Lost in Translation and the Problem of a Pure Christian Message: How "Christianity" Assimilates and Changes Among Christians in Other Parts of the World.

We all know that the formation of Christianity happened in the Greco-Roman world under the influences of Judaism. Indeed, it is often demonstrated that concepts that are not found in Judaism, such as the gospel of John’s use of the Stoic concept of logos, found their way into important doctrines of the Christian Church through the intimate relationship the Church’s writers had with their own Greco-Roman culture.

Western Christianity regularly forgets that Christianity is a world religion that penetrates many cultures. And when enculturation of beliefs occurs, like the foundational integrations between Judaism and Hellenism, Christianity also never survives an unadulterated introduction into the culture it seeks to entice into conversion. Here are just a couple of examples where the “pure” message of Christianity is hybridized into some cultures that approximate Christianity, but lend new meaning and practice.

Yomi no Kuni is the underworld in Shinto Japan. Unlike Christianity’s hell, it is not a place of demons and devils but a final abode for all the dead, and the place where the primordial god Izanami first went to die after her fight with her fire-god son.  The kanji for Yomi no Kuni (meaning “yellow springs” from the Chinese) is 黄泉.

What is interesting is that when Christian missionaries first took their message to Japan in the 1500s and the age of bible translations flourished in the 1800s, the standard way of representing hell was as 黄泉. So in Revelation 6:8 for example, hell, which follows the pale rider of Death is represented as Yomi no Kuni. I don’t read Kanji (though I took a semester of Japanese in college), but here is the verse in Japanese. The kanji characters that are important are highlighted.

そこで見ていると、見よ、青白い馬が出てきた。そして、それに乗っている者の名は「死」と言い、それに黄泉が従っていた。彼らには、地の四分の一を支配する権威、および、つるぎと、ききんと、死と、地の獣らとによって人を殺す権威とが、与えられた。

The "actual" entrance to Yomatso Hirasaka (or Yomi no Kuni)

A striking and perhaps intentional parallel to Revelation 6 is the return of Christ in Revelation 19 who is followed by the armies of heaven riding on a white horse and dressed in white robes (just as a side note, the incarnation of Vishnu named Kalki is also pictured in Indian legend as returning from the clouds on a white horse). But unlike the angels, these are the saints of God….the believers. Yet the Japanese translation has taken the former understanding of Yomi no Kuni, and narrowed the meaning considerably. Yomi no Kuni becomes similar to a place like Abraham’s bosom (whatever this is) or Hades, where everyone goes, or Niraka in some forms of Hinduism. This is not the vision of Western Christianity, but it creates interesting problems for anyone trying to wrap their minds around the eschatology. Yomi no Kuni as a Shinto concept where all the dead go becomes Yomi no Kuni as a Christian concept where only the evil dead go. Why this happens is up for debate. One might argue those who welcomed assimilation loved to glory in parallels where they could be found, even if they were only approximations.  To find parallels was to create reassurances about the importance of one's own culture in the face of foreign ideas. Precision and accuracy were not as important as the comfort of taking foreign concepts that already had some shape or resonance in one’s culture (“you’ve got an underworld…we’ve got an underworld”), ignoring the finer points of detail, and making them your own without understanding how they “fit” into the larger picture.

When one looks at Hinduism, various ex-Hindu Christians have sought to assimilate their new faith in various ways. One such example is referring to heaven as Vaikuntha. The translation from Hindi, meaning “the paradise of Vishnu” becomes the abode of Jesus (Yeju Krista). Vishnu, of course, is one of the most important deities in bhakti (devotional) Hinduism, next to Shiva. Moksha (liberation) is often seen as the path of spiritual enlightenment, though it is very much part of the religious tradition of Hindu yoga (the four paths of marga) and Samkhya by self-attainment, but also Hindu philosophy, such as Vedanta, where it is reimagined among Indian Christians. As well as offering a means of liberation, Moksha is often equated with the Christian heaven as a place where Jesus is seated.

What is important is that for Indian Christians, losing their own religious verbiage within their new set of beliefs is often a non-negotiable condition. Unless there is specific and perhaps aggressive influence by Western Christians, Indians were permitted to attune Christianity into the natural flow of Hinduism, which is a religious of deep and rich polyphony. Even among the staunchest Indian Christians, like those of the Christa Ashram in Ponono, and excluding Charismatics and some Evangelicals, Jesus is still called Sadguru (or good teacher). Many depictions of Jesus in India place him in the position of sadhana (doing spiritual exercises) or resting on a lotus flower (imagery important to the sacred symbology of Eastern religions). While one linguist may say that Sadguru, for example, is simply a translation for “good teacher,” a philosopher or sociologist of religions might argue that words are often not disassociated from their cultural meanings.  By calling Jesus “Sadguru,” Indians look to keep Jesus in the mainstream of Hindu religious and cultural existence.

These are just some of the ways religious homogeneity remains a difficult task. Assimilations like these challenge a pure understanding of the faith we think we have or think we can recover, despite Paul's hope that we all come to one faith and one baptism. We haven't been able to do that in Western Christianity, and the task in Eastern Christianity is perhaps more difficult.