Important changes have taken place in churches' thinking about giving and receiving,
with new emphasis on the causes of poverty in Asian and African nations.

The Christian churches in Japan have taken much from the churches of Europe and the United States as they have grown. In 2009 Japan's Protestant churches plan to jointly observe the 150th anniversary of the Protestant presence in Japan, commemorating the start of missionary work in the country in 1859 by the American Episcopal missionary John Liggins and the American Presbyterian missionary James Curtis Hepburn, and others. Christianity was transmitted to Japan through the work of European and American missionaries; in large part, the traditions and theology passed down from those missionaries live on today. From the early days until the present the Christian churches in Japan have received a lot of assistance, both financial and personal, from the churches of Europe and America, while their members have continued to exist as a minority in Japanese society. With Japan's post-World War II economic renaissance, the churches became more self-sufficient, and the Japanese churches of today have changed from churches that receive to churches that give.

Historical Background

Most of the world's Christian churches, including those in Japan, support their clergy, conduct their evangelical missionary work, and maintain and manage themselves by collecting monetary offerings from their parishioners. Sometimes they will take up special collections for social service activities and for emergency relief for victims of disasters.

There are several places in the New Testament that record Jesus talking about contributions, or "offerings." It goes without saying that these words of Jesus were spoken in the context of the Judaism of his day. Jesus, witnessing the hypocrisy of the ostentatious almsgiving practiced by some believers, taught his disciples, and others who listened to him, that when giving to charity one should do it without seeking the recognition of others. He taught that charity represents an expression of thanks to God, not a means of demonstrating one's good deeds.

On one occasion Jesus, seeing a poor widow put two copper lepton coins (a minuscule amount of money) into the offertory box, said to his disciples, "Of all the persons putting money into the offertory box, this poor widow has put in the most . . . because she, though destitute, has put in all that she has, all her living" (Mark 12:43). Jesus emphasized that how sincerely an offering was made was of more importance than the amount. Jesus also taught his twelve disciples that they must "love one another" (John 13:34-35), saying that the most important of the commandments were to "love God" and to "love your neighbor as you love yourself." This signaled a new direction beyond the usual understanding of the nationalistic "loving of one's neighbors" of the Judaism of the time.

After Jesus's death and resurrection the churches, such as the Jerusalem church established around the disciple Peter and Jesus's brother James and the Gentile church established around Paul and Barnabas, formed a fellowship of believers based on love (agape) as taught by Jesus. Actually, in the early churches, Christian believers sold their homes and land, shared their personal possessions, and helped the poor. Furthermore, there is a record that the followers of the Gentile church in Macedonia came to the aid of the poor of the Jerusalem church. And Paul relates that the Macedonian faithful received a gift of the spirit from the Jerusalem faithful. This suggests a new relationship that goes beyond that between the givers and the receivers of aid.

When Christianity spread throughout the world of the Roman Empire, followers who suffered persecution formed communities based on Jesus's concept of love. In 313 CE Christianity was officially recognized as an approved religion by the Roman Emperor Constantine I. Although Julian ("the Apostate"), who became emperor in 361 CE, rejected Christianity as a state religion, reviving instead the worship of Greek deities, it bears stressing that he recognized giving aid to the poor as one of the activities of the Christians of that time. From its early days, in addition to caring for its own maintenance and operations, Christian churches have paid special attention to the poor among their congregations and to those members of society who have no one to care for them. Today's education, medical care, social welfare, development aid, and emergency services and the like are directly descended from this.

What This Means Today

I recall a time more than twenty years ago when I worked on the Development and Service Program Committee of the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA). On that committee the creation of a system that would enable the sharing of support and cooperation among the various churches was being debated. The then-chairman of the committee, Rev. M. Azariah, general secretary of the Church of South India, asked, "Are you trying to create among the churches of Asia relationships of the donors of aid and the recipients of aid? If so, we do not need such relationships in Asia." The Asian churches were always recipients of aid from European and U.S. churches, which were always the donors of such aid. Another opposing view heard at the time was that the donors would say, "This aid money is our money, so we will decide how it is to be spent," to which the recipients would counter, "The money results from our exploitation, so it is only to be expected that it would be returned to us." It was in the context of such debates that the World Consultation on Resource Sharing, held in El Escorial, Spain, in 1987 by the World Council of Churches (WCC), brought about a major shift in how to think about giving and receiving.

Representatives of the churches in Africa and Asia were saying that donations targeting only poverty and hunger should be stopped. They wanted consideration given to the root causes that are responsible for the poverty. On the other hand, representatives of the European and U.S. churches felt that they were right to demand accountability from the recipients regarding the aid that was donated, saying that they had an obligation to their donors. Furthermore, the resource-sharing consultation meeting discussed sharing not only material and financial resources but also the issues confronting the churches of the Southern Hemisphere, sharing their struggles for justice and fairness and their personal and spiritual resources. The El Escorial consultation meeting was the starting point for a change in the way of thinking about both donors and recipients.

Today, one can see that the staffs of practically all the decision-making bodies of European and U.S. churches and Christian church-related development aid organizations include Asian and African members. This can be understood as an indication not just of accountability to their own constituents, but also of accountability to the members on the other side. Rather than simply making donations that only target the needs of poor people in Asian and African nations, the churches of Northern Hemisphere countries, including Japan, are providing information and educating their own people to think about why such poverty exists in Asia and Africa. As to the experience of the National Christian Council (NCC) in Japan, it has created the International Sharing Committee and is undertaking joint efforts on issues related to material and personnel sharing. In this case the material assistance is not simply "giving," but rather "sharing."

I will use as an example the recent rash of political killings in the Philippines under the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. At the request of the NCC in the Philippines, the NCC in Japan participated in a joint inquiry by the WCC and the CCA and later succeeded in pressuring the Japanese government to ask the Philippine government to open an investigation into the situation. Moreover, relief donations such as those following the cyclone in Myanmar and the great earthquake in Sichuan, China, both of which occurred in May 2008, are being channeled to the affected areas through Action by Churches Together (ACT). This is an alliance of Protestant and Orthodox churches and related organizations, all members of the WCC or the Lutheran World Federation. Its coordinating office is in Geneva. This is proof that the tradition of the early churches, wherein Christians turned over their own belongings so that their church might do its work of assisting the poor and less fortunate, has been energetically passed on to the churches of today.

Kenichi Otsu, a minister of the United Church of Christ in Japan, worked as executive secretary of the Christian Conference of Asia. From 1994 he served for nine years as general secretary of the National Christian Council in Japan; currently he is the council's acting general secretary. He also serves as chair of the Public Relations Committee of the Japanese Committee of Religions for Peace.

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