Pioneering in Japan

Maybe you know what I'm talking about: You're preaching, or sharing your testimony. Time is standing still. Or rather - somewhere between the ticks of the clock, you've shifted sideways into eternity. The air is different. If this were a movie, the music has transitioned into something stirringly intense. I don't have the words to explain it clearly. I've felt this before (I've felt this many times before, but this is the first time I've remembered it). All of a sudden, you KNOW. You know that what's about to happen - is eternal. Oh, I've talked to people, and witnessed to people, and had people repeat a prayer with me. But sometimes, just sometimes, something happens, and it's like, they're not even hearing YOU. Like when, in The Cross and the Switchblade, everybody becomes deathly quiet, and the Mau Maus start taking off their hats. Your voice sounds like it's coming from another room, and the presence of God is SO stro...

Mr. Nakamura has never sugar-coated the fact that he is an atheist. From the first email he sent me 14 months ago, to an outburst about "sin" last week (that started with the words "You Christians..."), Mr N has never claimed to be anything other than an atheist. Now an "atheist" here in Japan simply means someone who doesn't believe in God, or in any gods, or in anything spiritual. Often what passes for an atheist in some countries is, in reality, a God-hater , whose agenda is to mock, ridicule and undermine the beliefs of non-atheists (usually Christians for some reason. I've noticed that few atheists mock Islam or Buddhism with the same vehemency that they reserve for Christianity or Judaism). Mr N, on the other hand, has consistently professed a simple, but complete lack of knowledge regarding Christianity, Buddhism, Shintoism or any other religion. The first time we met, Mr N said to me - "I am 73 years old. I ran my own accountin...