Christianity ‘A Kind Of Vitamin’

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30823, 7 August 1965, Page 1

Christianity ‘A Kind Of Vitamin’

Christian religion should not be “an opium,” but rather “a kind of vitamin” to reawaken and revitalise human values in the complex, modern society.

This view is held by Professor M. Takinaka, dean of the school of theology at Doshisha University, in Kyoto, Japan, who arrived in Christchurch last evening on his way back to Japan, after giving an annual lecture to the faculty of theology at Otago University. As a theologian, Professor Takinaka is a specialist on the impact of technology on traditional cultures. He was also most interested in the arrival of a party of White Russians, members of an unusual Christian sect, the Old Believers, at Christchurch airport last evening, and was interviewed by a reporter as he watched the new arrivals, and took photographs of them.

In the complex, highlyorganised society of today—“and it’s now a small world,” Professor Takinaka said—religion had an important part to play in the promotion of human values. One of his graduates had recently gone to Cairo to work in this field, in "industrial evangelism.” Professor Takinaka said that the Christian Church in Japan had a half-million adherents among a total population of about 93m—“in other words, one out of every 200 is a Christian,” he said. The Christian Church in Japan was increasing its membership, but not per-centage-wise with the increase in Japanese population.

There were 80 Christian teaching establishments in Japan, 18 of them at the higher level—colleges and universities. Japan is well ahead of New Zealand in the organisation of theological study, according to the outline of his university department given by Professor Takinaka. It had 13 full-time professors on its staff, he said. Four thousand students were accepted for the theological course each year out of 40,000 who applied. “We have a four-day entrance examination,” Professor Takinaka said.