Spiritual War in Japan

Warning: This post contains unpleasant and horrifying images. Open it at your own risk. 

Inability to discern evil is deeply rooted in the way of thinking of Japanese people. Nikko Tosho-Gu Shrine bears a famous wood carving of three wise monkeys of see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.”

• Mizaru (見ざる), who sees no evil, covering his eyes
• Kikazaru (聞かざる), who hears no evil, covering his ears, and
• Iwazaru (言わざる), who speaks no evil, covering his mouth.

The monkeys teach a wisdom of “turn a blind eye on evil.” The Shinto Shrine teaching insists “the world is not a battlefield between good and evil.”

This belief prevents the development of discernment. A lack of discernment disables Japanese people to distinguish right from wrong.

Discernment has only one function: to distinguish right from wrong so the right can be acknowledged and the wrong can be disregarded (Bondage Breaker, p179)

In WWII, the Japanese accepted to die for the Emperor without asking questions, for they could not distinguish the difference between good and evil. Dying for the Emperor became a holy duty for Japanese people.

The Japanese people were told that the Emperor was divine himself and the highest purpose of life of every subject’s life was death in his service. (Douglas McArthur, Reminiscences, p311)

“Dying was the ultimate fulfillment of our duty,” said Japanese kamikaze pilots bowing at Yasukuni Shrine. They were ready to die for honor and glory of the Emperor.

American anthropologist Ruth Benedict writes about Japanese inability to discern the problem of evil.

In Japanese philosophy the flesh is not evil. Enjoying its possible pleasures is not sin. The spirit and the body are not opposing forces in the universe and the Japanese carry this tenet to a logical conclusion: the world is not a battlefield between good and evil. Sir George Sansom writes: “Throughout their history the Japanese seem to have retained in some measure this incapacity to discern, or this reluctance to grapple with, the problem of evil (The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, p19)

Japan has apologized for waging aggressive war and oppressing its neighbors, but those apologies are fumbling and awkward. Japan has not been as repentant as Germany that has faced up to the dark side of their past.

A growing number of lawmakers visit Yasukuni Shrine, symbol of WWII militarism and aggression. The Japanese politicians with Shinto faith do not want to make Japan a battlefield between good and evil.

Like the three monkeys in Nikko Tosho-Gu, the lawmakers turn a blind eye on the problem of evil. So they remain unrepentant by visiting Yasukuni Shrine. But their official visits have been inviting the demands of Asian victims for an apology on Japanese war crimes.

God knows the conversations of the Japanese lawmakers with Shinto faith:

I listen to their conversations and don’t hear a word of truth. Is anyone sorry for doing wrong? Does anyone say, “What a terrible thing I have done”? No! All are running down the path of sin as swiftly as a horse galloping into battle! (Jeremiah 8:6)

Nobody knows Satan’s schemes. Satan and Shinto conservatives are biding their time until the Japanese lawmakers restore Shinto as a state religion.