Reddit reviews Silence

For those interested, one of my favorite historical novels is about this period of Japan: Silence by Shusaku Endo. [Wiki], [Good Reads], [Amazon], [Endo's obituary], [a blog review].

It's about Christianity in Japan, and missionary work from the perspective of a Portuguese missionary, and the Shimabara Rebellion, and the persecutions that followed, and life as a Kakure Kirishitan ("Hidden Christian"), and what it means to be religious, and torture, and faith, and apostasy, and suffering, and martyrdom, and self-sacrifice vs. the sacrifice of others, and hard questions about the true meaning of moral courage.

It's a book about religion and morality that I think the pious, the non-believing, the wavering, and the "religiously unmusical" (to use Weber's turn of phrase) will all enjoy.

What other reddits do you surf?
I moderate /r/RATS, /r/Louisiana and /r/OpenChristian. I also read a lot in /r/SquaredCircle, /r/SRSBusiness, /r/SRSDiscussion, /r/polyamory, /r/woahdude and I've been dipping back into /r/Christianity a bit lately as well.

What do you do in your free time?
I read. I reddit. I smoke my pipe and drink my cocktails. I watch pro wrestling. I cuddle. I toy around with making jewelry (trying hammered wire recently) or playing with polymer clay. I'm considering this thing they call "ex ur size" or some such. It involves riding on a bike that goes nowhere. I understand I can read or watch TV while I do it, so I figured what the heck.


What do you read?
Right now I'm going back and forth between The History of White People and A Canticle for Leibowitz. Before that I read Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. the most powerful book I've read in the last few months was Silence by Shusaku Endo. You should read it. And then you should read Lamb because you'll need something a bit more jovial. But not until after you've sat with it a while.

What do you watch?
Ring of Honor Wrestling, WWE, Leverage, Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother.

Do you Blog?
Yup, though not regularly enough to develop any sort of readership.

Do you game?
I just got my first console since the original NES when I was in junior high. It's a Wii. Every once in a while I'll play Mario Kart of do something on the Wii Fit.

Do you play a musical instrument/sing?
I make noise periodically. I want to do more.

What are your favorite movies?
Absolute number one favorite? Hedwig And the Angry Inch. The only tattoo I have is from that movie. Other favorites include The Big Lebowski, Pump Up The Volume, The Wrestler, Shortbus, Dangerous Beauty, Walk The Line.

What is some favorite music?
My absolute favorite band is Over the Rhine. Behind them, tied for second place, you'll find Boris, the Cure, Leonard Cohen and Johnny Cash. Also up there are Kris Kristofferson, Mischief Brew, the CrimethInc band called Requiem (there are lots of bands called Requiem), The New Orleans Bingo Show. The list goes on for days.

There is an important distinction to be made here, though:

We are all sinners. The Church is for sinners. It is not a pre-condition to be free of sin to enter the Church, nor to remain there. It is a requirement that we repent of and regularly confess our sins, especially our serious sins.

We are not all heretics. Heresy is a serious sin; those who persist in it and do not repent and confess their heresy are barred from Holy Communion. In a very real sense, they remove themselves from the fullness of the Christian life, in a way that (say) a chronic but constantly repentant masturbator does not. Heresy is especially dangerous, both to the soul and to the wider Church, for just this reason, and, recognizing that danger, the Church singles out heresy as one of the very few sins that leads to automatic excommunication. Mercy, of course, is available the instant the heretic shows even a faint desire to repent, but we do heretics a disservice when we deny the special gravity of their action.

TLDR: If you have a choice between being Fr. Rodrigues and Ishiguro, be Ishiguro. Every time.

Read the book while you wait for the film. It is really good:

wiki - 遠藤周作 Endo Shusaku - 沈黙 (Chinmoku - Silence)


amazon link

Is that from Game of Thrones...?

I really enjoy the Irenaean theodicy, and if literature is your cup of tea you should read Silence. It's a historical novel about the persecution of the secret Christians in Japan, and it has some very beautiful thoughts on the problem of evil.

Oh! And the Brothers Karamazov, too.

EDIT: Yeah...Princess Bride, that makes a lot more sense...it's a Wesley line. For some reason I pictured Jorah Mormont (from Game of Thrones) saying it...

Silence by Shusaku Endo.

SILENCE

Silence by Shusaku Endo

This is a great book about the persecution of priests and Christians in Japan. It's a pretty interesting and rather shocking fictional tale based on historical truth. I had to read it for my study abroad class, but I really enjoyed it and learned a lot.

Edit: FYI I'm agnostic-atheist.

There exists a great novel that goes into this topic.

Silence by Shusaku Endo

Check it out, well worth the read.

http://www.amazon.com/Silence-Shusaku-Endo/dp/0800871863

Interesting topic. I recently read this book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0800871863?cache=57da7cb9d62bf1111418b1c6247026fd&pi=SY200_QL40&qid=1413159606&sr=8-1#ref=mp_s_a_1_1 that talks about why Christianity can't thrive in Japan. It follows a fictional account of a Spanish priest who goes to feudal Japan to be a missionary yada yada yada. Long story short: the book concludes stand Japan is a "swamp" that absorbs all outside forms of ideologies and creating their own form and denying the previous versions.

/u/LurkerTriumphant did a good job of answering this question. If you're looking for more information, I highly recommend reading Silence, by Shusaku Endo. It is a historical narrative that deals with the time frame and issues you're interested in, and will help paint a more vivid picture.