Masaaki Suzuki: belief

Transcript context

…With your Japanese background, do you think you approach Christianity differently? I think so, quite different from any other. Well, actually, each of the countries have a different approach to Christianity or whatever religion, I think. Japan is quite different from Korea. For example, Korea has many more Christians. Now, it is said that 40 percent or 50 percent of the population is Christian, but in Japan it’s always said that only 1 percent or something. In spite of that, the Christian culture is very well known in Japan. Everyone knows what Christmas is, even Easter. They are quite known nowadays, but there are not so many Christians in Japan. I thought formerly that is a big negative aspect, but I think that it’s not possible, really, to count who is a Christian, who is not a Christian. [laughs] We perform the St. Matthew’s Passion regularly in Holy Week. Every year for 20 years, we are doing it. Now, we have, regularly, 30 performances in Holy Week in the same venue. Something like 5,000, 6,000 people are coming for that performance. That is an amazing thing in comparison with the number of Christians in Japan. Actually, I think that many people can appreciate that kind of message from the Bible as well — not only Bach’s music but from the Bible and so on. That is my hope. Do you ever think back on what is called the Christian century in Japan, which ends, I think, in 1639, when a lot of Japanese convert to Christianity fairly rapidly, but then Christianity is suppressed? Is there some alternate history where Japan becomes, more or less, a Christian country? Or could that never have happened?…

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