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T R M T
Rethinking Martyrdom Theology
A Reection from Shūsaku Endō’s Silence
P T
Introduction
T martyrdom theology, including concepts of glory and vic-
tory in martyrdom, by using Asian viewpoints to explore the theological perspectives in
Shūsaku Endō’s novel Silence (). Based on the Jesuit missionary activities in Japan in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this book raises dicult questions about how to
be a church that declares God to the world in times of suering. Endō’s novel critically
engages with essential and challenging questions regarding Christian theology of mar-
tyrdom. is paper will consist of three parts. e rst section will discuss key aspects
of Christian martyrdom theology and the historical and theological trajectory that ulti-
mately reinforced notions of glorious and victorious martyrdom in Western theological
discourse. In the second part, I will explore Endō’s insights from Silence and consider
how these challenge the Western understanding of martyrdom by drawing readers into
the reality of suering and systemic persecution in the Tokugawa Shogunate of the six-
teenth century. Finally, building upon this literary and theological analysis, I will oer
some critical reection on the meaning of sacrice and following Jesus in today’s world.
The History of Theological Ideas behind Martyrdom
In its roots, the term “martyr” does not relate to executed Christians or carry any notion
about holy death for defending faith or religion. It came from a purely legal term, martus
(Greek), which means witness in the court setting. G. W. Bowersock explains that even
the church fathers such as Clement of Alexandria stressed this original meaning of mar-
tus that was not necessarily related to death.
. Moss, Ancient Christian Martyrdom, –.
. Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome, .
On a practical level, an improper theology of martyrdom could cause Christians
to adopt extreme attitudes; in Paul Middleton’s language, this could lead to the “radical
martyr.” ese were Christians who were not just willing to die for Christ. ey also had
“a strong desire, not only to embrace death when it came but to actively seek it, even if
that meant provoking their arrest and death.” By the third century, such a mindset was
regarded by the church as heretical.
Elizabeth Castelli denes martyrdom as “willing and self-sacricing death on be-
half of one’s religion, one’s political ideals, one’s community.” e conception and theol-
ogy about Christian martyrdom began to develop in the second century. It is not the
product of rst-century Christianity. While the early church was aware of enmity on the
part of the religious and political rulers toward them as apostles and followers of Jesus
(Acts ; :; Rev :–), we cannot ignore the fact that the spreading of Christianity
in Asia happened not because the Christians willingly gave themselves to death, but
rather because they were escaping from those death threats (Acts :–; :–; :).
Jesus himself already predicted (and never blamed!) this kind of self-survival strategy
(John :). ere is no indication from the Gospels that Jesus declared the apostles
apostatized when they abandoned Jesus during the passion night at Gethsemane (Matt
:). In the famous exchange about love between Jesus and Peter in John , rather
than condemning Peter for his three betrayals, Jesus entrusted him to take care of his
people. Shelly Rambo has an interesting interpretation of this passage. For her, this con-
versation cannot be separated from the prediction of Peter’s death or martyrdom: “Just
as Jesus met his death, Peter, as follower of Jesus, will meet the same fate.” However, it
is premature simply to deduce that martyrdom is the only logical conclusion of disciple-
ship based on this passage. By discussing the conversation about the dierent fate of
the beloved disciple (v. ), Rambo emphasizes that the focus here is not on death but
on following Jesus. In other words, the discourse about the beloved disciple opens up
another possibility for discipleship. In the dierent fate of the beloved disciple, “[l]ove
becomes bound up not in death but in survival. Believing is not focused here on sacrice
but on testimony (John :) .”
e apostles never taught or suggested it was a heroic action to willingly sacrice
life for faith. However, Castelli is right in saying that the New Testament documents
such as Paul’s letters from prison, the Gospel of Mark, Luke-Acts, and Revelation did
. Middleton, Radical Martyrdom, .
. Middleton, Radical Martyrdom, .
. Middleton, Radical Martyrdom, .
. Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory, .
. Middleton, Radical Martyrdom, . Moss said that “[t]he meaning of martyrs was discursively
reshaped by early Christian communities long aer its rst application to an executed person” (Moss,
Ancient Christian Martyrdom, ).
. Rambo, Spirit and Trauma, .
. Rambo, Spirit and Trauma, –.
. Rambo, Spirit and Trauma, .
. Bowersock convincingly explained that the Greek word martus in the New Testament docu-
ments does not have the same connotations as the meaning of the word “martyr” as we understand it
now (Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome, –).
T R M T
A Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace
“[provide] an interpretive framework for Christians who came aerward both to consti-
tute the meaningfulness of suering and to trace the contours of their self-understanding
and self-identity.” e scriptures may have oered the seeds for concepts of Christian
martyrdom, but when and how did the theology of Martyrdom become a more promi-
nent part of the church’s teaching?
Generally, it is agreed that second and third-century martyrdom theology is the
product of a complex sociopolitical and historical reality that included suering and op-
pression. Christians then dened these atrocities from a particular religious lens. ey
used various materials from biblical resources, stories of pious men/women, and tradi-
tions to create a specic narrative about the importance of martyrdom as the real sign
of faithfulness to God and Jesus’ calling (noble death). Middleton is then right in saying,
“Martyrs are not dened; martyrs are made.”
However, there is debate as to whether Christian understanding of martyrdom was
also inuenced by the pre-Christian stories—such as the Maccabean revolt, the Greek
concept of a good death (like the story of Socrates), and the story of the three young
men in the ery furnace of Nebuchadnezzar from the book of Daniel. Bowersock, for
example, totally rejects this idea: according to him, “Martyrdom was not something that
the ancient world has seen from the beginning. What we can observe in the second,
third, and fourth centuries of our era is something entirely new.” W. H. C. Frend, on the
other hand, emphasizes the importance of Jewish stories that are deeply rooted in Chris-
tian martyrdom understanding. Middleton and New Testament scholar and historian
Candida Moss choose the middle way by emphasizing the importance of the Jewish and
Greek accounts of noble death while also making a clear distinction between Christian
martyrdom and other martyrdom; they stress the uniqueness of the former. Moss em-
phasizes the importance of the noble death; she sees it as a core value for martyrdom’s
conception in the late-second, third, and fourth centuries of Christianity:
In the act of dying, identities were exposed, values and virtues revealed, and
claims to truth laid bare. A willingness to die proved the purity of one’s inten-
tions and served as a guarantor of the veracity of one’s claims. At the same time,
death could also function as a means to subvert the attempts of others to exercise
control. Dying nobly in these circumstances frustrated eorts to constrain the
individual, destabilized political structures, and reclaimed power in the face of
aggression.
In the setting of the Roman Empire’s pluralistic society, Christians—locally and
sporadically facing threats of violence and death—could have a “conictual worldview”
regarding their relationship with the government and their neighbors. Martyrdom as
. Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory, .
. Middleton, Radical Martyrdom, .
. Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome, .
. Middleton, Radical Martyrdom, .
. Middleton, Radical Martyrdom, .
. Moss, Ancient Christian Martyrdom, .
counter-imperial and eventually seen as a threat to the Roman administration is re-
corded in Tertullian’s writing to the Roman governor in North Africa:
If you think that Christians should be persecuted, what will you do with thou-
sands and thousands of men and women of every age and every rank presenting
themselves to you? How many res and how many swords will you need? How
will Carthage itself tolerate the decimation of its population at your hands when
everyone knows relatives and friends who have been removed, when everyone
sees even men and women of your own senatorial order and aristocratic leaders
of the city, relatives, and friends of your own friends?
Creating the narrative of martyrdom is very important not as a sign of failure or frustra-
tion but as the sign of victory over the power of evil and death (which is embodied in
the form of the government or Christian’s enemies). is leads martyrdom to be seen as
the act and symbol of extraordinary heroism in the struggle for eschatological hope of
justice that will be brought by God for the sake of the faithful one. Martyrdom becomes
one of the Christian narratives that runs counter to paganism and its culture.
Stories functioning in this way started to emerge in the late second and third centu-
ries. Examples occur in a new type of writings called Apocryphal Acts, books that were
“modeled on the Biblical Acts of the Apostles” by describing the Apostles’ supposed
further heroic journeys aer what was written in the book of Acts. A good example
is the Passion of Perpetua: the story of Perpetua, a free Christian woman from a promi-
nent family in Carthage. She was seized during the wide imperial persecution in the
time of Emperor Lucius Septimius Severus. In , Carthage’s Governor, Hilarianus,
implemented the emperor’s decision by capturing ve catechumens, including Perpetua.
Perpetua’s struggles include not only her martyrdom when she is thrown in the am-
phitheater to ght the beasts, but also the preceding conict with her family, when her
father begs her to break her commitment to Christianity—a request she refuses. Her
story becomes an example of perfect love to Christ and an unwavering commitment
to Christian identity in a time of confusion, and the account makes use of virtues of
martyrdom for church edication. Moss indicates how martyrdom became an essential
element in stories like e Passion of Perpetua in order to distinguish Christian orthodox
identity from heresy. As Clark explains, aer the conversion of Constantine and the
decrease of persecution, ascetic life and monasticism could also be “considered [as] a
form of spiritual martyrdom.”
. Quotation from Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome, .
. As Castelli writes, “Martyrdom always implies the broader narrative that invokes notions of jus-
tice and the right ordering of the cosmos” (Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory, ). Carol Straw, compar-
ing Greek heroism narratives with martyrdom narratives, says, “[b]ecause of this supernatural conquest
of death, the Christian martyr could become invincible in a way the classical hero could never be”
(Straw, “‘Very Special Death,’” .
. Clark, Women in the Early Church, .
. Clark, Women in the Early Church, .
. Clark, Women in the Early Church, . Italics added.
. Moss, Ancient Christian Martyrdom, .
. Italics added. Sexual abstinence and other ascetic physical disciplines were seen as the
T R M T
A Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace
While early Christians did experience periods of persecution in the Roman empire dur-
ing the centuries before Constantine, we must be very clear that this persecution was
not as horrible as it is described in many Christian caricatures today. According to New
Testament scholar Sheila McGinn, early Christians until the second generation lived in
relative peace and security. Paul’s positive impression regarding the Roman Empire
in Romans and his admonishment that the church should subject themselves to the
government cannot be separated from this reality. Moss also doubts that the Roman
emperors were specically targeting Christians. e historical reality of the church
persecution in the rst three centuries was not systemic or massively ordered by the
Roman empire. Instead, it was very local, sporadic, and oen unintentional. Most of
the time, early Christians were living in peace with the rulers and non-Christians. Fur-
thermore, the conception of martyrdom developed very locally with various meanings
and understandings.
e essential components of a good and noble death, a conicting worldview, and
heroism that blend together in the martyrdom theology played a signicant role in the
conception of martyrdom when Christianity became a powerful religion in the fourth
century; these elements continued to play a role over the centuries, including times
and contexts of colonization. When Christianity was at the margins, the victory that
would be gained through the death of martyrs was spiritual; not so when Christianity
had become the power-wielding state religion. en martyrdom became a victory in a
political sense. Ironically enough, though it was born out of vulnerability and helpless-
ness, martyrdom theology evolved into a tool for overcondent self-justication and
supported a triumphalist theology. is deeply aected Western Christianity.
Martyrs Mirror and Anabaptist Martyrdom Theology
Martyr theology also gured prominently among the Anabaptists of the early mod-
ern period. During years of intense persecution in the sixteenth century, Anabaptists
continuation of physical martyrdom to “display the religious commitment” (Clark, Reading Renuncia-
tion, ). Furthermore, in her article on martyrdom writings from Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian,
and Origen, Nancy R. Heisey shows how, for these church fathers, ascetic exercises were perceived as
necessary preparation in order to face persecution and martyrdom (Heisey, “Martyrdom as Metaphor,”
–).
. McGinn, Jesus Movement, .
. On this Moss looks to G. E. M. De Ste. Croix: “We know of no persecution by the Roman govern-
ment until , and there was no general persecution by the Roman government until that of Decius.
Between and there were only isolated, local persecutions; and even if the total number of victims
was quite considerable . . . most individual outbreaks must usually have been quite brief” (Moss, Ancient
Christian Martyrdom, ).
. Evangelical church historian Bryan Litn writes, “[a]s we begin to encounter the phenomenon
of early Christian persecution, let us be clear about one thing: the ancient church period was not an age
of martyrdom in the sense of continuous oppression and mistreatment. at is a myth that historians
have long rejected, though it has nonetheless crept into the popular imagination” (Litn, Early Christian
Martyr Stories, ).
. For further consideration on this concept and the context of the crusade martyr in the middle
ages, see Tamminen, “Who Deserves the Crown of Martyrdom?”
circulated martyrs’ letters, and shared martyr songs and stories; ultimately they also
published these accounts as martyrologies the late-sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
An important and well-known example of such a martyrology is the Dutch Mennonite
minister ieleman Jansz. van Braght’s tome from , which was also republished
aer van Braght’s death in and is now commonly known as the Martyrs Mirror.
Interestingly—following the Anabaptists’ emphasis on the importance of “baptism upon
faith” instead of infant baptism—van Braght framed martyrdom in baptismal narrative.
He writes the following:
is work comprises two books, each of them containing a dierent and in-
dependent topic. e rst is a treatise of the holy baptism and of that which
pertains to it. e second is a historical account of the holy martyrs who suered
on account of baptism, or, generally, for the testimony of Jesus Christ. ese two
topics have been briey, yet not less clearly, treated, throughout, in every century,
from the days of Christ up to our present time.
Van Braght moves through each century, tracing out how Christians struggled to re-
trieve the true teaching on baptism, and how adherence to it oen eventually led to
persecution and martyrdom for the genuine people of God.
Van Braght’s martyrology was not a purely historical project, it was also a deeply
theological one. I agree with Ethelbert Stauer who claries that the Martyrs Mirror
is in keeping with the primary intention of martyrdom theology, which is to provide
theological reection about the “cosmic battle between God and Anti-God”; “. . . the
victory of the martyr forecasts the nal victory of the spiritual powers.” Here, Stauer
makes his argument by pointing out that the original title of Martyrs Mirror echoes “the
old gure of speech of the early ‘eology of Martyrdom’ which compared the ght in
the arena (or theater) with the ght of the martyrs against Satan.”
. John D. Roth estimates around ,–, Anabaptists were killed by civil authorities or mag-
isterial churches in a period of just twenty-ve years (–). See Roth, “Forgiveness and the Healing
of Memories,” . e Martyrs Mirror consists of two parts and oers martyrdom accounts chronically
from the time of Jesus to the Anabaptists’ time in the sixteenth century. Gregory, “Anabaptist Martyr-
dom,” . For more on the Martyrs Mirror see the papers by Huebner and Schroeder in this volume.
. van Braght and Sohm, Bloody eater, or, Martyrs’ Mirror, . Italics added.
. According to Ethelbert Stauer, van Braght perceives that true Christians are always “baptist-
minded” (Stauer and Friedmann, “Anabaptist eology of Martyrdom,” –).
. Roth gives a helpful explanation on why the revised edition of , with illustrations by Jan
Luyken, was more popular than the original version. He says, “[b]y providing a simple, yet powerful, in-
terpretive grid to the massive compilation of texts Luyken’s etchings reduced complex stories to a single
dening moment. For many readers, the images in the Martyrs Mirror transformed the volume
from a document collection to a storybook—making it much more ‘user-friendly’ in the process, but
also encouraging a more simplistic encounter with the stories since readers were more likely to linger on
the images than to struggle through dense primary source texts” (Roth, “Complex Legacy of the Martyrs
Mirror,” ).
. Stauer and Friedmann, “Anabaptist eology of Martyrdom,” .
. Stauer and Friedmann, “Anabaptist eology of Martyrdom,” . Roth mentions that redemp-
tive suering is one clear theological assertion in Martyrs Mirror in addition to its central themes, which
are believer’s baptism and nonresistance (Roth, “Complex Legacy of the Martyrs Mirror,” , ).
T R M T
A Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace
eologizing the bitter memory of persecution and execution is very important
for the Anabaptists—not in order to romanticize the past and carry the victim mentality
forward, but in order to preserve their theological identity and nourish their faith con-
viction in changing situations. Explaining the importance of the Martyrs Mirror in the
context of secure and prosperous North America in the eighteenth and nineteenth cen-
turies, Roth says, the “Martyrs Mirror played a profound role in shaping group identity,
serving as it had for van Braght himself as an ongoing source of spiritual renewal and
as a warning against acculturation to [the] mainstream.” When van Braght wrote his
monumental work, the Dutch Anabaptists enjoyed religious toleration and persecution
had ceased. Roth is right when he says that rather than speaking to a people in the face
of persecution, van Braght warned the Anabaptists about the danger of complacency,
consisting of “seductions of wealth, social respectability, and political authority.” In
other words, Martyrs Mirror also functions as a counter-narrative to a Christendom that
subtly tries to drag the Anabaptists away from their true identity.
Martyrdom theology provided a crucial addendum to strengthen what the Ana-
baptists already believed. Roth, for example, explains that Anabaptist theology is com-
prised of several essential features, such as belief in two opposing spiritual realms that
are always in tension, which are the realm of evil and realm of God (two kingdoms);
life of discipleship, which is dened as the participation in Christ’s humiliation, suer-
ing, and death; and baptism as the symbol not only of a new relationship with God but
also with fellow believers. Some essential practices were drawn from these theological
convictions, such as separation of Church and state, rejection of oath and sword, and
sharing of possessions with other believers as the sign of Christian solidarity. Reect-
ing on persecution and martyrdom as consequences of these Anabaptists’ beliefs and
practices, Roth says, “this experience of on-going persecution only conrmed the larger
Anabaptist-Mennonite understandings of faithful Christian discipleship.” In Robert
Friedmann’s words, martyrdom is “always understood as the Bundessiegel, the seal of the
covenant of God with His people.” By contrast, Harold S. Bender rejected martyrdom
as a theological category that ts correspondingly with Anabaptist theology. Critiquing
Stauer’s article about Anabaptist theology of martyrdom as “no theology at all,” he pro-
posed theology of discipleship as the more appropriate terminology. Friedmann explains
that Bender’s rejection of Stauer’s martyrdom theology is because it never speaks about
the essence of Anabaptist theology: “Stauer’s study gives us the background or mood
. However, Roth also acknowledges several contemporary crucial critiques to martyrdom theol-
ogy from the Mennonite circle themselves (Roth, “Complex Legacy of the Martyrs Mirror,” –).
. Roth, “Complex Legacy of the Martyrs Mirror,” –.
. Roth, “Complex Legacy of the Martyrs Mirror,” .
. Ironically, the Dutch Martyrs Mirror of was also a very expensive and luxurious book. On
this, see further bibliography in Schroeder’s paper here. Likewise, it was an ambitious project in its rst
North American iterations: Stoltzfus says that Martyrs Mirror, “is oen considered the most ambitious
American printing project of that era” (Stoltzfus, “Mystical Monks Create a Masterpiece”).
. Roth, “Forgiveness and the Healing of Memories,” .
. Roth, “Forgiveness and the Healing of Memories,” .
. Friedmann, “Martyrdom, eology of,” .
of the Anabaptist movement rather than its very theme.” e conrmation that mar-
tyrdom theology is not the foundational component or beginning point of Anabaptist
theology is also conrmed by Jamie Pitts, who highlights the gradual movement from
theology of internal suering to external suering of the early Anabaptists.
Martyrdom in Silence
Shūsaku Endō and his Identity Struggle
Shūsaku Endō (–) is one of Japan’s most signicant novelists, and perhaps even
one of Asia’s most signicant. He has received global recognition and praise for his
work. A convert to Catholicism since childhood, Endō was among the rst Japanese
persons to pursue university training in Europe aer World War II. His faith convic-
tion as a Catholic, his educational formation in a European university, and his cultural
identity as Japanese were enormously inuential in his novels. In his writing, Endō ex-
plores his own personal questions and struggles with this peculiar mixture of these three
identities in himself. In one of his interviews, he says:
I received baptism when I was a child. . . . [I]n other words, my Catholicism was
a kind of ready-made suit. . . . I had to decide either to make this ready-made suit
t my body or get rid of it and nd another suit that tted. . . . ere were many
times when I felt I wanted to get rid of my Catholicism, but I was nally unable
to do so. It is not just that I did not throw it o, but that I was unable to throw
it o. . . . Still, there was always that feeling in my heart that it was something
borrowed, and I began to wonder what my real self was like. is I think is the
“mud swamp” Japanese in me. From the time I rst began to write novels even to
the present day, this confrontation of my Catholic self with the self that lies un-
derneath has, like an idiot’s constant refrain, echoed and reechoed in my work. I
felt that I had to nd some way to reconcile the two.
In this regard, Endō shares in the experience of many Asian Christians. Indonesian
feminist theologian Marianne Katoppo, for example, contends with the maleness of God
in Western Christianity. is depiction of God is bizarre for Asians who generally see
God as beyond the gender binary. Asian religions usually emphasize the inseparable
gender of God. She says, “[i]n the meta cosmic soteriologies of Asia, it is unthinkable to
. Friedmann, “Martyrdom, eology of,” .
. Jamie Pitts notes, “[t]here is a move from a theology of internal suering to overcome sin to ex-
ternal suering caused by persecution. is movement is especially notable in South German/Austrian
Anabaptism” (Pitts, telephone conversation, October ).
. His achievements include several prestigious awards such as the Akutagawa Prize, the Mainchici
Cultural Prize, the Shincho Prize, and the Noma Prize (Edwards Jr., “Shūsaku Endō,” ).
. He was hailed by Western writers as the most “signicant religious novelist writing in any lan-
guage”; some critics called him the “Japanese Graham Greene” (Edwards, Jr., “Shūsaku Endō,” –).
. He studied under great Catholic scholars and writers such as Jacques Maritain, Georges Bernano,
and François Mauriac (Edwards, Jr., “Shūsaku Endō,” –).
. Endō, Silence, xviii.
T R M T
A Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace
dichotomize male and female to the extent the Christian West has done, any more than
it is possible to dichotomize life and death.”
Among Endō’s many novels, Silence probably is the greatest one. is novel was
rst published in . Due to the popularity, controversy, and impact of this novel,
he received the Tanizaki Junichiro Prize; then, in , he was given a medal from the
Vatican (). e book was also adapted for lm three times.
e novel‘s background is the persecution and execution of Japanese Christians
and Jesuit missionaries in Tokugawa Shogunate in the early seventeenth century. e
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were well known as “Christian centuries,” where the
Catholic and Spanish mission reached Asian countries including Japan. ese mis-
sions were widely supported by state and military authorities as a means to endorse
colonialism.
While many literary critics and religious scholars connect Silence with stories
of brutal persecution, there is also recognition that this novel is loaded with many of
Endō’s personal identity struggles. He coined the term “mud swamp” as a metaphor for
the cultural diculties and challenges that prevent Christianity from growing in Japan.
However, he also appropriates this term for his identity struggle, as if his own struggle
is a miniature version of what has happened in the arduous history of Christianity in
Japan. He writes, “[t]he mud swamp Japanese in me . . . Japan is a swamp because it
sucks up all sorts of ideologies, transforming them into itself and distorting them in the
process. It is the spider’s web that destroys the buttery, leaving only the ugly skeleton.”
In Silence, the historical background is just a backdrop that reveals Japanese Christians’
everyday struggles to reconcile their Christian, Western-inherited religion with their
cultural identity as Japanese.
Christianity and Cultural Challenge
As I already elaborated upon in the previous sections, one of the main characteristics of
martyrdom theology is its emphasis on extreme dualism, such as light versus darkness,
or the kingdom of God versus the realm of evil. is conictual worldview becomes
problematic within the mindset of many Asian people; for instance, it is common in
. Katoppo, “Challenging Traditional eological inking,” –. Katoppo’s claim was recog-
nized by Korean feminist theologian, Chung Hyun Kyung, who says, “[m]any Asian women think God
has both female and male qualities in the God-self. It is natural for Asian women to think of Godhead
as male and female because there are many male gods and female goddesses in Asian religious cultures”
(Kyung, “To Be Human,” ).
. “Endō Shūsaku- New World Encyclopedia.”
. By Masahiro Shinoda (), by Joao Grilo with a dierent title, e Eyes of Asia (), and by
Martin Scorsese () (Bradshaw, “Silence Review”).
. Reinsma, “Shūsaku Endō’s Silence.”
. Williams, Endö Shüsaku, .
. To understand the relation between Jesuit foreign missions and colonialism in the sixteenth and
early seventeenth centuries, see Po-chia Hsia, “Jesuit Foreign Missions,” –.
. Netland, “From Cultural Alterity to the Habitations of Grace,” .
. Endō, Silence, xviii.
Japan to understand all aspects of life with a philosophy of harmony as the guiding
principle. Harmony here means rejection of open conict and individuality, and it
means trying to work and live together as a community despite dierences. Politeness
and kindness toward others for the sake of the common good is the core value in this
harmony. Junko Endō, a Buddhist scholar, reects on Endō’s novel and sharply criti-
cizes how Christians in the past arrogantly tried to banish Japanese religion and culture:
Even if I take their limited knowledge of other religions into consideration, I
cannot understand why they insisted that their God was the only and absolute
God and that other people’s beliefs were either trivial or diabolical. Some of them
demolished Shinto shrines that the Japanese had cherished from ancient times.
Others set re to Buddhist temples or stole valuable images of Buddha and used
them as rewood. In my view, such abominable behavior cannot be linked with
Christ’s love. In this respect, Christianity has been puzzling and alien to me; as
Endō’s words indicate, it is “a baggy Western suit.” is suit seems especially ill-
tting to me, for unlike Endō, I was raised in a devout Buddhist family.
Emi Mase-Hasegawa, who did extensive research on Endō’s works, concludes
that even in his very early writing phase Endō already has a considerable problem with
Western Christianity. She states, “. . . as a lay Christian, he [Endo] challenged Western
Christianity which appeared arrogantly condent in its own strength and glory.”
is clash of worldviews between Western Christianity and Japanese culture fur-
ther leads to the persecution of Christians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—a
representation of this tragedy is poignantly craed by Endō in Silence. In the novel
he represents changing of identity, such as changing one’s name as a way to declare
the worthlessness of the previous one. Japanese Christians in the story quickly refer
to their fellow Japanese who are still practicing their native religion as gentiles. Aer
he apostatizes, Christovaó Ferreira—the ex-teacher of the main character, Father Ro-
drigues—changes his name to a Japanese name, Sawano Chuan. In contrast to what he
previously did as a missionary—which was to convert the Japanese to Christianity—af-
ter he apostatizes, Ferreira works to denounce Christianity and endorse Japanese culture
and religion by writing a book titled Gengiroku, “a book to refute the teaching of Deus
and to show the errors of Christianity.”
e missionaries in Silence are ignorant of Japanese culture. An example of this
ignorance and arrogance, which is demeaning to Japanese culture, is represented in a
. Levi, “Impact of Confucianism in South Korea and Japan,” –.
. Levi, “Impact of Confucianism in South Korea and Japan,” .
. Endō, “Reections on Shūsaku Endō and Silence,” –.
. Mase-Hasegawa, Christ in Japanese Culture, .
. In her preface to Mase-Hasegawa’s book on Endō’s works, Ursula King says regarding the main
topic of Silence, “[Endō’s] novel Silence is a vivid account of the most intense persecution of Japanese
Christian converts during the rst half of the seventeenth century. It focuses on the depth and strength
of their faith, and bears powerful witness to the agonizing experience of the martyrdom of the so-called
‘Hidden Christians’—Kakure Kirihistan—but also to the seductive force of apostasy” (Mase-Hasegawa,
Christ in Japanese Culture, xviii).
. Endō, Silence, –.
. Endō, Silence, .
T R M T
A Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace
dialogue between a Japanese interpreter and Ferreira. is interpreter admits that he
learned Portuguese from the seminaries built by the fathers. He was baptized, but not
because he wanted to be a Christian. It is because he wanted to be educated and have a
better future. e interpreter describes what the fathers did to the Japanese:
e fathers always ridiculed us. I knew Father Cabral—he had nothing but
contempt for everything Japanese. He despised our houses; he despised our
language; he despised our food and our customs—and yet he lived in Japan.
Even those of us who graduated from the seminary he did not allow to become
priests.
e interpreter explains how the missionaries were forcing Christianity on the
Japanese while the Japanese did not really want to abandon their beliefs,
If you force on people things that they don’t want, they are inclined to say:
“anks for nothing!” And Christian doctrine is something like that here. We
have our own religion; we don’t want a new, foreign one. I myself learned Chris-
tian doctrine in the seminary, but I tell you I don’t think it ought to be intro-
duced into this country.
As Junko Endō astutely notes regarding the sad reality of missionaries in Japan,
. . . they were very impetuous and did not take enough time to study Japanese
culture and history; they could not wait for their teachings to put down roots in
Japanese culture. If they only had humility and respect for other people’s religious
faith, they could have avoided bloodshed and averted the tragedy that stigma-
tized them as apostates and le them in absolute terror of eternal damnation at
the very end of their lives.
In an intense conversation with Father Rodrigues, Ferreira explains how the Japa-
nese people have no problem with mixing up their beliefs with Christianity, something
that is very frustrating for him:
What the Japanese of that time believed in was not our God. It was their own
gods. For a long time we failed to realize this and rmly believed that they had
become Christians. . . . But his very word “Deus” the Japanese freely change it
into “Dainichi” (e Great Sun). To the Japanese who adored the sun the pro-
nunciation of “Deus” and “Dainichi” was almost the same. . . . From the very
beginning those same Japanese who confused “Deus” and “Dainichi” twisted
and changed our God and began to create something dierent. . . . Even in the
glorious missionary period you mentioned the Japanese did not believe in the
Christian God but in their own distortion.
Again, what Endō wants to present here is an extreme distinction between a Western
dualistic and binary worldview and a harmonious Japanese perspective. According to
Mase-Hasegawa, before Shinto—Japan‘s ancient religion—existed, Japanese society
. Endō, Silence, .
. Endō, Silence, . Italics added.
. Endō, “Reections on Shūsaku Endō and Silence,” . Italics added.
. Endō, Silence, –.
believed in kami as the object of faith. Kami was not an absolute and transcendental
supreme being but rather “spiritual driving forces.” is conception, more polytheistic
than monotheistic in it characteristics, aorded Japanese society exibility when en-
countering dierent religions and faiths. Kami could easily be identied with Buddha or
even the Christian God.
Dilemma of Martyrdom
One day, the main character of the novel, Father Rodrigues, receives news about the
apostasy of his very faithful spiritual mentor and teacher, Ferreira, because of the severe
persecution. Surprised and disbelieving of the information, together with Fransisco
Garrpe, another of Ferreira’s students, he travels to Japan and sees rsthand the ferocious
persecution and torture experienced by Japanese Christians. Meanwhile, not experienc-
ing success with torturing Christians in order to convince them to abandon their faith,
Tokugawa’s administration uses another method to force Christians to renounce their
beliefs: this involves trampling on fumi-e, an “image of Jesus carved on wood or cast in
bronze.”
e concept of victorious martyrdom appears over and over again throughout Si-
lence. Exploring the glorication of martyrdom culture among the Christian missionar-
ies at that time, Endō writes in the prologue, “[f]or these three men, Francisco Garrpe,
Juan de Santa Marta, and Sebastian Rodrigues, it was impossible to believe that their
much-admired teacher Ferreira, faced with the possibility of a glorious martyrdom, had
grovelled like a dog before the indel.” is “glorious martyrdom” term also occurs
several times throughout the novel. In his correspondence, Rodrigues oers his superior,
Father Valignano’s explanation about the condition of Ferreira: “Whether he unhappily
got sick and died, whether he is lying in the prison of the indel, whether (as you are
imagining) he won a glorious martyrdom, or whether he is still alive trying to send some
report but unable to do so—about this at present we can say nothing.” Jean Higgins
highlights Endō’s exploration and challenge to this victorious martyrdom theology:
Silence dramatizes two models of understanding self and deity. e rst is found
in what we may call the “Rodrigues of the West,” the young missionary who
comes to Japan with dedicated aggressiveness, bearing in heart and mind the
image of a transcendent God of power and might. e image of Christ continu-
ally before his mind’s eye is that of the risen Christ, serene in conquest; a Christ
of glory, whose example calls for heroism in his followers, for delity unto death,
even in martyrdom, if such must be.
. Mase-Hasegawa, Christ in Japanese Culture, .
. Mase-Hasegawa, Christ in Japanese Culture, .
. Mase-Hasegawa, Christ in Japanese Culture, .
. Fujimura, Silence and Beauty, –.
. Endō, Silence, .
. Endō, Silence, .
. Higgins, “East-West Encounter in Endō Shūsaku,” .
T R M T
A Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace
Endō’s juxtaposition of Rodrigues and Kichijiro, a Japanese Christian who repeat-
edly renounces his faith but repeatedly repents, is also vital for the novel’s exploration
of martyrdom. ese two gures symbolically represent two extreme characters and
worldviews: Rodrigues represents a powerful Christian colonizing country while Kichi-
jiro represents pagan-colonized Asian countries. Rodrigues is presented as a protagonist
man of God who is ready to embrace martyrdom. At the same time, Kichijiro is a tricky
opportunist and antagonist who is always avoiding suering in order to survive. Later
on, again and again, he is labeled by Rodrigues as Judas, the traitor.
However, the martyrdom issue becomes uneasy for Rodrigues aer his discovery
that his respected teacher Ferreira, a holy man of God, has not undergone a martyrs
death, but has in fact converted; he learns that Ferreira is cooperating with the gov-
ernment, a choice seemingly worse than the actions of Kichijiro. Here, the theology of
martyrdom is brought into question not from a Portuguese-colonialist perspective but a
Japanese-colonized perspective.
Furthermore, all of Rodrigues’s condent understanding about heroic, victorious,
and glorious readiness to become a martyr is challenged. At the same time, Endō de-
scribes Ferreira’s painful experience in a theatrical scene facing the silence of God. In
one conversation—with the background noise of gasping and groaning Christians who
are hanging upside down in the pit—Ferreira says:
Listening to those groans all night, I was no longer able to give praise to the Lord.
I did not apostatize because I was suspended in the pit. For three days, I who
stand before you was hung in a pit of foul excrement, but I did not say a single
word that might betray my God. . . . e reason I apostatized . . . are you ready?
Listen! I was put in here and heard the voices of those people for whom God did
nothing. God did not do a single thing. I prayed with all my strength, but God
did nothing.
Another of Ferreira’s experience makes it dicult for Rodrigues to hold on to his belief
any longer:
When I spent that night here, ve people were suspended in the pit. Five voices
carried to my ears on the wind. e ocials said: “If you apostatize, those people
will immediately be taken out of the pit, their bonds will be loosed, and we will
put medicine on their wounds.” I answered: “Why do these people not apos-
tatize?” Moreover, the ocial laughed as he answered me: “ey have already
apostatized many times. However, as long as you don’t apostatize, these peasants
cannot be saved.”
Endō’s most critical theological challenge to martyrdom theology is on Christo-
logical grounds, especially regarding the meaning of imitating Christ. Rather than in-
troducing Christus victor (a concept which is deeply embedded in Western martyrdom
theology), in Silence, Endō incorporates another Christological perspective: the Chris-
tology of the servant Christ, servus Christi—Christ for those who experience failure and
. Endō, Silence, .
. Endō, Silence, .
. On the role of imitating Christ the making of martyrdom ideology, see Moss, Other Christs.
rejection. Agreeing with Endō, Japanese theologian Fumitaka Matsuoka writes, “[o]nly
rarely has modern Christianity presented the story of Jesus as the one to whom those
who had failed, were rejected, lonely, and alienated could turn and nd understand-
ing and compassion.” In the following statement from Ferreira to Rodrigues, Endō
raises many enormous and uneasy questions that challenge a triumphalist theology of
martyrdom:
You make yourself more important than them. You are preoccupied with your
own salvation. If you say that you will apostatize, those people will be taken out
of the pit. ey will be saved from suering. And you refuse to do so. It’s because
you dread to betray the church. You dread to be the dregs of the church, like me .
. . Yet I was the same as you. On that cold, black night I, too, was as you are now.
And yet is your way of acting love? A priest ought to live in imitation of Christ.
If Christ were here . . . Certainly Christ would have apostatized for them . . For
love, Christ would have apostatized. Even if it meant giving up everything he
had.
e climax of the story comes when to save the lives of those hanging upside-down
in the pit, Rodrigues must trample the fumi-e. While he struggles, he hears Christ speak-
ing! Christ who was for so long silent. However, the voice that he longs to hear amid
all the turmoil and confusion that he has experienced again challenges him, “Trample!
Trample! I know more than anyone knows of the pain in your foot. Trample! It was to
be trampled on by men that I was born into this world. It was to share men’s pain that I
carried my cross.”
Conclusion: Survival of the Faith
Endō’s Silence is focused in on the dilemmas and struggles that were faced by the Japa-
nese kakure kirihistan (the hidden Christians); in the novel, he invites dicult questions
though character development of Western Christians Rodrigues and Ferreira who are
forced to radically reexamine their assumptions and beliefs. Tens of thousands of Chris-
tians were tortured and executed during Tokugawa Shogunate and le , others to
decide whether to renounce their faith or be executed. Most of them decided to secretly
keep their faith and lived as kakure kirihistan until the cancelation of the Christianity
prohibition policy by the Meiji restoration in . According to Mase-Hasegawa, these
kakure kirihistan maintained their Christian faith by doing whatever they could to avoid
suspicion from the authorities—discovery undoubtedly would have resulted in severe
repercussions. ey lived privately as Christians while socially living as Buddhists or
Shinto. Kakure kirihistan preserved their traditions and rituals by secretly hiding their
religious objects or producing artworks that combined Japanese culture and religion
. Matsuoka, “Church in the World,” –.
. Endō, Silence, .
. Endō, Silence, .
. McCurry, “Martin Scorsese Film Recalls Martyrdom,” .
. Mase-Hasegawa, Christ in Japanese Culture, .
T R M T
A Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace
with Christianity: examples include “statues of the Christian God under the guise of
Shinto deities, and Buddhist statues like Maria Kannon.” While some corners of West-
ern Christianity would quickly condemn these Nicodemite strategies, kakure kirihistan
were concerned with the survival of the faith. Later on, these rst kakure kirihistan be-
came the seeds of today’s Christian Japanese population which remains less than one
percent of the total population.
In Silence, Endō wants every Christian to seriously examine and reevaluate the
meaning of sacrice in Christian discipleship. e traditionally optimistic, triumphalist
understanding of martyrdom asserts that sacrice through death will strengthen the
church and bring a tremendous expansion of God’s kingdom in the world—or, to quote
Tertullian’s familiar words, “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” Endō’s
novel challenges this assumption. He bring in a range of Asian perspectives and pro-
vides an uninching exploration of the religious context in early modern Japan where
Christians experienced systemic religious genocide. His novel presents the sorts of
survival strategies put into practice by Japanese hidden Christians, draws attention to
uncomfortable blind spots of colonial missionary work, and highlights problems with
the imposition of Western Christianity’s martyrdom theology on the realities of the early
Christians in Japan.
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Make Art, Not War
Toward an Aesthetics of Just Peace
S H
F S C Workers movement to seminary and university peace
studies departments, the message of Shepard Fairey’s street art poster, “Make Art, Not
War,” is being engaged with a renewed energy and imagination. With the failure or
fading of many peace initiatives grounded atly in ethics, ideology, religion, or politics,
some are turning to the arts in their quest for building cultures of peace. Indeed, the
Second Global Mennonite Peace Conference in the Netherlands was marked by a wel-
come and inspiring aesthetic presence.
Why the aesthetic turn in peace-building? Using a painting and a poem as case
studies, this essay will address the question and suggest that the arts are not ornamental
to the challenge of making peace but instead are profoundly anthropological and onto-
logical in the quest for human ourishing. We must rst, however, dene how we are
using the term “aesthetics.”
What Is Aesthetics?
Some might respond to this question with the answer, “It is our perceptions of art or the
philosophy of the artistic.” Others will rightly answer that it is also “e discernment of
beauty and the beautiful.” For many academics, aesthetics has become a highly theorized
discourse about art; aesthetics has become technical art theory.
However, aesthetics was understood by the eighteenth-century philosopher Alex-
ander Baumgarten as something more artful and integrated into this sensuous living
world. It was at the great Pietist university at Halle (Germany) where Baumgarten rst
coined the term “aesthetics” as a subset of philosophy. Baumgarten stood philosophically
. Fairey became best known as the artist who produced the blue “Hope” poster for the presi-
dential campaign of Barack Obama. A catalogue with commentary of Shepard Fairey’s street, poster, and
public art can be found in Fairey, Covert to Overt.
. Baumgarten, Aesthetica.
