Martin Scorsese recently released a film adaptation of the 1966 novel "Silence" by Shusaku Endo that traces the persecution of Christians in 17th-century Japan. As a long-time admirer and friend of the Japanese people, I am understandably nervous about how this new film will affect Western perceptions of a country I hold dear, so I looked into the history of religious persecution in Japan to help put the film in context. Ironically, the best book I found on the subject wasn’t on Christianity at all, but on Buddhism: Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan: Buddhism and Its Persecution by James Edward Ketelaar.
Have you ever been scared? When people criticize your ideas, how do you remain courageous enough to keep your faith?
Thanks for your question Mary! Early in my life I was pretty bold in sharing my ideas. Then as I got older and into high school and college, I found that it was much easier to be accepted by the tribe if my ideas were in harmony with theirs. I greatly regret falling into that trap, and I spent the better part of a decade trying to fit in and be who everyone else expected me to be. It was miserable to be honest.
When I hit my late 20’s it was as if a fire alarm went off in my soul. I went to theology school and realized that the more I buried my truth, the more unhappy I became. Conforming to the tribe just made me sad and anxious, and it eventually came to a head. I made a commitment to myself of authenticity.
So absolutely I have been scared, I still am sometimes. But now in hindsight I know that burying my ideas and hiding who I am ultimately just makes me more miserable. We just have to be true to our own spirits in this short and fleeting life we are given. So it’s ultimately pretty easy now to keep my faith, because I have experience to know that living by faithfulness is much healthier, even if in certain moments it is experienced as pure dread.
~Eric Alexander
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