I’ve recently read three novels that have raised the question, or something like it: What’s the responsibility of a Christian living in an unjust or even evil system?
What impact does the fact of living in that system, with the threat of punishment for violating its norms, have on moral culpability? How is a Christian to act in these systems when systemic norms conflict with Christian norms? And what about the institution? There’s no ambiguity in any of these books – why does institutional Christianity – aka the Church, the Body of Christ – stay silent so very often in the face of systemic injustice and evil?
The books?
Vespers in Vienna, discussed here and here; Uncle Tom’s Cabin, on a re-read for the high school homeschool, discussed here the first go around some years ago, and then, over the last couple of days, Shusako Endo’s 1982 novel, just recently published in English translation, Sachiko.
In the 1930s, two young Japanese Christians, Sachiko and Shūhei, are free to play with American children in their neighborhood. But life becomes increasingly difficult for them and other Christians after Japan launches wars of aggression. Meanwhile, a Polish Franciscan priest and former missionary in Nagasaki, Father Maximillian Kolbe, is arrested after returning to his homeland. Endō alternates scenes between Nagasaki—where the growing love between Sachiko and Shūhei is imperiled by mounting persecution—and Auschwitz, where the priest has been sent. Shūhei’s dilemma deepens when he faces conscription into the Japanese military, conflicting with the Christian belief that killing is a sin. With the A-bomb attack on Nagasaki looming in the distance, Endō depicts ordinary people trying to live lives of faith in a wartime situation that renders daily life increasingly unbearable. Endō’s compassion for his characters, reflecting their struggles to find and share love for others, makes Sachiko one of his most moving novels.
Once more, we see the power and importance of literature. Even at the middlebrow level, like Vespers in Vienna. Literature gives us a window in the struggles of human beings in the past and shows us that what we’re experiencing right now isn’t, at root, unique.
In most things, we’re complicit in injustice or even evil in some respect – that’s the price of living in the world. It’s not heaven, there’s no absolute purity. But when do we draw the line? When does our complicity cross a line into co-operation? When can we say no? When should we? When must we? And what about the Church?
“Take this last war then,” he said. “For the second time in less than twenty-five years Christian has fought against Christian, Catholic against Catholic. And what have the cardinals and the archbishops and the bishops had to say about it? Has one single significant utterance come from their lips? Has any one of them uttered a clear statement that sinful men could understand and be guided by? Has any German archbishop told the Ger- mans that it was a crime to launch flying bombs and rockets against the city of London? Has any Italian bishop spoken a fearless thing? Has any English arch- bishop or bishop dared to condemn the area-bombing of Berlin and the burning alive of German babies with phosphorus bombs? Has the Holy Father ever spoken one clear unambiguous truth that could be understood of the people, by the harlot in her doorway as well as by the pontiff in his palace? Has any cardinal cried out the clean, true, cool gospel of Christ that even men in their taverns respect?“
From Uncle Tom’s Cabin:
“O, Dr. G— preached a splendid sermon,” said Marie. “It was just such a sermon as you ought to hear; it expressed all my views exactly.”
“It must have been very improving,” said St. Clare. “The subject must have been an extensive one.”
“Well, I mean all my views about society, and such things,” said Marie. “The text was, ‘He hath made everything beautiful in its season;’ and he showed how all the orders and distinctions in society came from God; and that it was so appropriate, you know, and beautiful, that some should be high and some low, and that some were born to rule and some to serve, and all that, you know; and he applied it so well to all this ridiculous fuss that is made about slavery, and he proved distinctly that the Bible was on our side, and supported all our institutions so convincingly. I only wish you’d heard him.”
“We have!” someone responded, his voice almost angry, as though he was ready to strike a blow. Shahei did not answer, but that evening he pondered what sort or reply he would glve when the time came that he would receive such an order.
As a Catholic, he had been instructed by the priests and his parents from the time he was a child that committing suicide was a sin, Just as one must not snatch away the life of another person. one must not selfishly obliterate one’s own life, since it was a gift from God—that was one of the Church’s teachings.
What should he do when he was ordered by his superiors to perform an act that went against those teachings?
There was not a single person in his squadron with whom Shuhei could discuss this problem, since he was the only Christian here.
Besides the contradiction between the Christian teaching “Thou shalt not kill” and the mission of a soldier, a different conflict now stabbed at him painfully…
It was a problem he would have to resolve on his own. He knew that there was not a single priest in Japan who could respond In any fashion to this contradiction
I’m going to post the next as a screenshot – I don’t have time to transcribe. The pastor here is a Protestant pastor of a chapel Shuhei has wandered into in Tokyo.
Just a brief recap of Sachicko. First off, it was absorbing in its way, but it might be my least favorite Endo novel. It’s far longer than most of the others, less cohesive and more straightforward, less allusive and poetic.
That said, I still enjoyed the experience of reading it, and you might too. Endo offers an invaluable, close look at the lives of Japanese Catholics before World War II, weaving in the story of St. Maximilian Kolbe. I actually found the sections of the book focused on Kolbe the most compelling – they were the most evocatively written, with the chapters on Auschwitz, in which Kolbe’s experiences are really just a shadow in the corner reflecting off the experiences, first another prisoner, and secondly, a camp commander, particularly artful. It’s an artfulness and subtlety that’s missing from the sections focusing on Sachiko and her longtime friend……, perhaps showing the difficulty of turning autobiography into literature. The distance and necessity of using imagination rather than memory makes stronger fiction, at least in this case.
But the question remains.
We are in this world, but not of it, but then we are called – no, commanded – to bring light into this very same world. What does that mean?
Don’t expect to find an easy answer, ever. And don’t expect the question to ever go away.
Charlotte was Both 