Comments for sursumcorda.salemsattic.com/post/stained-glass-elegies

Comment #2024

2010-07-12T11:28:22Z

Endo's "Silence" and "The Golden Country" deal with the latter topics most extensively, as I remember.

Comment #2023

2010-07-12T09:43:35Z

Yes, the honesty is clear, yet without being nasty, which I greatly appreciate. I agree that the writing is good (which credit belongs to the translator as well as the writer).

I've read a little (very little) before about the trampling of the fumie and of the struggles the Japanese Church had in coming to grips with the return of those who had apostatized. I think it would be an enlightening study.

Comment #2022

2010-07-12T07:56:42Z

Other questions that Endo wrestles with are which Western cloaks Christianity needs to shed again to be as universal as we claim it is, and the question of God not letting us go. He has a few characters who trample the image of Mary and the cross out of fear and cowardice, but then come crawling back as soon as the threat of physical harm is gone - too weak to stand up under the threat of torture, but unable to apostasize. If I remember correctly, he himself became a Catholic as a child and describes himself as one whom God would not let go. It's certainly a different twist on predestination.

Yes, the themes are depressing, and redemption isn't always clearly in sight, but he writes beautifully and explores these themes with a probing honesty that I seem to be unable to find with Protestant writers. Maybe I need to look harder...