are under no illusions that America was ever *all* Christian. After all, consider slavery... But, consider these three points:
(1) There is an enormous Christian substructure in our culture -- it shows up in our laws, in passages in the Constitution, our customs, our national habit of charity, etc. Our civilization is based on Judeo-Christian worldview and presuppositions in too many ways to count.
(2) At several key turning points in our history, it was Christian influence that kicked us in the right direction. The antislavery movement, to name just one example, began in the church. (Alas, so did Prohibition... oops.)
(3) At times when a much higher percentage of the population affirmed Christian faith and attended church, the levels of public, civic virtue were much higher. It was safe to walk the streets at night, or let your kids run through the hills all day ("Just be home for dinner"). Civic virtue can survive by inertia for some time after the faith is forgotten, but it is unstable... one little kick from the hippies in the 60's and it all came crashing down, leading to the present hell-on-earth.
The Word of God changes people!
How far we have fallen from it!
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,886757,00.html
And Catholics had been in Japan for about 400 years by that point: http://www.cbcj.catholic.jp/eng/jcn/jul2009.htm
If I may be so bold...
(4) During the frontier days, there were no school books. All children who either attended a school or were home schooled, were taught from the Bible.
Thanks for adding this info. I’ve studied both shorin-ryu and goju-ryu karate and am familiar with Shosei Kina. Amazing.
Thank you for the ping!
Thank you for posting! So amazing!
Hiroshima had the largest church in Japan. A great amount were killed when the bomb came. But also some had dreams to leave before it was dropped and they survived. There were different christian types. There was a christian monk who survived -right after devotionals he was having breakfast and then the bomb came, Total destruction around the area around him except the building he was in at the time. He survived no cancer for 30 plus years going to churches around the world as a witness.
Yes, I’ve heard of the Hiroshima miracle survivors too. There was a group of German Catholic monks, who, despite the Japanese regime’s hostility to Christianity, were tolerated and allowed to continue their work because of their German citizenship - Nazi Germany being an ally (the Lord works in exceedingly mysterious ways sometimes). They were basically at ground zero, yet survived with no long term effects. Maybe the same monks you were talking about.
I think the point of the "Village" story is that, these people had very limited exposure to the Christian faith -- and really, really ran with what they had. Those of us in the West, by contrast, are those to whom "much has been given", and of whom much more should be expected. We're soooo blowing it.
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