Rev. Hideo Hashimoto (1911-2003) was born in the United States, but received his primary school education in Japan. His extensive travel and experiences allowed him to understand both the Japanese and American ways of thinking. He also studied Christian ethics at Union Theological Seminary under Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr who had urged the Roosevelt administration not to intern the Japanese. In the 1940s, Hashimoto pastored several Japanese American Methodist congregations and met his wife, Rayko, at the Jerome Relocation Center in Arkansas. He further experienced the horrors of war when his mother was killed by the atomic bomb which destroyed Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.[1] In 1949, Hashimoto earned a Th.D. from the Pacific School of Religion and later joined the faculty of Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon where he served until retirement.[2] Then in the fall of 1969, Hashimoto was appointed by the AFSC to be a special Quaker representative for United States-Japan relations and devoted his sabbatical to facilitating the return of Okinawa to Japan.[3] After his retirement, he worked tirelessly against the proliferation of nuclear arms, earning him Multnomah County’s first Peace Award in 1991.[4]
On Sunday, May 10, 1942, Hashimoto preached on “The Babylonian Exile and the Love of God” to the Japanese Methodist Church in Fresno, California. He was preparing his church for their imminent loss of freedom.
The order has been definitely issued that we are to be evacuated, beginning this coming Friday. This is the last Sunday of our life outside the barbed wire fences. A myriad of mixed feelings overcomes us as we reflect upon the past—how we took freedom for granted; of the future—of the life in the concentration camps; children cramped and stunted; young people, demoralized; old people, bitter. And the present, a nightmare. How are we going to “take it”? Are we going to be bitter and resentful? Are we going to be cynical and indifferent? Or are we going to overcome the paralyzing and embittering experiences of these days to come, and turn this evil into good?[5]
Hashimoto counseled his people to study biblical history and to learn from those who had overcome similar kinds of suffering:
Compared with the harrowing experiences of the Jewish people following the defeat of Jerusalem, 597 B.C., ours is but nothing. The terror of that war, the bitterness of defeat, the resentment against being torn away from home, still somewhat stunned but unconsciously the rebellious feeling of a despondent captive in the midst of repulsive splendor of the conquering civilization—these are all reflected in the sorrowful poetry of the Lamentations and the 137th Psalm: “By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion” (Psalm 137:1).[6]
Suffering saints find comfort in how the psalms of lament so poetically express emotion. In Psalm 137, the psalmist called out for the Lord to judge his enemies and cried for vindication in the midst of suffering. This lament did not change his difficult circumstances, yet it summoned the comforting presence of God who responds to his people with merciful love. As the prophet Isaiah declared, “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins” (Isaiah 40:1-2). Isaiah promised a day when wars would cease, sin would be forgiven, and blessings would replace judgment. These words of Scripture were later immortalized in the lyrics of Handel’s Messiah, bringing comfort to God’s people for many generations to follow.
In his sermon, Hashimoto first emphasized the sovereignty of God who always remains in control even when his people suffered. As Creator of the universe (Genesis 1:1), the Lord has no equal: “There is no other, no god besides him” (Isaiah 45:14, see v. 21). He has the right both to direct the Babylonians as his human instruments and to send his own people into exile. Hashimoto argued that even the internment was part of God’s sovereign plan, for all mankind serves at the pleasure of the Lord (44:28-45:1, 4). As in Isaiah 45:9-13,
Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, “What are you making?” or “Your work has no handles”? Woe to him who says to a father, “What are you begetting?” or to a woman, “With what are you in labor?” Thus says the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and the one who formed him: “Ask me of things to come; will you command me concerning my children and the work of my hands? I made the earth and created man on it; it was my hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host. I have stirred him up in righteousness, and I will make all his ways level; he shall build my city and set my exiles free, not for price or reward,” says the LORD of hosts.
Although God’s people lamented, they could not demand him to take action against his sovereign will. For this reason, Hashimoto humbly cautioned the church to trust God’s wisdom and his love for them. Created beings have no right to question their Creator or the clay to question the Potter. Instead, they must fully rely on God’s person and his character in the midst of difficulties.
Hashimoto also declared God’s people, Israel, to be the Lord’s Servant.
Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his law (Isaiah 42:1-4).
God’s people were specially chosen by God to be his witnesses in a world of suffering and empowered by God’s Holy Spirit to bring forth justice to the nations. Israel was to tenderly care for the bruised and to faithfully labor until God’s righteousness spread throughout the world. Israel would repeatedly fail at this task and throw off her servant role, yet a Son of Israel would eventually complete her God-given task. Jesus Christ himself would suffer on behalf of sinful men, bringing forth hope by his sacrificial death upon the cross.
Jesus Christ fulfilled the prophecy of this great seer, who laid the very foundations of the belief in the redemptive love, central in the Christian faith. Out of the depth of despair and suffering, the prophet saw the truth of Love that stoops to save the most undeserving sinner. He showed thus that even out of racial disaster and tragedy can come a great good; that out of the depth of despair one can peer into the depth of [the] unfathomable Love of God.[7]
Hashimoto recognized that his people’s suffering paled in comparison to the sufferings of Christ or of the exiles in Babylon. Yet he highlighted certain similarities of affliction, loss, and uncertainty.
Some of the elements of the circumstances and the feeling of Israel are there. We are branded as enemy aliens. We are to be uprooted from HOME as we knew and loved it. We must cast away the business and other endeavors for livelihood built after a generation of toil and sweat. We are to be carried away captive, exiles—destination unknown. The same longing for home, for creative participation in the nation in crisis, for freedom, above all, is there.[8]
Remembering the idolatrous exiles in Babylon, Hashimoto called his own people to repentance. Such a statement may have sounded treasonous to unbelieving Nikkei who felt themselves completely innocent in the matter. Hashimoto taught, however, that their heavenly Father often used hardships for the sake of loving discipline: “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?” (Hebrews 12:6-7). He explained further:
In a sense, our being evacuated is the consequence of our sinfulness. As American citizens of Japanese ancestry, we had a great mission to fulfill. We were destined to be the bridge-builders of the Pacific. But we failed. In our self-centeredness, like Jonah, we ran away from our great mission. . . . Instead of going straight toward our responsibility, we went into the opposite direction—money-making, self-seeking, sin. This war, this suffering, and our evacuation, is partially our fault and our making. If we had been vigilant, and stuck to our God-given mission, working with all our heart and soul to prevent war and make for peace, justice and true democracy, the situation may have been different somewhat.
From the standpoint of American democracy, this evacuation is a shame, a dangerous attack upon the fundamental principle upon which our nation is built. But from the standpoint of the Christian Nisei, it is a well-deserved punishment for our indifference, our falling down on the job, our self-centeredness, our sin.
Yet, it is far more than punishment. God turns even the sins of man to work for his redemption. The people saw a great light in the prophecy of [Isaiah 9:2] in the pitch darkness of despair. We must seek the same light. . . . God uses even the consequences of sin to the end that man should see aright and turn to Him, and turn back to the God-given mission for his life.[9]
Hashimoto did not excoriate unbelieving Nikkei who had no responsibility to God, but rather his fellow Christians for failing to be the Lord’s ambassadors in America. He forthrightly described their self-seeking sin of embracing the idols of prosperity and materialism. Like Israel before them, they chose the comfort and pleasures of the promised land instead of the God who had given them the land. They worshipped and served created things instead of the Creator (Romans 1:25). Hashimoto compared the evil of the internment to idol-worshipping Babylon. Instead of protesting God’s injustice, however, he called his people to turn and repent.
Hashimoto also exhorted his people to love their neighbors in the camps (Matthew 22:39) as the overflow of their love for God (vv. 37-38).
In the congested Centers where we are destined to stay, perhaps for the “duration,” we shall be given an unexcelled opportunity for the practice of what we have been taught to believe. It was difficult in the world, where competition will not only be highly desirable, it will be the absolute minimal requirement, even to eat and sleep. This is a great opportunity to prove that Christianity works and the Christian spirit alone works. If it doesn’t work in the Centers, it will not work anywhere. For that very reason, Christians are on the trial. This is the testing of our faith. It is not enough that we go half the way; we must go the whole way—to make friends, to be good neighbors (a good neighbor means a great deal when there is but a partial partition between the apartments), to serve, and to sacrifice. God is ever with us; but especially in our trials and tribulations.[10]
As the prophet Jeremiah spoke for the Lord, Rev. Hashimoto urged his people: “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jeremiah 29:7).
Like ancient Israel, the Japanese Americans were being unjustly exiled. This oppression came, however, not merely from the hands of an earthly nation, but from the hands of a loving, sovereign God. Therefore, instead of protesting their innocence or growing bitter against America, Hashimoto called the church to trust in God, repent of self-centered idolatry, and love their neighbors in the camps until God saw fit to restore them.
[1] Board of County Commissioners for Multnomah County, Oregon. “Proclamation 91-111: In the Matter of Honoring Dr. Hideo Hashimoto for his Contribution to the National and Local Peace Movement on the Occasion of the 46th anniversary of the Bombing of Hiroshima” (6 August 1991).
[2] “Japanese Pastor Wins High Post,” Spokane Daily Chronicle (1 August 1949), 1. Throughout his teaching career he invested a tremendous amount of energy into peace and social justice efforts. He was active in the FOR, the Oregon Inter-religious Committee for Peace in the Middle East, the AFSC, the Portland Urban League, and the Oregon-Idaho Conference Board of Church and Society.
[3] “United States – Japan Relationship Reaches a Turning Point,” Friends Journal: Quaker Life and Thought Today 15, no. 22 (1 December 1969), 694.
[4] “Hideo Hashimoto, Peace Activist” (2 August 1991), Congressional Record, 102nd Congress (1991-1992).
[5] Hideo Hashimoto, “The Babylonian Exile and the Love of God,” sermon cited in Hunter and Binford, The Sunday Before, 27-28.
[6] Ibid., 28.
[7] Ibid., 30.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid., 30-31.
[10] Ibid., 31.
