Spirit of Jesus Church
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The Spirit of Jesus Church (イエス之御霊教会, Iesu no Mitama Kyōkai) is an independent Christian church that was established in 1941, Japan by Murai Jun. Spirit of Jesus Church pastors are fond of quoting from the Gospel of Mark (16:15-18) to define their basic mission. There the disciples are commanded to preach the gospel and baptize believers, and are promised the power to perform miracles, drive out demons, speak in strange tongues, and heal the sick. Pastors are also prepared to quote chapter and verse for all of the other practices enjoined by Murai.
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[edit] Doctrines and Beliefs
Baptisms, for example, are only performed in the name of Jesus Christ in accord with the example and teaching of the Apostle Peter (Acts 2:38; 10:48), rather than with the Trinitarian formula of Father, Son and Spirit that was adopted by the Western churches. Similarly, they claim that baptisms for the dead are conducted according to biblical teaching and precedent (1 Cor. 15:29).
Healing by prayer and anointing with oil is another New Testament practice (James 5:14-16) neglected by many churches but encouraged in the Spirit of Jesus Church.
The ritual of the washing of feet performed by Jesus (John 13) has also been revived with pastors washing the feet of new members immediately following baptism. The ritual of footwashing in the church symbolizes that members have cut ties with the devil and embarked on a new life. In addition to these practices, the Spirit of Jesus Church also preserves the sacrament of the Lord's Supper that earlier Japanese founders had all rejected.
Prophecies, visions and special messages from God have also been important for the Spirit of Jesus Church. In 1941, the founder's wife, Murai Suwa received a direct revelation from God that the official name of the church was to be Iesu no Mitama Kyōkai. The indigenous hymnbook used by this church is likewise based on revelationary experiences. Rei Sanka (霊賛歌, Spirit Hymns) is a collection of 166 hymns all said to have been received from heaven by Tsuruhara Tama, a woman who was active in the early years of this church.
When the Spirit of Jesus Church presents the gospel to newcomers, they call individuals to accept Jesus and encourage them to be baptized in the spirit and water immediately, chanting “Receive the Holy Spirit, receive water baptism.” To bring on the experience of water baptism and speaking in tongues, individuals are encouraged to repeat the phrase “Hallelujah” over and over again.
[edit] Foreign Influences: Pentecostal and Dispensational Connections
Without gainsaying the personal charisma of Murai, it should be noted that the doctrines and practices he promoted were by and large the result of foreign influences. Prior to his encounter with the True Jesus Church on a visit to Taiwan in 1941, Murai had already aligned himself with Pentecostal Christianity with its stress on Spirit baptism and speaking in tongues, but his subsequent emphasis on sabbath worship, washing of the feet, and “Jesus-only” (ie., unitarian) doctrine was clearly prompted by what he found in the True Jesus Church.
Actually, the geneaology is a bit more complicated. In his study of independent Christian movements in China, Daniel Bays has shown that many of the doctrinal peculiarities that attracted the attention of Murai were themselves of foreign origin. The anti-trinitarian “Jesus-only” teaching goes back to developments within Christianity in the United States and was widespread among Pentecostals there and in Canada some years before the first Pentecostal missionaries were sent to China . Bays also suggests that the teaching regarding sabbath worship was probably due to the influence of early American Seventh-Day Adventist missionaries and their publications, which became increasingly evident in China after 1902. In the light of these various influences, bays describes the True Jesus Church as an “international transnational phenomenon”
Murai's eschatological orientation and emphasis on the Second Coming of Christ shows a similar reliance on outside developments. In particular, dispensationalism has had an unmistakable impact on theology of the founder. A theological current that first emerged among plymouth Brethren in England and Ireland during the 1830s and subsequently spread in North America, dispensationalism became the dominant model of scriptural interpretation in fundamentalist circles and is stil popular in evangelical and pentecostal churches today .
The version of Christianity advanced bu the Spirit of Jesus Church tends to appeal to those Japanese already deeply rooted in folk religious traditions.Considerable emphasis is placed on what is usually referred to as gense riyaku （現世利益）, or the worldy benefits of religion. In sharp contrast to the preoccupation with self-cultivation that marked earlier indigenous movements, sermons in the Spirit of Jesus Church tend to reiterate promises of spiritual and material blessing that await the true believer, and testimonials by the faithful bear witness to God's fulfillment of these promises.
Unlike the earliest Japanese founders who looked for common ground between indigenous religious traditions and Christianity and tried to show the continuity from one to the other, Murai's Spirit of Jesus Church sees itself engaged in “spiritual warfare” with traditional Japanese religiosity and condemns its practice as “idolatrous”. in their aggressive evangelistic campaigns, pastors have instructed followers to destroy pagan idols and abstain from participation in pagan rituals. Despite these strict measures, however, the Spirit of Jesus Church has managed to establish more churches across Japan than any other indigenous movement. it has done so not by rejecting the religious needs of its members but by offering Christian alternatives designed to perform the same functions as traditional religious practices.
Thus, for instance, members are forbidden to practice traditional rites of ancestor veneration while at the same time, the church takes care of the dead by conductiong vicarious baptisms and services throughout the year. Considerable attention is given to the dangers and fears associated with ancestors and the spirit world in both formal religious services and pastoral care. Clergy also provide “Christianized” rituals of land purification (地鎮祭, jichinsai) to protect members from evil spirits and make it safe for Christians to build homes and live in them.
The Spirit of Jesus Church regards the Buddhist altar, ancestral tablets and amulets from Shinto shrines as dwelling places of evil spirits. According to church representatives, the ancestral cult is a direct violation of the second commandment against worshipping false gods. Converts are usually assisted with pastors in burning the memorial tablets and other non-Christian religious paraphernalia. in spite of this symbolic rejection of traditional practices, the Spirit of Jesus Church by no means neglects the ancestors (as we shall see below).
[edit] Cares for the dead in the Spirit of Jesus Church
The Spirit of Jesus Church links salvific work in the spirit world and notion of “household” salvation to the long-forgotten ritual of vicarious baptism referred to in 1 Cor. 15:29, a key New testament passage on the resurrection of the dead: "Otherwise, what will those people do who receive baptism on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf?"
According to this church, it is through the ritual of vicarious baptism (先祖の身代わり洗礼) that the blessings of individual salvation can be extended to past generations as well. In a work entitled Biblical Theology, the founder, Murai Jun, placed considerable emphasis on this teaching. According to Murai, the biblical teaching of the salvation of the dead has been hidden from the church since the second century, when the church ceased to practice "water" and "spirit" baptism. "It is in these last days" Murai writes, "that this great mystery has been revealed to the Spirit of Jesus Church". Newcomers to their church are informed that there is also salvation for the ancestors through vicarious baptism. Members can request that ancestors be baptized at the same time they are, or whenever they become concerned about the salvation of those who have gone before.
The Common Memorial Service for Comforting of the Spirits is also an important service in all Spirit of Jesus Churches. According to one church representative, the significance of this service is that it allows living believers to join with the Spirits of the dead in common prayer to Jesus Christ. In this it certainly resembles the Buddhist obon festival, a central motif of which is reunion and fellowship with the dead.A memorial service is observed during the Daiseikai （大聖会）each May for the founder and for pastors who have died in the Spirit of Jesus Church.
Most Protestants regard this development as unfortunate deviations from Normative Christianity.
[edit] Organizational structure
Murai claimed to have rediscovered the strands of biblical tradition that legitimize a structure of authority with a special class of religious leaders. The Spirit of Jesus Church makes a clear distinction between the respective roles and responsibilities of clergy and laity.
The bishop stands at the highest rung of the religious hierarchy, albeit in a largely symbolic role. The current bishop is Murai Suwa, the wife of the deceased founder. While she is respected as an authority by pastors and members alike, he role carries no "official" political power. As one pastor explained, "the function of the bishop is to provide spiritual guidance, not to rule or dominate". There are no church councils or meetings over which the bishop must preside, but bishop Murai symbolizes the authority of the church and officiates at the communion service each year on the occasion of the annual conference. Similarly, the bishop ooften participates in dedication services for new church buildings and officiates at funeral services for pastors.
The actual control of the church is in the hands of the local pastors. A phrase one commonly hears among church members to express this sociopolitical reality is bokushi ichinin shugi (牧師一任主義), which in essence means that the pastor of a local church is entrusted with its responsibility. No outside interference is permitted. The laity in each local church fall under the authority of the pastor and have no official role to play in the governing of the church. there are no congregational meetings and no lay leaders (elders and deacons). Neither is there a treasurer. The pastor is in charge of the finances of the local church. Members are, of course, encouraged to tithe, but the use of church funds is determined by each pastor. In sum, the Spirit of Jesus Church is a streamlined religious organization with no committees or bureaucracy.
The responsibilities of the laity are summed up in the following expression 羊が羊を生み、そして牧師が養う, which literally translates as “Sheep give birth to more sheep, the pastor shepherds the flock”. The choice of images is significant. As sheep, the laity only have a passive role to play in the organization. Pastors view themselves as a family of priests, much like Aaron and the Levitical priests in the Old Testament. They have been “set apart” from ordinary believers for their priestly activities.
[edit] Membership
Organized as an independent group in 1941, this institution, like many other Christian deniminations in Japan, did not see significant growth until after the Second World War. In 1950, the head church in Tokyo was built, and two years later a Bible school was established to train pastors. By 1958, the Spirit of Jesus Church had grown to a membership of 28,000 and had become the third-largest Protestant denomination in Japan. The church continued to grow steadily on intothe 1970s and has reported phenomenal growth for the past decade.
By the early 1990s the church claimed a membership of 420,000 with some 300 ministers, close to 200 churches and over 400 evangelistic house churches. Anyone who has atended a meetings and received "water" and "spirit" baptism (the latter being authenticated by speaking in tongues) is counted as a member. The church indicated that there was an "active membership" of 23,283 individuals who regularly attend meetings and engage in church activities of one kind or another. Representatives maintain, however, that the larger figure accurately reflects the number who have been "saved" through the Spirit of Jesus Church.
[edit] Notes and Further Reading
- ^ Thomas A. Robinson, “The Conservative Nature of Dissent in Early Pentecostalism”: A study of Charles F. Parham, the founder of the Pentecostal movement.
- ^ Bays, “Indigenous Protestant Churches in China, 1900-1937:A Pentecostal Case Study,”.
- ^ Norman Kraus, “Dispensationalism,” in Mark A. Noll and Nathan O. Hatch, eds., Eerdmans handbook to Christianity (Grand rapids:Eerdmans, 1983).
- ^ Mark R. Mullins, “Christianity in Japan, A Study of Indigenous movements”.
[edit] See also
Indigenous Christian Movements in Japan:
- Nonchurch Movement
- The Way (Church)
- Christ Heart Church
- Glorious Gospel Christian Church
- Living Christ One Ear of Wheat Church
- Christian Canaan Church
- Japan Ecclesia of Christ
- Spirit of Jesus Church
- Holy Ecclesia of Jesus
- Sanctifying Christ Church
- Original Gospel (Tabernacle)
- Life-Giving Christ
- Okinawa Christian Gospel
