"Evangelism Is War"

"People," says the slight, greying little Japanese, "used to call me the Dr. Goebbels of Manchukuo." For Premier Tojo and the warmakers of Japan he arranged good-will delegations to Hitler and Mussolini, became propaganda chief of Manchukuo, then of all Japan. At war's end he expected to be tried as a war criminal.

Instead, Tomio Muto was barnstorming through Indiana last week, drawing capacity crowds night after night with his charged oratory, and raising dollars by the hatful. His hope: a million Japanese Christians in four years. "Evangelism is war," says Presbyterian Muto. "As we fight for Christ, we must move on the scale of Alexander and Genghis Khan."

Guilt in the Heart. Fighting is something Tomio Muto understands. As a poor peasant boy of 14 he made his way alone to Tokyo and got a job as servant in a lawyer's house. He did so well at night school that a group of businessmen sent him through college and law school. Two years after graduation he was a judge. The same year (1929) he was baptized a Christian after six years of persuasion by Methodist Missionary Samuel Wainwright and a Japanese Presbyterian. While Muto was helping to run the conquered Chinese territory of Manchukuo, he served as elder in a church there, and sometimes he worried about the difference between his two jobs. "We [Japanese] Christians made an excuse for the war," Muto explains. "We felt we had our duties as citizens. We told ourselves that it was a moral war to save colored nations from aggression. But deep in our hearts we felt guilty."

Let off any postwar punishment by the U.S. military government, but banished from political life, grateful Tomio Muto became an active Christian for the first time. He helped famed Christian Leader Toyohiko Kagawa start a magazine called Christian News (present circulation: 30.000). But when his old boss Tojo was hanged by the Allies in 1948, says Muto, "I felt the rope. Now I knew I must work for Christ. I definitely decided to become a minister."

Eagerness to Please. After half a year of cramming theology, Tomio Muto took the examinations of the United Church of Christ in Japan and became a licensed minister of Tokyo's Omori Church. He spent two spartan years recasting a translation of the Bible into contemporary Japanese, and turned into a spellbinding evangelist. He was an oddity: native Christian evangelists are about as rare in Japan as Japanese are in the Bible belt. Most Japanese ministers concentrate on theology, philosophy, and on earning their livings at outside jobs. Evangelist Muto found, moreover, that Japanese eagerness to please resulted in a high number of signed pledge cards and a low number of conversions.

Last summer two dozen U.S. evangelists descended on the country in an invasion planned to the last poster by ex-Propagandist Muto. Teaming up with Japanese pastors and three marimbas, an organ, harp, chorus, a public-address system and a portable stage, they had encouraging results for such a stubbornly non-Christian country: an estimated 88,520 people reached in 140 public services, and 45 baptized, with another 89 being prepared for baptism.

Ten Million Sympathizers? Tomio Muto's whirl through Indiana is part of a three-month campaign in the U.S. to organize a 40-man team for next summer's work in Japan and to raise some $50,000 to pay for it. "During the occupation," he tells his audiences, "there was an abnormal Christianity boom. The Japanese are adaptable and wanted to flatter the Americans, so many pretended to become Christians. They would have their weddings in churches. But the real test was baptism. Few would do it because it was a cultural break with ancestors, and sometimes with inheritance."

When the occupation ended, the number of Christians went down again. Today there are 230,000 Protestants and 200-ooo Roman Catholics in a population o'f 88 million. The only way to change the situation, says Tomio Muto, is through evangelism. "If we could use a $10 million fund for three years-using radio newspapers, the theater, all propaganda agencies-mobilize all Japanese ministers and all Christians, then I could convert 1,000,000 Japanese. Then Japan will change. Politics will change. Corruption gambling and drinking will be attacked. With 1,000,000 Christians we would have 10 million sympathizers. We would create a moral foundation for Japan."

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