- 著者
- 加藤 知子 Kato Tomoko
- 雑誌
- 研究紀要
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.15, pp.13-28, 2015-03-27
Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace (wam) is a Christian-affiliated institute, which is situated on the second floor of the AVACO (Audio Visual Activities Commission) Building in Tokyo. On the 6th of July, 2014, AVACO Building was targeted by conservative, nationalistic Japanese demonstrators, who most likely confused Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace with the AVACO Building. Such a demonstration has served as an opportunity for people, however, to think anew of what kind of institution wam is, what activities they are actually doing, and what sort of idea is behind them and their daily activities. The Asahi Shimbun, in its issues of the fifth and sixth of August, 2014, finally admitted that they had spread some misinformation about so-called Comfort Women who had allegedly been taken by force to offer sexual pleasure to Japanese Imperial Military officers and soldiers. Even after these articles were published, however, certain Christian-affiliated organizations, including wam, instead of rethinking their unique historical perspective on the Modern History of Japan, continued criticizing the country for her treatment of the so-called Comfort Women during the first half of the 20th century. The historical perspective on Modern Japan, like the one adopted by wam, has dominated the Japanese Christian circles since the end of the Second World War. In this paper, I will argue that such a historical perspective may drive Japan into havoc by showing that the wam’s endeavors (largely determined by their unique historical perspective) and the Chinese Communist Party’s military strategic zones somehow overlap. Finally, in Chapter Ⅴ of this paper, I will ask Japanese Christian priests and pastors to work on ways to interpret the passages in the Bible that include not only pacifist messages but also apparently militaristic ones. I will close this paper with a humble request that Christians in Japan should first seek for the Holy Spirit (ruach ha-kodesh, in Hebrew), who believers hold will guide them to the true knowledge including secular interpretations of the historical facts as well as religious understanding of Bible passages themselves.