The Congregational Leadership Crisis Facing the Japanese Church

Transcription

1 The Congregational Leadership Crisis Facing the Japanese Church Thomas J. Hastings and Mark R. Mullins T his article examines the clergy shortage and congregational leadership crisis facing the largest Protestant denomination in Japan: the Nihon Kirisuto Kyodan (United Church of Christ in Japan, hereafter UCCJ), a body formed through the union of mostly Presbyterian, Reformed, Methodist, and Congregational mission churches. The crisis is multifaceted. Looking ahead, a demographically based shortfall in trained pastoral leadership, tied to the graying of the Japanese populace and the exceptionally low birth rate (around 1.3 percent), is rapidly approaching. In the present, changes in ministerial recruitment, in understanding the function of church schools, and in the demographic composition of UCCJ congregations have led to declining enrollments in UCCJ seminaries. The number of students being graduated is insufficient to replace those who will be retiring in the next decade. Clergy imbalance is further compounded by the effects of Japan s postwar population shift from rural to urban. Looking backward, it can be seen that the legacy of the divisions evident within the UCCJ during the bitter dispute of the 1960s and 1970s continues to skew issues of pulpit vacancy and clergy placement. 1 Though we focus on the UCCJ, the leadership crisis facing the UCCJ is not unique to it. Similar issues face the Nippon Sei Ko Kai ( The Holy Church in Japan or Anglican-Episcopal Church in Japan, hereafter NSKK), which is rooted in the mission work of both the Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States. Closely related to the leadership crisis are issues of education and pastoral compensation. Like Protestant churches elsewhere, both of these denominations are known for their educated clergy (four years of university, plus three to four years of seminary or divinity school), which requires considerable time and financial commitment from individuals who will likely serve modest or small congregations with very limited means of support. Historical Background The UCCJ was officially established in April 1941, two years after the Japanese government passed the Religious Organizations Law, as a union of thirty-four Protestant denominations. With the exception of the dissenting Seventh-day Adventists, some evangelicals, and a small group of Anglicans, the UCCJ united all of the disparate prewar Protestant denominations within a juridical religious body under tight government control. While this original formation of the UCCJ rested on an uneasy combination of sacred and secular motivation, 2 for some Japanese Protestants, the UCCJ was the propitious realization, albeit un- Thomas John Hastings, a PCUSA mission coworker, serves as Professor of Practical Theology (Christian Education) at Tokyo Union Theological Seminary. His publications include George Lindbeck and T. F. Torrance on Christian Language and the Knowledge of God, in Redemptive Transformation in Practical Theology (Eerdmans, 2004). Mark R. Mullins is Professor of Religion in the Faculty of Comparative Culture, Sophia University, Tokyo. He is author of Christianity Made in Japan (Univ. of Hawaii Press, 1998) and editor of Handbook of Christianity in Japan (Brill, 2003). der less than ideal circumstances, of a long-cherished dream of church union. For others, the forced wartime union of Protestants was more like an infelicitous arranged marriage that had to be endured until the war s end. Postwar developments brought fundamental changes in Japan s political and legal system. Within months of the end of the war, the Allied command issued the Directive for the Disestablishment of State Shinto, December 15, 1945, and set in motion policies that effectively reduced State Shinto to the status of a voluntary organization. All religious organizations were placed on equal legal footing. Articles 20 and 89 of the postwar constitution (1947) clearly articulated the principles of religious freedom and separation of religion and state. With the establishment of religious freedom by the Occupation Forces in 1946, many groups chose to leave the UCCJ and to reestablish their prewar denominational identities. The most significant departures were the NSKK and the Lutheran Church. Numerous Baptist and smaller evangelical and Holiness churches also left. However, the vast majority of Presbyterian, Reformed, Methodist, and Congregational congregations elected to remain together. Retaining their wartime name, these dominant prewar denominations were reconstituted in October 1946 as a united church. Postwar Context Numerous evangelical churches from North America and Europe responded to General MacArthur s call for missionary reinforcements to join in building a new Japan. Between 1949 and 1953 over 1,500 new missionaries arrived in Japan, and the churches began to show signs of recovery. Another factor shaping postwar religious trends was the population shift from rural to urban areas that accompanied the rebuilding of Japan. Economic recovery required an extensive pool of laborers to work in the developing industries located in the urban areas. From 37.5 percent in 1950, the urban population dramatically increased to 76.1 percent by Since Christian organizations were largely concentrated in metropolitan areas, these demographic changes helped to create a more favorable environment for Christian missionary activities. Christian churches made considerable progress, particularly among members of the educated middle class. The Roman Catholic Church, whose membership had dropped to around 100,000 during the war, grew after the war to number 323,599 in Protestant churches experienced a similar expansion, from a low of about 190,000 in 1942 to over 400,000 in The annual growth rate for both Protestants and Catholics, however, began to decline gradually in the 1950s. In 1951 the Roman Catholic Church had a high annual growth rate of 10.4 percent, which fell to 7.9 percent in 1953; by 1971 it had skidded to only 0.34 percent. The Protestant churches followed a similar pattern. Despite declining annual growth rates, the Christian percentage of the population did increase in the five decades following the war from percent to percent. Still, Christianity constitutes only a small minority religion in Japan, unable to attract the loyalty and commitment of even 1.0 percent of the population. 18 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 30, No. 1

2 Situation of the Clergy In 1948 the total number of ordained clergy for all denominations was 6,789. By 2002 this number had grown to 11,336. The growth in church membership, however, has far outpaced the training of clergy in the postwar period. While this is not true of every denomination, the situation within the UCCJ reflects the overall trend. In 1948 there were two clergy for every 100 laypeople. In 2003 the number of ordained clergy had fallen to one for every 100 laypeople. Since its founding, the UCCJ has continued to be the largest Protestant denomination in Japan. As noted, Christians represent only percent of Japan s population. All Protestants account for 0.48 percent, and UCCJ members, 0.15 percent. In 2003 the UCCJ reported a total membership of 198,256, communicant members numbering 99,198, and an average attendance of 60,007 at Sunday services, meeting in 1,492 church congregations and 240 evangelistic stations. 3 In 2002 the number of active UCCJ clergy was 2,176, with 1,879 assigned to local congregations, 11 in traveling ministry, 33 teaching in seminaries, 229 teaching in Christian schools, and 24 working in foreign assignments. 4 For comparison, the total number of Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christians in Japan stands at 1,117,831, meeting in 9,088 churches and served by 11,336 clergy. 5 The UCCJ shows a pattern remarkably similar to that of all Christian groups combined in its ratio of active clergy to the total number of churches (1.26:1 for UCCJ and 1.25:1 for all Christian groups) and active clergy to total church membership (about 1:91 for UCCJ and 1:99 for all Christian groups). Understanding the UCCJ s Leadership Crisis At first glance, the UCCJ figures convey the impression that the denomination has adequate clergy for the number of its churches and members. Closer examination of the available data, however, reveals a serious and growing crisis. Demographic realities are significant between seventy and eighty pastors retire each year, with only twenty to thirty new seminary graduates available to replace them but the crisis has multiple facets. We will look in turn at the paradox of pastorless churches in conjunction with a surplus of ordained clergy, the effects of political divisions within the UCCJ, the role of aging clergy and church membership, and the consequences of recent shifts in seminary enrollments and in recruitment to clerical training. Pastorless Churches vs. Surplus Clergy The year 2003 saw 228 churches 13 percent of all UCCJ churches and evangelistic stations without a pastor. At the same time, a considerable number of churches had two or more full-time pastors. While the average worship attendance for 2001 in UCCJ congregations was 35 persons, the average in pastorless congregations was fewer than 20 persons. 6 Not surprisingly, about 90 percent of the pastorless churches are located in rural districts, where traditional patterns of Buddhist and Shinto affiliation are stronger than in the cities, which are becoming increasingly globalized. According to Yamakita Nobuhisa, moderator of the UCCJ, inadequate financial resources and lack of available pastors are the major reasons for the large number of pastorless churches, which Yamakita estimates will increase to about 500 (29 percent) within the next ten years. 7 Astoundingly, 542 UCCJ ordained clergy are not assigned to any church or Christian institution. This figure represents 25 January 2006 percent of all UCCJ clergy. Who are these unassigned clergy? Yamakita divides them into three major categories. The first includes those who passed their ordination examinations without ever attending seminary. They followed a C-Course option originally adopted by the UCCJ in response to the need for ministers in rural districts. As the average age of C-Course recipients increases, many will accept assignments only in locations with a temperate climate. The second group comprises former pastors who have left the ministry. The third group covers those who have suffered some disabling psychological or emotional trauma in the course of ministry. As of March 2003, this group included 80 missing persons (15 percent of all unassigned clergy). 8 According to Yamakita, some of these missing clergy had served their congregations faithfully, but because of high job stress and low remuneration, they accumulated high credit-card debt and disappeared when they were unable to repay their debt. Political Divisions Within the UCCJ A factor that helps to account for the large number of unassigned UCCJ clergy is the deeply polarized political situation arising from the bitter dispute within the UCCJ in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Briefly, this conflict originally centered on the UCCJ s decision to participate with other Japanese Christians in the proposed Christian Pavilion at the 1970 Osaka World Exhibition (Expo 70). Eventually, the conflict also came to focus on events that transpired at Tokyo Union Theological Seminary (TUTS), the flagship seminary of the UCCJ. Beginning in 1969, many students at Japanese seminaries and Christian schools began to strongly protest the UCCJ s participation in Expo 70. Falling as it did in an era of growing opposition to the Vietnam War, the timing of the Osaka Expo was especially inauspicious, since it coincided with the time limit for the renewal of the hotly debated United States Japan Security Treaty. On September 1, 1969, Kitamori Kazoh, a TUTS professor and leading postwar theologian (author of Theology of the Pain of God [London, 1966]), was physically attacked by students at a meeting to discuss the UCCJ s participation in the Expo. Two days later the TUTS faculty issued a statement condemning the students inhuman treatment of Kitamori. The rift between the faculty and the students intensified, and in November the students occupied and barricaded the seminary, effectively closing down its operations. Other TUTS professors also suffered deliberate acts of violence and intimidation at the hands of students. After months of failed negotiations, the TUTS faculty on March 11, 1970, decided to call in riot police to forcefully remove the students from the seminary buildings. Although no one was hurt during this police action, TUTS was officially censured by the general assembly of the UCCJ. One TUTS faculty member, dean of students Inoue Yoshio, accused his colleagues of failing as educators and eventually resigned. The remaining faculty members believed that their decision to call in the police, while exceedingly painful, was the only responsible option under the circumstances. They resented and criticized the UCCJ s censure. Though these events transpired thirtyfive years ago, deep resentment between the rival factions continues today. 9 Because of this dispute, UCCJ congregations and church districts are divided into pro-tuts and anti-tuts factions. Of seventeen districts total, the pro- and anti-tuts groups each control seven, with the remaining three recently leaning more in 19

3 the direction of TUTS. The anti-tuts group dominated UCCJ leadership for many years. Recently the pro-tuts group has gained control of the church s leadership, but only through persistent and careful political maneuvering. One unfortunate result of the bitter dispute is that the placement of pastors has become the sole responsibility of the schools rather than the church. As the three major schools for training UCCJ pastors, TUTS, Doshisha, and Kwansei Gakuin make all of the personnel decisions for their affiliated local congregations. The organizational structures of the UCCJ are involved only in procedural matters such as examinations and ordination services. Furthermore, because the UCCJ has no say in personnel decisions today, and since TUTS, Doshisha, and Kwansei Gakuin generally have no ties with those who pass the above-mentioned C-Course, many of the C-Course people remain unassigned. Among the 542 unassigned ordained clergy, there are an estimated 100 ordained clergy who want to be assigned but are not because of this factious situation. Aging of Clergy and Membership The aging of clergy also significantly impacts UCCJ congregational leadership. The percentage of pastors over sixty years of age jumped from 22.9 percent in 1985 to 39.5 percent in (See table 1.) The NSKK reflects a similar aging pattern. For the NSKK as a whole, 56 percent of clergy are over 50 years of age. Within the Diocese of Tokyo the figure rises to 63.6 percent. 11 Table 1. Changes in Age Distribution of UCCJ Clergy (Assigned and Unassigned), Age of clergy or over Year No. % No. % No. % No. % No. % No. % No. % Total , , , , ,726 Source: Statistics of the Evangelism Unit, United Church of Christ in Japan (in Japanese), Tokyo, For a combination of pragmatic and cultural factors, many UCCJ pastors remain in congregations long after they reach the age of sixty-five. By contrast, retirement at age seventy is mandatory in the NSKK. Both churches follow a clergy-centered style of leadership (seishoku, or bokushi chushin shugi) that most clergy in both denominations readily admit encourages passive dependence among members. 12 While pastor-centered leadership provides a sense of long-term continuity, it has not fostered active training of lay leaders or congregational innovation in worship styles. The aging of the pastorate is mirrored by an even faster pattern of aging among lay members in the UCCJ. (See table 2.) In 1996 about 41 percent of UCCJ communicant members were over sixty. By 2000 this figure had risen to 47 percent. Conservatively, we could say that UCCJ pastors and congregations are aging at about twice the speed of Japanese society in general. With the aging of UCCJ congregations, the number of young people has declined sharply. In 1996, 1998, and 2000, the percentage of UCCJ communicant members under thirty years of age dropped progressively from 10 to 9 to 8 percent. 13 This trend represents a loss of 2,185 communicants in the age bracket from which potential ministerial candidates have traditionally been drawn. Seminary Enrollment and Clergy Education Between 1984 and 2001 the number of graduates from UCCJ pastoral training schools remained fairly consistent. (See table 3.) Since about seventy to eighty pastors retire or die every year, table 3 seems to indicate that the number of new graduates is adequate, or nearly so, to fill those vacancies. Because of the unresolved personnel problems, however, only twenty to thirty of the new graduates are actually assigned to congregations each year. The majority of the graduates end up in the ranks of the unassigned. Unless this trend is reversed, the number of pastorless UCCJ congregations will sharply increase. In addition, the number of students enrolling in UCCJ seminaries and theological departments for the purpose of seeking ordination has recently been declining. For many years Doshisha University has accepted non-christian students into its undergraduate theology department, and in 2004 Kwansei Gakuin University also began opening its doors to non-christians. While this trend is a result of the intense pressure from other departments to increase enrollment, the picture is not all gloomy. Both Doshisha and Kwansei Gakuin admit only Christians into their graduate programs, and each continues to graduate a significant number of ordained clergy (see table 3). For comparative purposes, it is interesting to note that the NSKK has two seminaries with a total enrollment in 2003 of twentytwo students. These schools graduate five to eight students yearly, a number that is clearly inadequate to meet staffing needs in the coming decade. Seminary training and ordination for women also deserves mention. In the 1920s the Presbyterian Church in Japan (Kyu Nikki), one of the major predecessor denominations to the UCCJ, became the first Reformed denomination in the world to ordain women. In subsequent decades, however, it has not intentionally nurtured women for ordained ministry. For example, there has never been a full-time female Table 2. Age Distribution of UCCJ Communicant Members, 1996 and Age of members or over Total Gender Male 2,614 2,036 3,227 2,744 3,865 3,277 5,246 4,729 9,663 10,564 24,615 23,350 Female 5,030 3,423 6,258 5,151 8,409 6,228 11,530 10,237 22,208 22,811 53,435 47,850 Total 7,644 5,459 9,485 7,895 12,274 9,505 16,776 14,966 31,871 33,375 78,050 71,200 % Source: Statistics of the Evangelism Unit, United Church of Christ in Japan (in Japanese), Tokyo, For 1996, figures are taken from 1,384 congregations reporting; for 2000, from 1,388 congregations. faculty member at any UCCJ seminary, despite the fact that 67 percent of the communicant members and about 20 percent of the clergy in the UCCJ are women. Ironically, the strongest opposition to calling women as pastors reportedly comes from the 20 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 30, No. 1

4 fujinkai, or women s association, in each congregation. The basic cultural understanding that pastors should be men is being challenged only by a small group of feminist theologians. The NSKK is even more conservative on this issue. 14 attendance in its church schools (i.e., Table 3. Ordained Graduates of UCCJ Seminaries and Theological Schools Sunday schools). The relationship (Assigned and Unassigned), between UCCJ congregations and Institution Total % UCCJ-affiliated schools has also Tokyo Union become profoundly ambiguous. Doshisha Both institutions have traditionally Kwansei Gakuin been sources of ministerial vocations, but decline in the latter has Japan Biblical Rural significant implications for the future of UCCJ leadership. Tokyo Bible Total ,032 The decline in church school Source: Statistics of the Evangelism Unit, United Church of Christ in Japan (in Japanese), Tokyo, attendance within the UCCJ has been dramatic. In 1972 attendance Struggling to Survive: The Case of TUTS at church school each week stood at 70,633 children, with an average of 47 children per congregation. In 1982 the total was 63,363 children, with an average of 42 per congregation. By 1992 it had declined to 31,642, with 20 per congregation, and in 2001 the average weekly attendance was only 20,532, or 12 children per congregation. Historically, throughout the 140-year history of Japanese Protestantism, the Sunday school, or church school, has functioned more as an evangelistic outreach to the local community and to students of nearby Christian schools than as a place for nurturing the faith of Christian children. Many non-christian parents sent their children to church school, expecting some positive moral benefit. Furthermore, until the 1970s and 1980s, weekly church attendance was mandatory for the students of many Christian schools. There seems to be a notable decline in the number of non-christian children attending, especially since most Christian schools have now changed their policies to require church attendance only once or twice a year, and some have dropped the requirement entirely. The shrinking number of children casts a huge question mark on the future leadership of UCCJ congregations. A second, related issue involves the relationship between UCCJ congregations and affiliated schools, which has become more distant. In 2000, for Japanese Protestantism as a whole, 218 schools and seminaries offered instruction ranging from kindergarten to the university level, with a combined enrollment of The struggle of TUTS, the UCCJ s largest seminary, to survive as an institution throws further light on the leadership crisis in the UCCJ. TUTS makes a clearly articulated sense of ministerial vocation a prerequisite for admission, and with the exception of those who are assigned to teach at Christian schools, virtually all new TUTS graduates who are members of the UCCJ are immediately assigned to pro-tuts UCCJ congregations. Central to TUTS s struggle to survive are the seminary s efforts to maintain current levels of enrollment. Accredited by the Japanese government since the 1950s, TUTS receives annual government subsidies, as do all other accredited private and public schools. The subsidies account for about one-quarter of TUTS s annual operating budget. Unlike the three-year pattern common in Protestant seminaries in the United States, TUTS has a four-year undergraduate and a two-year graduate program (roughly the equivalent of B.D. and M.Div. degree programs). Those without an undergraduate degree enter as first-year undergraduates, completing a six-year program that includes liberal arts as well as ministerial training. University graduates enter as third-year undergraduate transfer students, completing a four-year ministerial program. In order to continue receiving government subsidies, TUTS is required to maintain a minimum of seventy-one students in its four-year undergraduate program. Until the 1990s, the majority of new TUTS students entered as first-year undergraduates, but now third-year transfer students have become the majority. First-year students are counted in the government s quota for four years, while transfers are counted for only two years. This student demographic reversal has created a crisis for TUTS. 15 A missiologically significant factor that has saved TUTS is the increase in the number of native Korean students who have come to the seminary in response to a sense of calling to missionary work in Japan. In 1997 there were seven foreign students but by 2002 that number had grown to eighteen students. Without these Korean students, TUTS would already be below its quota of undergraduates and would be in danger of losing its subsidies. Schools and Leadership Recruitment Many other difficult issues are facing the Japanese church, even as many Japanese are becoming more suspicious of religion in general. For the past three decades, surveys have shown that the Japanese have a negative view of religion, regarding organized religion as closed or gloomy. Since the violence perpetrated by Aum Shinrikyo in 1995, many regard religion as potentially dangerous. Recent international incidents connecting religion and terrorism have only strengthened these negative attitudes. 16 One specific issue facing the UCCJ is a dramatic decline in Clergy-centered leadership encourages passive dependency among members. about 300,000 students. 17 More than half of these schools maintain an informal relation with the UCCJ via the Council on Cooperation (COC). Under the guidance of chaplains, most of these schools continue religious educational programs that include regular chapel services and classroom instruction. Some of the junior and senior high schools still require students to attend UCCJ churches as part of their religious education, yet these schools have had almost no measurable impact on UCCJ membership over the past thirty years. This result is in sharp contrast to the period of foreign mission control ( ), when most of these schools were more overtly evangelistic in character. Though there are some exceptions, especially in rural districts, January

5 the schools and UCCJ congregations are almost completely independent of each other. The distinct ethos, structures, and goals of the two institutions seem to preclude anything beyond the occasional expression of good will and a vague recognition that they share a common mission history. While some point to the bitter dispute as the cause of the disjunction between the schools and UCCJ congregations, other factors include reliance of the schools on government subsidies and control, the decline in the number of qualified Christian teachers, widespread distrust of established religions among youth, and the increasingly materialistic ethos of Japanese society. The overall result is that the commitment to evangelism in the schools has been seriously weakened and, in some cases, thoroughly repudiated, with long-term consequences evident in the decline in recruitment to church membership and to ministerial vocations. A final issue involves a widespread need for perseverance in personal Christian life. The retired president of Tokyo Union Theological Seminary, Matsunaga Kikuo, has cited statistics showing that the average Christian life of a Japanese Christian is only 2.8 years! This means that quite a number of the Japanese are baptized in the name of Jesus Christ but after less than three years they lose their Christian commitment and perhaps their faith in Jesus Christ. He criticized UCCJ congregations for paying too much attention to evangelism and too little attention to nurturing the faith of their lay membership. 18 This criticism may be read, in part, as an indictment of UCCJ congregations for failing to nurture candidates for ordained ministry. It may also be read as a kind of self-criticism of outmoded forms of theological education. Significantly, the current curriculum at TUTS has remained virtually unchanged since Conclusion In the face of these gloomy trends, we should note that attempts are being made by the UCCJ, and also the NSKK, to address the serious decline in ministerial vocations. Encouraging steps include: Since 1998, TUTS has held an annual youth gathering at the seminary to challenge young people to consider fulltime ministry as a vocational option. Partly as a result of attending one of these meetings, at least ten students have made decisions to attend seminary. Notes 1. An earlier version of this article was presented at the International Society for the Study of Reformed Communities, Fourth Triennial Conference, Reformed Congregations Engage a Changing World, New College, University of Edinburgh, June 29 July 2, David Reid, New Wine: The Cultural Shaping of Japanese Christianity (Berkeley, Calif.: Asian Humanities Press, 1991), p Kirisutokyo nenkan[christian Yearbook], Tokyo: Kirisuto shinbunsha, 2003, pp Nihon Kirisutokyodan Nenkan[UCCJ Yearbook], Tokyo: Nihon Kirisuto Kyodan Shuppan Kyoku, Kirisutokyo nenkan [Christian Yearbook], 2003, p Nihon Kirisutokyodan Nenkan [UCCJ Yearbook], Interview by Thomas J. Hastings and Mark R. Mullins with Yamakita Nobuhisa, moderator of the UCCJ, in The phenomenon of sudden disappearance (yukuefumei) is also welldocumented among youth and middle-aged women. 9. A fair and detailed account in English of this enduring schism still waits to be written. For helpful treatments, see Reid, New Wine, pp , and Winston Davis, Japanese Religion and Society: Paradigms of The Consultation on School Evangelism (Gakko Dendo Kyogikai), which draws together pastors serving Christian schools across Japan, provides an opportunity for deeper cooperation between churches and Christian schools. There has been an attempt to develop and strengthen grassroots youth associations within the UCCJ churches. A number of candidates for ministry have emerged from these associations. The moderator of the UCCJ has launched a new program of evangelistic meetings especially aimed at youth and their cultivation for leadership in the church. Within the NSKK in recent years efforts have been made to cultivate lay leadership. A decade ago, the Diocese of Yokohama began a lay school of theology. As positive as these steps are, they still focus mainly on the decline in the number of clergy and tend to neglect deeper theological and ecclesiological issues. The theme of the priesthood of all believers has long been regarded as central to the Protestant tradition. This doctrine, however, has had little impact on the understanding of congregational leadership by either the UCCJ or the NSKK. Traditional Protestant concern for a well-educated clergy, combined with a hierarchical Confucian leadership model that emphasizes the positional authority of the pastor/teacher, has not encouraged an active role for the laity. Howard Snyder has astutely observed that the doctrine of the priesthood of the believer has generally been understood soteriologically rather than ecclesiologically. That is, it has been understood to mean that all Christians have direct access to God without the mediation of a human priest. But the implications of this doctrine for Christian ministry have seldom been drawn out. Perhaps the reason is that these implications radically call into question the clergy-laity split by asserting that all believers are priests and therefore ministers. 20 As far as the UCCJ and NSKK are concerned, ministry is generally understood to be what pastors or priests are engaged in, for which the laity bear no responsibility. The boundary between clergy and laity is clearly demarcated, and the membership tend toward passivity. Without a significant transformation of Japanese Christian attitudes and a mobilization of the laity for greater participation in congregational leadership, the future of these Protestant denominations seems very much in question. Structure and Change (New York: State Univ. of New York Press, 1992), pp Mission Research Division of the UCCJ, The figure of 56 percent is drawn from the database of the NSKK pension plan, which requires a minimum of twenty-five years participation in order to receive benefits. Many ordained deacons and priests begin full-time ministry at an age that would not permit them to complete the twenty-five-year requirement before reaching age seventy. Hence approximately one-third elect not to participate in the pension plan. The figure of 63.6 percent more accurately reflects the actual situation of the church as a whole. It is based on all ordained persons assigned to work in the Diocese of Tokyo, including older priests and deacons who are not in the pension plan. 12. Lay readers in the Anglican Church are allowed to conduct nonsacramental worship, but as Anderson has pointed out, Except for parish maintenance at the local level, lay participation in the worship and work of the Church is token, unless forced by economic necessity (Donald W. Anderson, Mission in the NSKK Since the 22 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 30, No. 1

6 Pacific War: A Preliminary Study, Japan Christian Quarterly [Winter 1973]: 51). 13. Mission Research Division of the UCCJ, Nakamura Kyoko, The Religious Consciousness and Activities of Contemporary Japanese Women, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 24, nos. 1 2 (1997): The age of new seminarians is also increasing in the NSKK. Many begin studies in their forties or fifties, resulting in a significantly shorter ministerial career. 16. For the post-aum situation in Japan, see Religion and Social Crisis in Japan: Understanding Japanese Society Through the Aum Affair, ed. Robert J. Kisala and Mark R. Mullins (Basingstoke, Eng.: Palgrave, 2001). 17. Kirisutokyo nenkan [Christian Yearbook], Matsunaga Kikuo, Theological Education in Japan, in Preparing for Witness in Context: 1998 Cook Theological Seminar, ed. Jean S. Stoner (Louisville, Ky.: Presbyterian Publishing House, 1999), p It is noteworthy that the UCCJ has not been able to nurture leaders for mission beyond Japan. There are a few UCCJ pastors and Christian workers serving outside Japan, but none is supported financially by the denomination itself. The situation is similar in the NSKK. The constrast with South Korea is stark, where churches claim 25 percent of the population as members, are vigorously engaged in global mission, and currently support over 10,000 missionaries abroad. See Steve S. C. Moon, The Recent Korean Missionary Movement: A Record of Growth, and More Growth Needed, International Bulletin of Missionary Research 27 (January 2003): Howard Snyder, Liberating the Church: The Ecology of Church and Kingdom (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1983), p January