Rev. Sohei Kowta (1893-1963) pastored the Japanese Presbyterian Church in Wintersburg, California from 1938 to 1942. He later recounted,
Immediately after my lunch on that fatal Sunday, December 7, 1941, I was listening to a radio sermon. . . . And it was right in the midst of that sermon that I learned of the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japanese airplanes. . . . All that afternoon I kept myself close to the radio, at first doubting the truth of the news and . . . I went to bed still praying that the news might prove false. On the morning following, I learned that so many of the Japanese neighbors had been arrested by the F.B.I. during the night. Many anxious days and fearful nights followed among our people.[1]
Kowta’s son, Tadashi, recalled that “on December . . . 8th, the FBI came to interrogate my father, since he was the pastor, superintendent of the Japanese Language School, and probably by inference, a leader of the Japanese community.”[2] Kowta wrote of his own experience: “Grateful to God for His grace in letting me stay at home while so many of my friends, acquaintances, and neighbors were taken away from their loved ones, I kept myself quite busy in comforting and serving our people.”[3]
Kowta was remembered as quietly summoning the necessary strength to support his family and his congregants. He was one of the best English speakers among the Issei preachers and ministered to the interdenominational Poston Christian Church.[4] Following the war, he actively helped many Nikkei resettle in their homes:
Sohei Kowta . . . recognized the need to establish a center to aid Japanese Americans returning from the concentration camps. Along with the Presbytery and the American Friends Service Committee, he established a resettlement center . . . known as the Evergreen Hostel, and Rev. Kowta conducted religious services for Union Church members and other residents.[5]
Shortly before the internment, Kowta had preached a sermon on the life of Abraham (Genesis 11:30-12:9) at Donald Toriumi’s installation service in the Japanese Union Church of Little Tokyo.[6] Kowta had contrasted the faithfulness of Abraham with the fickle nature of Abraham’s father, Terah.
Abraham lived with his father Terah in a town called Ur of the Chaldees. Ur was a place where idol-worship thrived. It was not a fit place for the followers of Jehovah God to reside. So, Terah started with his kinsfolk to migrate to the land of Canaan. But, somehow, Terah stopped at Haran on the way to Canaan, and did not go further. That was the tragedy of the man. The eleventh chapter of Genesis closes with this brief but pregnant sentence: “Terah died in Haran.” A short sentence, but what a wealth of moral lesson it contains! Terah, who began with much enthusiasm to better his life by migrating to that distant land of Canaan, either satisfied with what he had attained or discouraged with the prospect, stopped at Haran and went no further. “Terah died in Haran.” There are many men like him!
But not so with his ambitious son, Abraham. Abraham could not be satisfied without reaching his desired aim. When he was called by God to get out of the country, he gladly followed the command, “So Abraham went,” says the author of Genesis [12:4a]. . . . God had already promised him that He would protect, guide, and bless him wherever he went, that He would make his name great among the children of men, and that He would make him a source of blessing to all the families of the earth [12:2-3].
Because he left his country and kindred by the explicit command of God, he was constantly conscious of God’s presence with him. In the land of Canaan, Abraham visited a number of places, but a significant fact is that wherever he visited a new place, the first thing he did there was to build an altar to Jehovah God, as the Pilgrim Fathers did upon their arrival on the continent of America.[7]
Kowta called the Japanese American church to follow the example of Abraham who not only followed God in faith, but also worshipped God every place he went. Kowta’s sermon highlighted three outstanding characteristics of Abraham which God’s people should emulate. First, Abraham was a man of faith in God. He was declared righteous not by his good works, but through faith in his Creator (Romans 4:1-5). According to Hebrews 11:8, “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.”
Abraham’s faith was most clearly shown when he went out of his country in trustful obedience to God. One’s faith is most well proven when he trusts in and obeys God without any reservation. Faith, trust, and obedience always go hand in hand. . . . Abraham went out not knowing whither he went. What a faith, what a trust, what an obedience it was![8]
Kowta exhorted the church to maintain its faith in God even in the face of future uncertainty. Many Nikkei, including himself, had been frantic with questions ever since the prospect of evacuation became public. They were living in a cloud of anxiety and unrest. So Kowta called them not to place their faith in the U.S. government, but in the God who ordained the government.
Second, Abraham was a man of hope: “In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, ‘So shall your offspring be’” (Romans 4:18). “In Canaan he lived a simple life, always dwelling in tents. His life was filled with many hardships and difficulties. But he was never satisfied with the life he was living.”[9] According to Hebrews 11:10, “He was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.” Kowta called the church to hope, like Abraham, in the city of God, and not in any earthly dwelling.
Third, Abraham was a man of love. Kowta recounted Abraham’s tender treatment of his selfish nephew, Lot: “Then Abram said to Lot, ‘Let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, for we are kinsmen. Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right, or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left’” (Genesis 13:8-9).
Kowta reminded his people, “Every crisis is a testing time of one’s character. Selfish people, during a crisis, show their selfishness to a greater measure than they do in ordinary times. Generous people reveal their generosity to a greater degree than they do at other times.”[10] A person’s deeds reveal the attitude of their heart. As Jesus himself declared, “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). Kowta passionately pleaded,
The real need of the hour is more men like Abraham, filled with an indomitable faith in Almighty God, an undaunted hope in the future of the race, and a self-sacrificial love for others. But our people lack that faith, and are anxious about many things. They worry beyond what is necessary. They lack that hope, and are skeptical about everything. They are discouraged and disheartened, and even in despair. They lack that love, and we see the evidence of selfishness on all sides. Have faith in Almighty God, cultivate hope in the future of our people, increase love for our fellow-men. Fully equipped with these virtues, we shall then have nothing to be afraid of. Give us a desert, we shall make it a beautiful garden; give us a wasted land, we shall change it into a productive field; give us a wilderness, we shall convert it into a fruitful orchard. Provide for our children competent teachers; regardless of the buildings we shall have, we shall make ours one of the finest schools in the country.[11]
He spoke to the present situation of preparing for the evacuation. Instead of focusing on disposing of their property and possessions, his people should pack spiritual necessities for life in the camp.
Most of us Japanese have by this time either sold away, given away, or thrown away, many of our unusable articles. It is foolish for us to keep unusable things any longer. And we, as Christians, ought we not to dispose of the undesirable, nay harmful, qualities like selfishness, boastfulness, worldliness, as we begin our life anew at the camp? . . . But let us be sure to make at least those three dominant qualities that we find in Abraham, our own “personal belongings.”[12]
Christians who possessed these qualities could establish a thriving church in any kind of wilderness. Thus, Kowta concluded his sermon by describing the church as a people, not a building:
Within a very short time, we shall have to move out from this fair city of Los Angeles, leaving “Little Tokyo” behind us. And this dear church too—this church where we have played together and prayed together; this church where we have talked together and worked together; this church where we have sung together and sacrificed together. And this pulpit which has, Sabbath after Sabbath, inspired our hearts and enlightened our minds. And this very sacred place where many young hearts were joined together in marriage, and where we uttered our final farewell to our departed ones. Yes, our hearts ache as we think of leaving our dear “Little Tokyo,” but what is “Little Tokyo” for us without the Union Church in the heart of it?
In this critical hour, the spiritual anguish of the Japanese people is indescribable, their mental perplexity insoluble, their economic loss inestimable. The mighty economic structure which the Issei have constructed with their sweat and blood during the past several decades is fast crumbling down to its foundation. And no man can justly blame the Japanese people for feeling a deep sense of attachment to what they are soon to leave behind. But, we Japanese shall not be like the thoughtless wife of Lot. We shall not foolishly look back and weep and mourn, and turn ourselves into pillars of salt. Rather, we shall be like Abraham, the mighty migration leader; filled, not with hatred or bitterness, but with faith, hope and love. We shall go wherever God wants us to go, and as we go along we shall bless the people everywhere, as did Abraham of old.[13]
Rev. Kowta exhorted his people to look forward like Abraham and not backward like Lot’s wife (see Genesis 19:26; Luke 17:32-33). God had not called them to amass earthly accomplishments and possessions, but to go to a land that he would show them and to walk in faith, hope, and love. As the Lord had commissioned Abraham, they too had been blessed to be a blessing to others:
Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:1-3).
[1] Sohei Kowta, “Before the Evacuation,” Desert Echoes (1943), 8.
[2] “Historic Wintersburg, California” (17 February 2013), accessed at http://historicwintersburg.blogspot.com/2013/02/reverend-sohei-kowta-sunday-before.html.
[3] Kowta, “Before the Evacuation,” 8.
[4] Kowta recalled his motivation to serve the church in Poston: “I arrived in Poston on May 15 with 500 Orange County people as the first group of evacuees. As soon as my feet touched the ground of Poston, a new inspiration came to me and instantly I said to myself, ‘Here is a wonderful task waiting for me to make this new community an ideal one. I will do my very best by God’s grace; to make this community one of the finest places in the United States.’ Though I have been disillusioned in many things and in many ways, I have done my best during the year to realize the vision which was given to me at the very beginning of my life in Poston” (Sohei Kowta, “Before the Evacuation,” Desert Echoes [1943], 9). The federal government commended Kowta in its Final Report for the Colorado River Relocation Center Community Activities Section (November 1945), “The maintaining of a united church was made possible by a very tactful moderator, Reverend Sohei Kowta, of the Presbyterian Church” (cited in Mary F. Adams Urashima, Historic Wintersburg in Huntington Beach [Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2014], 142).
[5] Isami Arifuku Waugh, Alex Yamato, and Raymond Y. Okamura, “Japanese Americans in California,” in California Department of Parks and Recreation: Office of Historic Park Preservation, Five Views: An Ethnic Historic Site Survey for California (December 1988), accessed at http://ohp.parks.ca.gov/pages/1054/files/Five%20Views.pdf. After the war, Kowta served in the Japanese Union Church until his death in 1963.
[6] This was not Rev. Kowta’s only “last” sermon. As he recalled, “The actual date of evacuation was hard to learn, and that was the reason, . . . every Japanese minister had to preach his last sermon to his people so often thinking that it was the last service he could conduct for his people in his own church” (Sohei Kowta, “Before the Evacuation,” Desert Echoes [1943], 9). Another one of Kowta’s “last” sermons was, “Paul, the Dauntless,”—a message on the man who learned in whatever state he was therein to be contented (Phil 4:11).
[7] Sohei Kowta, “Abraham, The Migration Leader,” sermon cited in Hunter and Binford, The Sunday Before, 34-35.
[8] Ibid., 35.
[9] Ibid., 36.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid., 36-37.
[12] Ibid., 37.
[13] Ibid., 38.
