Shusaku Endo's world famous novel “Silence” was made into a movie and is a big topic of conversation these days. This novel depicts a terrible reality of the beginning of the Edo period. Rulers in Japan are killing those Japanese believers who are harboring Portuguese priests one after another. In the end, the main character sees three Japanese believers being tortured right in front of him by being hung in a hole upside down, and he is told that their torture will continue until he renounces his faith. Furthermore he is accused , “You think that you yourself are more important than them. Or at least, you think that salvation of your soul is more important. If you renounce your faith , these people will be raised from the hole. They will be saved from their suffering.”  After hearing this accusation he comes to another decision. He thinks to himself, “The greatest act of love?” and decides to step on the fumie (an image of Jesus, which Christians were forced to step on as a way of renouncing their faith).

            In Japan these days, sometimes Christians who are born into families who practice ancestor worship are blamed by their families, who say things like, “Because of your faith, you don't even care that you're causing problems for everyone.” One could say that the same method of eliminating Christians during the Edo period still exists today.

          From the teachings of the time of “Silence” the focus of “salvation of the soul” was the idea of personal salvation, but the idea of blame, of sacrificing someone else for your own salvation, will not set you free. If the mission of a Christian is defined as filling the world with the love and peace of God and fighting against Satan's efforts against this, it could have come to another result. The priests who stepped on the fumie were made into subordinates of the shogunate, and they would propagate the polar opposite of what they had been preaching, and would become part of the efforts to exterminate Christians. By giving in to Satan just one bit, people became his subordinates.

          Therefore, Jesus is very strict, and says that “But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven...Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:33, 37). In other words, sometimes God will not allow us to deny Him in front of others, even if it is to save our parents or children. However, in breaking a false peace of one person being sacrificed for the family, as individuals express their own true love of family, they will have God's true peace (“shalom”) as their goal.

          However, in Japanese society, there is a saying: “Treasure harmony, and make a song without shaking,” which illustrates the pressure to conform which is at work in Japanese society. You might feel that there is an invisible “fumie” in front of you all the time. For myself, ever since I was young, I was always worried about what people thought of me. At the same time, I held myself in contempt. Therefore, when I was a student, as I read Silence, maybe because I felt a deep conflict in my heart, all I was able to think was, “If I have to live in such a difficult world, life is just so hard...” However, soon after, as I spent about a year as an exchange student in America, I was set free from my fear and believed in the gospel. God showed me that He is not a god of silence, but a living God of action.

          Jesus predicted that His disciples would be arrested because of their faith. He said, “Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit.” Many people cannot step forward in faith because they feel uneasy, but I believe that when the time comes, the Holy Spirit will give me the wisdom and power that I need.

          However, we must break down our false peace and fill the world with true peace. The goal of salvation, more than the salvation of each of our individual souls, is to fill the world with God's peace, or “shalom.” When the disciple Peter was met with suffering, even when chaos was right before his eyes, he confessed, “But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.”