Modern-day Evangelism

After reading Heidegger, I feel awkward saying, "Thank God for technology and the Internet." We as Christians hoping to evangelize the world today are truly fortunate to possess access to the internet, and a college student's best friend, Google (I'm kidding...maybe). I digress, using the internet we are able to access a mass of information regarding any meaningless topic one can think of. This also applies to being used for worthwhile purposes for evangelists by discovering information of the cultures they travel to in order to effectively spread the gospel. Obviously when reading Silence, the priests had no access to Google and had little to no information on Japanese culture. In Chapter 6, Rodrigues finally meets with Inoue without realizing who he was speaking to and proceeded to explain himself and why he was there in the first place. He was there to spread the gospel, and the only way he knew how at the time was the simple practices and teaching the basic principles of the Catholic church at that time. There was no method in how he approached the people of Japan with the Word and that's where technology and our increased access to information has helped evangelists today. Rodrigues tries to tell them he is only there to convey the universal truth of the gospel to them, but the generals reply with something along the following: What may be accepted as truth in one place may not be so easily accepted in another. This plays into the distinct differences in cultures and their ideologies. Christianity spreads so well in the United States because in most cases we can be defined as a guilt-based culture. We feel terrible that we are sinners and we're in desperate need of being saved from eternal damnation, so as Christianity shows Jesus, the Son of God, sacrificing himself to save us it meshes well with what we're looking for. Japan is an honor-based culture, and has been for centuries. They would rather die than bring shame and dishonor to their name and family, so the message of "you're a sinner and you need to repent" is hard to be accepted when the native people are strict in dishonoring your bloodline. So when the generals try to explain that the understanding and proclamation of Christianity doesn't work in Japan it is because the basic principles of admitting one's faults an needing a substitute is dishonorable: therefore, Christianity is difficult to spreading in Japan. All of that to say I'm glad we live in this time so that we as the future evangelists of the world can properly spread the gospel. Truth be told, I had to use Google just now to help me remember that the United States is predominantly a guilt-based culture (yes, remembered because I recently took Intercultural Perspectives last semester). I feel terrible that the evangelists of that time like Rodrigues didn't have access to the info that we have, but I also realize that we shouldn't take what we have for granted.

That's one big paragraph...my bad, I couldn't stay silent about this one.

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