I was born and raised in a Japanese American Free Methodist Congregation. The congregation is part of the Free Methodist Conference in Winona Lake Indiana. The gathering first started in the early 20th century and Japanese and Japanese Americans got together to socialize as well as worship. Unlike most conservative churches, Japanese and Japanese Americans got along with other Japanese and Japanese Americans. For example, a J.A. Christian would socialize with the local J.A. Buddhist churches. The two would participate in odori or dance. Christians and Buddhists celebrated their culture.
Then WWII broke out and many were sent to 10 different concentration camps, one being in Manzanar California. When the war was over and everyone went home, the Japanese and Japanese Americans restarted their lost lives.
Yet one has to wonder, since there were 120,000 and as much as 130,000 Japanese and J.A., more than 1 percent became Christian? In Japan, Christianity make up up to 1 percent of the population, yet there were more than 1,300 Christians. This stumped me. I wondered why I was a Christian and not a Buddhist or Shinto. Why was I a Christian, a white religion in all intent and purpose, and not what my ancestors were? I remember going to Buddhist temples in Los Angeles or in Japan and felt weird, because, I learned:
Exodus 20:3 “You shall have no other gods before me.These verses, kept me in line. For 21 years, I believed these statements and though, my friends may have been Buddhists, I still believed. Yet the question: "If I am Japanese, why am I not Buddhist?" kept nagging at me. I then went to college. One of my requirements in college was History. A friend said if I wanted to get an easy "A" to take Asian American Studies, so I jumped at the opportunity. I took Introduction into Asian American Studies, then my sensei brought up that Christianity made up 1 percent of Japan's population.
Exodus 20:2-6 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
1 Corinthians 10:20 No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons.
Matthew 6:21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Deuteronomy 12:30-31 Take care that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods?—that I also may do the same.’ You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.
Exodus 20:4-6 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
1 Corinthians 10:14 Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.
Romans 8:7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.
Luke 6:46 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?
Exodus 34:14 for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God
I then was stumped. I knew I should have been a Buddhist, but why did I go to a Christian Church? Why? Then I heard a song by the band Rush. The song was called the Manhattan Project. The song came out in 1985 from their Power Windows Album and I was even more stumped. Something that really stumped me was when I was in my journalism class and I read the lyrics:
Imagine a man when it all began/The pilot of 'Enola Gay'/Flying out of the shockwave/on that August day/All the powers that be, and the course of history/Would be changed forevermore...
What was Enola Gay? What was that August Day? My aunt survived Hiroshima (only to die six months after 9/11), so a friend in my journalism class said to go ask the Asian American Studies professor. I did and I asked about the Manhattan Project. After hearing this, I was in shock. I was mad. I then asked if Christianity in Japan made up only 1 percent, why is it that I was a Christian and not a Buddhist?
She told me the answer only to be confirmed by my father's plight. Many became Christian just before, during and after the war because of the violence against Japanese and Japanese American. Many had to fit in to the "American" way so they would not be lynched, raped or beaten up. My father as an eight-year-old was beaten up by white Christian Idahoans because he was of Japanese ancestry. The white Christians would kidnap him off the bus while the bus driver looked on, kicked his ass, spat on him and called him Little Tojo and stupid Jap.
This went on for years and even after the war and the pain of just enduring the pain and horror eventually led him to become a Christian. This got me mad. I realized that I became a Christian because my dad was a Christian, only because he was in constant fear for his life. So at 21, I left the church. Not because I had issues, not because I hated God, but because I became a Christian and I associated Christianity as a religion of hate.
In good faith, I could not nor would I condone a belief based on fear from my father's past experience as a part of mine. So I left. I could not allow myself to worship a belief that tortured my family, from the bombing of Hiroshima to the bombing of my father as well as my mother's fear as a child of being bombed by the allies. So I left the church.
I hated Christianity. I hated anything associated with the religion as it was based upon fear. I learned that Hitler and the Nazis were good moral Christians as well as the Crusades. So I stopped believing and went on a mission to insult every Christians out there. Though I never insulted anyone by calling them mentally ill, I would challenge Christians on their Bible and claim there ain't no God. Well this went on for 25 years.
Then one night, while chatting about Christianity with my liberal atheist friends, a friend named Robert told me about the Unitarian Universalists. I asked were they Christians? He said some are, so I told him that I was an atheist. He said they would accept you. I then said, huh? They also welcome agnostics, humanists, animus, Wiccans and other non-Abrahamic believer. This blew my mind. So for about a month, I asked questions. My friend said that some U.U. Churches have a coffee hour or a lunch. I could not grasp the fact that a Unitarian Universalist church would accept me. So I shot off an email to the Pastor Tera Little. She responded promptly.
She was patient with me and explained what the church did. I sent her my first letter on January and we sent mail back and forth for a month. I then decided to take the proverbial plunge and go. I drove up to the church, drove in the driveway, parked my car, walked into the church, the pastor said Tim? I said yes and she hugged me. I was kind of shocked. I was like: wow. I was really nervous. I really didn't know what to say except hello to the members who were introducing themselves to me. Then the service began.
I then sat in the pew and watched the service. I felt like I was in a church yet felt less and less uncomfortable. I looked around the church in the pew and saw no cross. I saw the chalice, but no cross. I later found out that the church did not want to put a cross up, because, it's like having an electric chair for all to see.
What really stumped me too was the prayer. No Jesus, No God, nothing. The prayer was about justice, love and respect. I liked that. When the service was over, the pastor hugged me again, members shook my hands and invited me for lunch. Robert was right! They have lunch!!!!! I then got a plate of food and sat down by myself. Then the congregation came up to me, welcomed me, asked my name and asked how did I find the church. I said the Internet. Yet because of full disclosure, I told the members that I am an atheist. Then out of nowhere, many of the members said, "so am I". I thought I was going to shock them and that they wanted me gone...boy was I wrong. So we sat, ate, and I told them my story how I became an atheist and they welcomed me.
I have no faith in any religion or deity. I don't believe in God and the past still hurts me; but come to realize that there are Christians in my church who do believe, who are Trinitarians and they are neither mentally ill nor dogmatic. They actually follow the Bible and especially:
Matthew 25: 31-40
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
So though I may not ever believe in God ever again, their actions proves to me that there are Christians out there who actually follow the Bible. Because of that, my hatred is actually fading...albeit slowly.
