“Every Christian is both a member of the universal church and also a participant in a particular culture. There is not one Christian interpretation of Jesus; there are many different ones, shaped by different cultures.”
I find this quote by Lesslie Newbigin, from his book The Open Secret, to be a great and apropos description of what we find in our exploration of The Theology of the Pain of God by Kazoh Kitamori. Kitamori’s thoughts are definitely shaped by the Japanese culture, but yet can be applied to the universal church theological thought process.
One of the things that I find most intriguing and unique about Kitamori’s book are the five prefaces. Kitamori wrote his book during what he calls the “recklessly torn situations of WWII” and it was first published in Japanese in 1946. It was translated and published in English in 1965 and was subsequently translated into German (1972), Spanish (1975), Italian (1975) and Korean (1987). The prefaces illuminate that the author is seeing and experiencing his book and the theme of his book come to life in other countries and other languages in a surprising way. While his book has “Japanese characteristics”, as he would say, his book also has impact on the Western world. In fact, Kitamori’s book was one, if not the first, of theological Japanese books to be introduced into the English speaking world.
As can be seen from the title, Kitamori’s focus of his writing is on the “theology of the pain of God” or what he also calls “the theology of love rooted in the pain of God”. He informs us that the primary theme of his book is to “behold the pain of God, since the theology of the pain of God is literally concerned with his pain”. He also asserts that the theology of the pain o...
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...nefit to study more theology in the context or contextualization of other cultures other than my own. I feel that it will not only enrich my understanding of Scripture but assist me, as Kitamori says, in “ the recovery of wonder” and to see “the pronouncement of the gospel afresh in order to make this wonder vivid again”. At the conclusion of his book, Kitamori says that his “prayer day and night is that the gospel of love rooted in the pain of God may become real to all men”. Maybe we should all have this same profound prayer.
Works Cited
Bauckham, Richard. Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern World. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003.
Kitamori, Kazoh. Theology of the Pain of God. Eugene, Or.: Wipf & Stock, 2005.
Newbigin, Lesslie. The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1995.
This a great book and as mention before is a must not just for religious leaders but also the lay minister as well who are seeking to go on mission trips even though he focuses on foreign mission work the lessons he offers can be used here in the United States as well. For those who are going to read this books it can help them to be more accepting and open with those who they encounter from different cultures but to be open a missionary has to be able to through away certain stereotypes they have come to learn.
... The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha Revised Standard Version.(1977). New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. Nyberg, Nancy.(November 1997). Personal Interview and survey with Pastor of 1st Congregational Church of Dundee. Poole, W. Michael, D.Min., Th.D.(November 1997). Personal Interview and survey with pastor of Calvary Church of God. Strong, James.(1996). The New STRONG'S Complete Dictionary of Bible Words. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers. Tierney, Michael J.(November 1997). Personal Interview and survey with Priest from Saint Margaret Mary Catholic Parish. Unger, Merrill F.(1967). Unger's Bible handbook. Chicago: Moody Press. Weizsacker, H.I(1958). The Apostolic Age. Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications. White, R.E.O.(1960). The Biblical Doctrine of Initiation: A Theology of Baptism and Evangelism. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Wuthnow, R. (2009). Boundless Faith: The Global Outreach of American Churches. California: University of California Press.
Oxbrow, Mark. "Anglicans And Reconciling Mission: An Assessment Of Two Anglican International Gatherings." International Bulletin Of Missionary Research 33.1 (2009): 8-10. Religion and Philosophy Collection. Web. 2 Nov. 2013.
However, individuals of the World State only require comfort for pain and suffering because they are death conditioned at a young age. Interestingly, soma is compared to religion, a comforting human concept. In chapter seventeen Mustapha Mond states, “Christianity without tears - that’s what soma is” (Huxley 238). Soma provides the desired comfort to its consumers, much like the comfort that Christianity provides to its believers. Soma, however, masks the agonies or “tears” in life while Christianity does not completely eliminate the evil in human lives on earth. The Savage, John, suggests, “it is natural to believe in God when you’re alone - quite alone, in the night, thinking about death” (Huxley 235). While God does provide a natural comfort for humans, He does not provide it to the extreme extent that soma does. The World State civilization relies upon soma’s comfort, becoming addicted to the escape from suffering that the drug provides. John confronts Mustapha Mond for “getting rid of everything unpleasant instead of learning to put up with it” (Huxley 238). Religion provides comfort from “everything unpleasant,” however, it does not simply eliminate these unpleasant feelings. In the ideas of Christianity, people first must endure these hardships in life before being granted complete relief through eternal life in heaven. Soma does not create the necessity
The “unbearable tension” is the tension between living a life that is grounded upon Western culture and the gospel (Goheen and Bartholomew 134). Because Western culture wants to take hold of a person’s whole life, tension is created for Christians as they are called to live their life according to the gospel. There are three unfaithful ways to approach this tension (Goheen and Bartholomew 135). First, one could withdraw from the secular world. This is not a faithful approach as God calls Christians to be the salt and light of the world. Second, one could accommodate themself to modern culture, ...
Stanton, Graham. Gospel Truth?: New Light on Jesus and the Gospels. Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1995. Paperback.
"EXPLORING THEOLOGY 1 & 2." EXPLORING THEOLOGY 1 2. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 May 2014.
Mead, Loren B. The Once and Future Church Reinventing the Congregation for a New Mission Frontier . The Alban Institute, Inc., 1991. Kindle eBook file.
...s distributed in Theology 101 at the University of Notre Dame, Fremantle on 22 April 2008.
In Kazoh Kitamori's "The Transcendence and Immanence of the Pain of God," he argues that God is immanent and feels the pain of humans, but God is also a transcendent being that can lift our pain and relieve it. Although God may not be visible as a physical aspect of one's everyday life, God is immanent through our neighbors and that is why we, as humanity, should love our neighbors in order to love God. Kitamori states that "if we wish to hit two targets at the same time with one arrow," we must love our neighbors as ourselves and "with all our heart" (99).Kitamori includes the Lord's teachings, "that giving to the poor is the only way to serve [the Lord]," showing that selflessness and charity are all acts of genuine kindness that allow one
Kerr, H. (1990). Readings in christian thought (2nd ed.). H. T. Kerr (Ed.). Nashville: Abingdon Press.
The Christian tradition is haunted by a significant mark: Suffering. The question that arises from this suffering is if God is the omnipitous being that Christians believe Him to be, why would He let His people, whom he loves, suffer great pains and horrible deaths? According to premises derived from theologians and followers of the Bible, God is "all loving". If that is true, then God would not want His people to suffer, but by just looking around us we see that suffering, in fact, is happening. If there is suffering going on that God does not want, then He would be able to stop that suffering since He also believed to be "all powerful", yet suffering still goes on. Why? Hopefully by the end of this paper I will be able to answer that for myself.
Gonzalez, Justo L. The Story of Christianity. 2nd ed. New York City, NY: HarperOne, 2010.
Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen is associate professor of systematic theology at Fuller Theological Seminary and holds a teaching post at the University of Helsinki and Iso Kirja College in Finland. He is the author of Christology: A Global introduction, Pneumatology: The Holy Spirit in Ecumenical, International, and Introduction to Ecclesiology: Ecumenical, Historical, and Global Perspectives (Back Cover). Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen presents the latest, comprehensive introduction to the various opinions about Christology from around the world. His book presents three main perspectives on Christology (biblical, historical, and contemporary).