Jesus in Japan

According to legend Jesus visited Japan when he was 21 to study Theology then returned to Judea. Supposedly Jesus escaped crucifixion by letting his identical brother take his place and then returned to Japan. He lived out his days there as a Rice Farmer and fathered a family, a descendant still around today: Junichiro Sawaguchi. He claims that it's not true but people say he is. Jesus supposedly lived past 100, and is buried with his identical brother (not sure how he got there). Dan Brown eat your heart out!


It gets better/worse. There is an annual festival where people sing a folk song as they dance around the graves. Apparently this has not meaning in Japanese but is just sounds. Some think that it is distorted Hebrew!? If you are interested there is a museum there too where you can see 'Ancient' documents and artefacts, then enjoy Dracula Ice-cream and Jesus Sake, after which you can take home a souvenir mug!

You can read up on it and see more pictures here (BBC), and here (random article).

BTW, the picture at the top says 'Christ's Grave'. I particularly like that it's sponsered by Coca Cola!

Till next time!

Faith like a Sci-fi fan

As the author of Hebrews (not a debate for now) tells us " Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." (Heb 11:1) Anyone who has ever seen a Sci-fi programme I'm sure will understand this perfectly. Case in point: Stargate. There are currently two different Stargate series (although there is about to be 3 where I'm sure the pattern will continue): SG1 and Atlantis.

In SG1 there is a rather geeky Doctor, Daniel Jackoson who in the original film hooks up with a native girl on the planet he visits called Sha're. Now Daniel is a wonderful fellow but is socially awkward and wouldn't win a Male beauty contest. Sha're on the other hand is a stunner, intelligent, fun, etc and yet they end up together! This whole thing happens later where she gets possessed by an Alien but that's beside the point.

In Atlantis there is a rather similar Doctor, Rodney Mckay. Again a delightful fellow but also socially inept, not winning any beauty contest himself ends up with may attractive ladies including the stunning Doctor Jennifer Keller (M.D).

Now you must commend them for their faith. Maybe I am naive, maybe Sci-Fi Convos are where the totty is but in generally I doubt it. If only I could have faith like a Sci-Fi geek perhaps then I'd be the greatest man of God alive!

Till next time!

Me likee McFlied Lice!

McDonalds in Japan have a new advertisement campaign with one Mr. James as star. He is a stereo-typical Caucasian businessman in Japan and can't speak Japanese. Oh, Mr. James!



The adverts are on TV, billboards, flyers, on trays. Basically everywhere McDonalds can get, just like here. To me this is a very realistic example of someone trying to learn Japanese and quite funny. However a group in Japan called the Foreign Residents and Naturalized Citizens Association (FRANCA), has written an open letter (of which can be found here) to the McDonald's HQ in the US to shut down the ad campaign.

Among other points they say:
"To illustrate the issue more clearly, would McDonald’s USA (or McDonald’s in any other country, for that matter) choose to promote, for example, a new rice dish with a “ching-chong Chinaman” saying, “Me likee McFlied Lice!”? Of course not."

Personally I think FRANCA should just learn to laugh and get over it. It will blow over soon enough.

'The Escapist' (from whom I borrowed this post) said 'Baka gaijin!'(Silly foreigner) of Mr. James. Perhaps it applies to FRANCA more aptly?!

Till next time!

Worship for Dummies

Thanks to Wesleyan Arminian for this.

Christmas in September!!!

It's September and various stores are all-ready selling Christmas goods. What has the world come to. There is a time and a season! Rather aptly the season for Christmas is called Christmas, and the time to prepare for is, Advent! This is ridiculous! One good thing however is it means that Mince Pies are here too! Thank you Mr. Kipling!
There's no real point to this post except to both rant and brag!:P

Till Next time!

Oh, and Merry "Christmas"!

Sometimes these are too realistic!

Found here: Ape, not monkey

Sometimes I wonder why non-Christians won't listen when you tell them about Jesus, then I remember "Oh yeah! Christians." We have a lot of work to do.

Till next time!

Prayer

Per-Crucem-ad-Lucem has recently written a post called 'Pre-school Theology-1'(You can find the post here). In it he writes a few corkers his 3 year old has said whilst they studies the Lord's prayer. Children come out with some great things due to thier honesty, from the hilarious to the profound. Two that particularly struck me were:

‘It’s OK when we don’t know how to pray because Jesus can pray for us’.
and
‘I don’t understand the Spirit’.

How often do we rest on God and just say 'I can't do it! I don't understand prayer at all, I barely understand anything about you.' Instead we try to pretend that everything is ok, that we have it all figured out. Perhaps its time that we say to God, 'Help me understand more about you' and 'Help me to pray', instead of just pretending we have it all sorted. That's not to say we cannot be confident in what we know but that we need to be humble and admit when we don't. Perhaps it's just me.

Till next time!

Just when you think he's gone it gets worse!

"Pastor" Steve Anderson is at it again. This time he seems to be threatening Barack Obama. If you are a Christian and you're not sure why this is wrong then please let me know urgently so I can send you a Bible! This guy is a nut!



Thanks to Scotteriology for the post. You can see a synopsis of Mr. Anderson's Crazy theology here.

Till next time!

If Japan became Christian...

As an Evangelical Christian I want the whole world to become Christian. However I had a thought today about what this may mean. Much of Japan is based upon a Shinto/Buddhist mix which is almost impossible to separate from their culture. What would happen to all their rituals? What would happen to the Shrines and temples? The iconography? The idols? Should they all be ridden of, or left? This, I suppose can be applied to any culture but as Japan is dear to me I thought I'd pose it like this.

It seems to me that for most the answer is obvious: destroy all trace of falsehood. However I'm not so sure. What if we left these as symbols of the past? Just as a fat person who becomes thin keeps a piece of their old clothing to remind them of what they once were could not a convert see their old life in a similar way? Perhaps many of the rituals and traditions could be incorporated into Christianity, or general life in some way. Just as the Maypole is part of (Traditional) British life, so could the purification ritual become for the Japanese.

Christianity has a long history of taking an old concept, ritual or tradition and making it Christian rather then destroying it. Easter for example used to be a spring festival of new life, cleverly replaced with our resurrection festival.

Just some initial thoughts. May post more about this at a later date.

Till Next Time!

Onigiri ga suki desu!

For the uninitiated, this means (he hopes) something along the lines of "I like Onigiri" in Japanese. Onigiri are balls of rice filled with various fillings then wrapped in nori (seaweed). They are amazing and (almost) impossible to buy here....so I attempted to make some myself. They look pretty good but I've not tasted them yet. I'll update you asap! Rather untraditionally mine have "Chicken and Bacon" filler from Tesco in them. Umeboshi are pretty hard to get here.

Till next time!

UPDATE: They tasted nice, very nice! There was only two issues:
1) My brother Aaron came in and laughed at me saying "Are they onigiri in the fridge?
" I said, "Yes, but they went a little wrong." He replied laughing "They look awful!"
2) He was right! Nevermind. May be they will look a little more Kawaii (cute) next time, as they are meant too!

I could have died?!?! AKA 'How to make your own Calpis'

Ok, so last summer I visited that wonderful land we call Japan! It is indeed that land of the bizarre. Anyway they have a drink there called Calpis. (Known as 'Calpico' elsewhere in the world because, I am told, it sounds like Cow-piss. Not sure why this would be a problem in non-English speaking countries but there we are.) It is a milk based drink and comes as still (water) and, recently, fizzy (soda).

I fell in love [sic] with the Calpis Soda and have been craving it ever since. I even went to the lengths of going to buy it online but when I realised that including P&P it would cost me about £5 a can I regrettably gave up. I have since moved near croydon where there is a massive food store called Win yip. It sells various oriental food stuffs including: Calpis Water! alas, not the soda :( . I did however get the water and thoroughly enjoyed. However I now crave it even more. "Oh Calpis. Fickle is thy name!"

Whilst stumbling 'Japan' recently (for the uninitiated its a web tool which brings up various pages in the genre of which you are interested. See here) a page came up with Calpis and the news that Coca-cola are releasing their version in America called 'Vio'. Apparently it's not to the American pallet: see here. Looks like it won't make it here then. Sad times, or as my little brother says, "Too bad, so sad".

I also stumbled upon this:



Genius! So I gave it a go. Now granted I used Schweppes, not 7-up, so its not really a fair assessment however here is what I found. I came on here to say that it wasn't good and don't try it however during the time it took to write this I ended up liking it. Not good really. I suppose it's better for me then just lemonade. What does worry me is that whilst I was searching for the picture above I came across the following website: Yahoo!answers. It asked "Could drinking a glass of real lemonade after a glass of milk kill a person? Which president died from this?" WHAT!!!!! Lemonade and milk can kill me? All I wanted was a refreshing drink and now I'm going to die. After reading further I discovered that no president had died of this and that it doesn't kill you. It's based on an old wives tales that it makes you sick. Phew! I particularly liked the response by Major Eyeswater (lol) who said "Can you cite your source? To my knowledge, no US President has ever died from consuming lemonade and milk." A lesson to us all. As in panic raising questions and Theology alike, please cite your sources.

Till next time! Go and enjoy a nice glass of home-made Calpis!