Forgiveness, Gospel Restoration/Love, & Historical Horrors of Japan
I’m not Japanese. I’m Korean.
But my father was born Japanese – or at least he was forced to take a Japanese name Hideo Matsuyama as a subject of the Japanese Imperial Government which controlled Korea from 1910 to 1945. As a child he would be beaten if he used his Korean name Sung Kyu Oh or spoke Korean.
And now I his son serve as a missionary among the people he was taught to hate. And there is perhaps good reason humanly speaking to hate the Japanese. We talk about the horrors of the holocaust when Nazi Germany killed 6 million Jews and 20 million Russians.
According to Historian Thomas Chalmers the Japanese slaughtered as many as 30 million Koreans, Chinese and other Asians. There was a holocaust in Asia – but no one
seems to have noticed.
In Asia Japanese scientists tested various chemical and biological weapons such as
bubonic plague and anthrax on human victims.
Human vivisection was performed without anesthesia; body parts were cut off and blood loss tested.
Women were impregnated by soldiers and doctors; their bellies sliced open; their
babies removed and then tested upon leading to their death.
Nazi scientists who visited Japanese medical experimentation facilities vomited from
the horror of what they saw.
200,000 Korean women and girls as young as 12 years old were forced to be sex slaves of the Japanese Imperial army, subject to rape upwards of 100 times per day. They are known today euphemistically as the “Comfort Women.”
Many of them ended up dead as we can see in this picture a ditch filled with the dead
bodies of women. By the way all of these pictures were taken by Japanese soldiers as
souvenirs.
Undergirding all of these medical and sexual atrocities was a racist ideology that sought to subdue, civilize and subject lesser races and peoples.
On top of all of this, many Japanese leaders today STILL do not admit to fault during
Japan’s Imperialist past and they wonder why Koreans and Chinese and other Asians aren’t more thankful.
It should come as no surprise then, that the question that people most often ask me
about our mission work is, “WHY JAPAN?”
“Of all the places in the WORLD, why would a Korean person choose Japan?” The answer that I give is quite simply, “Jesus says, ‘Love your enemies.’”
- Michael Oh, Founder/President of Christ Bible Institute, Nagoya, Japan
- I should also note here that I have heard that as many as 2,000 Korean missionaries are serving in Japan. Please pray for these brothers & sisters as it would be just like God to use them dramatically, sweepingly, to bring the light of Christ into the land of 8 million gods.
But my father was born Japanese – or at least he was forced to take a Japanese name Hideo Matsuyama as a subject of the Japanese Imperial Government which controlled Korea from 1910 to 1945. As a child he would be beaten if he used his Korean name Sung Kyu Oh or spoke Korean.
And now I his son serve as a missionary among the people he was taught to hate. And there is perhaps good reason humanly speaking to hate the Japanese. We talk about the horrors of the holocaust when Nazi Germany killed 6 million Jews and 20 million Russians.
According to Historian Thomas Chalmers the Japanese slaughtered as many as 30 million Koreans, Chinese and other Asians. There was a holocaust in Asia – but no one
seems to have noticed.
In Asia Japanese scientists tested various chemical and biological weapons such as
bubonic plague and anthrax on human victims.
Human vivisection was performed without anesthesia; body parts were cut off and blood loss tested.
Women were impregnated by soldiers and doctors; their bellies sliced open; their
babies removed and then tested upon leading to their death.
Nazi scientists who visited Japanese medical experimentation facilities vomited from
the horror of what they saw.
200,000 Korean women and girls as young as 12 years old were forced to be sex slaves of the Japanese Imperial army, subject to rape upwards of 100 times per day. They are known today euphemistically as the “Comfort Women.”
Many of them ended up dead as we can see in this picture a ditch filled with the dead
bodies of women. By the way all of these pictures were taken by Japanese soldiers as
souvenirs.
Undergirding all of these medical and sexual atrocities was a racist ideology that sought to subdue, civilize and subject lesser races and peoples.
On top of all of this, many Japanese leaders today STILL do not admit to fault during
Japan’s Imperialist past and they wonder why Koreans and Chinese and other Asians aren’t more thankful.
It should come as no surprise then, that the question that people most often ask me
about our mission work is, “WHY JAPAN?”
“Of all the places in the WORLD, why would a Korean person choose Japan?” The answer that I give is quite simply, “Jesus says, ‘Love your enemies.’”
- Michael Oh, Founder/President of Christ Bible Institute, Nagoya, Japan
- I should also note here that I have heard that as many as 2,000 Korean missionaries are serving in Japan. Please pray for these brothers & sisters as it would be just like God to use them dramatically, sweepingly, to bring the light of Christ into the land of 8 million gods.
