Ch13 Quakers in Asia-Pacific
Stephanie Midon Komashin
Spanning from India in the west, up to China in the north, and down to New Zealand in the southeast, the Asia-Pacific region is home to approximately 35,000 Friends in about twenty countries. By numbers, close to 90 percent are Evangelical, 6 percent are non-pastoral Programmed, and 5 percent are Unprogrammed. This chapter looks beyond these statistics by outlining the work of Quakers and touches on Quaker-related organisations that operate in the region.
George Fox reported in 1661 that an unnamed Friend '[h]ath been three years out in the East Indies, who hath done much servis, and brings a good report of many that received his testimony'; with Fox's letter to the Kangxi emperor of the Qing dynasty in hand, three Friends attempted to reach China in the same year (Fox 1952,420; Sykes 1997,4). Most of the landscape of Friends in the region would find their own message in Fox's undelivered letter:
God ... would have all to know him ... for God is Light, and this is the true Light which doth enlighten every man that cometh into the World, which is Christ the Son of God, the way to the Father ... out of the Earth, Sin, and the Fall, and Evil, and Transgression, Now this is the Light which Jesus Christ hath enlightened you ... If you receive this Light, you receive Christ which brings you Peace, and Unity with God, and with one another. (Fox .1706, 207-8)
Though missionary zeal is associated by some with Western-initiated colonialism and paternalism, the most common pattern of mission in this region has been spearheaded by Asians who have requested Asian, British and American Friends to come assist them - through mentoring, financing and limited staffing - in their unaided discovery of Quaker spirituality or unapologetically evangelistic vision. The first of these entreaties came from Mariano and Cecilia D'Ortez, who surprised London Yearly Meeting (YM; later Britain YM) in 1861 as Quakers from Calcutta asking for a missionary after their comrade, William Gaumisse, had stumbled across the writings of Robert Barclay and Thomas Clarkson and they had begun meeting for worship in like fashion. London Quakers declined this request, but Frederick Mackie (1812-93) and Edward May (1820-64) of Adelaide MM travelled to affirm and assist the meeting of more than thirty committed Indians (Sykes 1997. 4, 41-43). This pattern of native request and ready response has been repeated in the Orthodox Women's Foreign Missionary Association of Philadelphia (WFMA, later Foreign Missionary Association of Friends of Philadelphia)'s 1883 Japan Mission, five of the Asian mission fields of Evangelical Friends Mission (EFM, an agency of Evangelical Friends Church - North America), and Evangelical Friends Church Southwest (EFCSW)'s 1997 Cambodia Mission. In the spirit of Fox's itinerant preaching, intra-Asia missionary fervour also runs high. Employing multicultural and multilingual assets to plant churches, Indian Friends have moved to Nepal, and Taiwanese to the Philippines, with Bhutanese and Thai nationals regularly travelling to neighbouring countries.
Asian Evangelical Friends emphasise personal salvation and the lordship of Jesus Christ, baptise, and employ pastors as do their North American counterparts; however, these similarities occur in environments of village evangelism where no one has heard of Jesus; laying on of hands for miraculous healing of illnesses takes place; and practical theology decisions are made about arranged marriages, household idols and funeral practices. Dissimilarly, Asian Friends face economic, verbal and violent communal persecution, including eviction, beatings, dismemberment and death threats that send them into hiding with the help of pastors and police. Some leaders are proud of their Quaker heritage but also of intentionally cultivating indigenous expressions. Some Unprogrammed Friends find their lack of familiarity with Western Quaker practises disconcerting. While American Evangelicals may feel slightly more at home amongst these Friends, they land outside of their comfort zones amidst the animated dancing and are astonished by weekly prayer meetings of 300 members or open-air meetings drawing 1,500 inquirers.
Non-pastoral Programmed Friends feature hymns and a sermon and conduct silent worship from time to time. Despite potential misunderstandings concerning their denial of sacraments, these Friends are legally registered as 'Christian' and 'churches' first and identify as Quaker second, lest government entities co-opt their properties for other uses. With commitment to health in mind, body and spirit, they focus on serving children by meeting basic needs and providing education, as well as raising awareness of living in harmony with nature. Programmed Friends use phrasing such as 'in love and peace of our saviour Jesus Christ' as well as 'Quaker witness,' and they maintain good rapport with both of the other demographics.
Asia-Pacific Unprogrammed Friends identify with liberal perspectives and enjoy silent meetings, spiritual nurture and penning Quaker literary works. While they look to Pendle Hill and Woodbroke study centres in the United States and Britain for guidance, their own geopolitical realities kindle rigorous living out of the peace testimony as facilitators of reconciliation. Friends undertake life-threatening and occupational risks in demonstrations to protest nuclear testing, treaty issues for indigenous peoples and military expansion and secrets.
Evangelical Friends tend to be representative of the predominantly young general population of their countries and record their numbers according to weekly average attendance in churches and 'fellowship groups' (the latter a term used in some ecciesiologies for meetings of fewer than twenty or twelve active, baptised members), whilst some Asia-Pacific Friends face shrinking and ageing membership and tend to report numbers according to membership that does not always correlate to an ability to regularly attend meetings.1
This chapter outlines the Quaker presence throughout the Asia-Pacific region, including an extended case study of Japan, before offering some conclusions.
Australia and New Zealand
James Backhouse (1794-1869) and George Washington Walker (1800-59) (London YM) formed Australasia's first meeting in Hobart in 1832 and urged the governor of New South Wales that 'it is the bounden duty to make all the restitution in their power ... for the benefit of the aborigines of Australia' (Backhouse 1838, 51). Identifying with this role as 'Conscience of the Colony', Australian Friends have assisted First Nations Peoples and Torres Strait Islanders through the First Nations Peoples Concerns Committee, Quakers for a Reconciled Australia and Quaker Service Australia (QSA), which has expanded into Asia and Africa, including its Cambodian English Language Training Program (Jordan 2016, 1-2).
Unprogrammed Australia YM, formed in 1964, contains approximately 1,000 members in seven regional meetings. Waratah Rose Gillespie (194 12010) advocated Aboriginal sovereignty (Gillespie 2005, 3-5). Attracted to Quakerism by its peace testimony and non-condemnation, David Carline (1944-) of the Kooma-gwamu nation has protested at a Tahiti nuclear testing site, organised an alternate school for at-risk children and raised awareness that Australia remains the only Western nation lacking a treaty with Indigenous People. His Queensland Regional Meeting returned a piece of land in 1988. Carline daily waits for guidance in silence beside the river, and says, 'The essence of the Spirit is the same. The ancient Spirits, the respect of the land, and the Spirit of the country' (Carline, personal communication, 2016; Jordan 2016, 1).
New Zealand's Yearly Meeting, Te Haahi Tuuhauwiri ('the faith community that stands shaking in the wind of the Spirit' in the Mãori language), established in 1964, has roughly 480 Unprogrammed Friends in eight Monthly Meetings. Samuel (1795-1875) and Martha Young Strong (1805-54) (London YM) started meetings in 1842 and shepherding Ann Fletcher (1833-1903) and Thomas Jackson (1832-1900) brought stability through visitation and First-Day Schools (Adams 1986, 22, 75, 8284). Quaker Peace and Service Aotearoaf New Zealand (QPSANZ) conducts humanitarian work, such as Robert Howell (1946-)'s Indonesian police nonviolence training beginning in 1997 (Gregory, personal communication, 2016).
Australasian advocacy includes earth care and same-sex marriage. Proud features are the Friends School in Hobart, Silver Wattle Quaker Centre and the Whanganui Quaker Settlement.
Bhutan and Bangladesh
Evangelical Friends Church, Bhutan (EFM), is a Yearly Meeting composed of sixty-five churches and more than fifteen fellowship groups since 2000. Approximately 1,850 Bhutanese Friends practise a rich and creative form of Quakerism contextualised for their culture, taking inspiration from the Old and New Testaments and lived out in goh and kira, their traditional dress (Cammack, personal communication, 2016).
Rupak (1970-) and Pramila Tamang (1973-) were faithful Buddhists who sought healing for Pramila's fatal illness amongst their religious leaders and were told that there was no hope (Cammack 2016). Whilst 'in desperate condition. Serving the idols and all the things', a Christian pastor offered to pray for her and shared the Gospel with them, leading to a process of healing, conversion and baptism in 1997. Pramila recounts, 'I was seeking, "Who is the only one God?" But when I received Christ, then I got peace' (Evangelical Friends Mission 2016b). Rupak's brother, Norbu Tamang (1967-), a refugee to Nepal, met John M. Vanlalhriata (Vanlal) Thiak (1951-) in EFC-Nepal YM and connected the Tamangs to him in 2000. Under Vanlal's mentorship, they started a fellowship that has grown into a 300-member Friends church with ethnic dance worship, Sunday school and church-planting youth trainings (Cammack, personal communication, 2016).
Enthusiastic to live out the ways of the patriarchs and apostles, Bhutanese Friends bury their dead in the hills in place of common Bhutanese cremation. Every fellowship group displays the king's photograph on a wall. At the same time, Friends' intentional servant leadership flies countercultural to societal top-down or positional leadership. Pastors endeavour to raise self-sustaining, self-governing and self-reproducing churches through vision-casting trainings that can number fifty leaders per cohort, and they send domestic and international missionaries (Cammack, personal communication, 2016; Tamang, personal communication, 2016; Tamang and Tamang 2016).
In the ten years since Philippine Evangelical Friends International Ministries (PEFIM) recommended a Bangladeshi evangelist/discipler to EFM for church planting, Bangladesh YM (EFM) has grown to an average attendance of 580 Friends in nearly twenty churches and three fellowship groups. While Bhutanese Friends live in relative safety, Bangladeshi Friends suffer calculated, violent persecution that threatens their lives. With a number of enterprises aimed at raising the standard of living, pastors practise prayerful discernment about stewardship and pursue indigenously sourced, locally reproducible ministry without salary (Cammack, personal communication, 2016; Stansell, personal communication, 2016).2
Cambodia, Myanmar and Thailand
More than 150 Cambodian Friends in eight churches are grouped within Friends Church (EFCSW) and Good News Friends Church (a collective effort of all Yearly Meetings of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador). Immigrants to the United States of Long Beach Friends Church (LBFC)'s Khmer adult ministry shared the Gospel with relatives during trips to their home country. Neang Soth's 'son' Yiv Poa, who became a Christian while a refugee in Thailand, started preaching and discipling in Cambodia in 1994. Soth and Friends asked LBFC for missionaries to assist and Ray and Virginia Canfleld's North and Central American missionary team arrived in 1997. Muen Chan Sokha and Ngin Sinath lead Friends learning how to share their faith amongst those who accuse them of forsaking their heritage and abandoning deceased relatives (Moore 2012, 330; Sward, personal communication, 2016).
The eighty-member Evangelical Friends International Church, Kalay in Myanmar separated from American Baptist International Ministries in 2002 and adopted Pasig Evangelical Friends Christian Church's Discipline. They conduct Programmed worship, have experimented with silent worship and are intrigued by African Friends' dance and song (Bywater 2015).
Chalee Khunakon (1973-), director of education and training, and Solomon Sanking (1976-), director of outreach, lead a Friends church of the Lahu minority group in Thailand that evangelises ethnic minorities in remote bamboo house villages where the Gospel has never been preached. Connected to Damascus Friends Church by Ben Kibbe (1978-) in 2012 through The Way Foundation (Evangelical Friends Church - Eastern Region (EFC-ER)), miraculous healings and laying on of hands in prayer are of great import to Lahu Friends, who love choirs and theological conversation (Kibbe, personal communication, 2016).
China, Hong Kong and Taiwan
In 1886, Robert John (c. 1860-1918) and Mary Jane Catlin Davidson (1865-1942) of London YM's Friends Foreign Missionary Association (FFMA) evangelised in traditional Chinese dress and established a school and hospital in Chongqing in southwest China. Despite attacks and one beheading in the Boxer Rebellion, Friends founded Sichuan YM in 1904 with fifty-six Chinese Quakers. Stephen Yang (1911-2007) was imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution, but a government official arranged for Yang and Friends to hold Meetings in Chengdu (Mason and A.I.H. 1938.8-9, 11-3; Co 2007,13-4).
From 1887, Esther Hettie Butler (1851-1921) (Ohio YM (Gurneyite), later EFC-ER) founded a Nanjing girls' school and hospital, with pastor-scholar Gao (?-1929) and elder Clara Gao in church leadership. Friends took charge of Church of Christ's Luho Mission in 1900, where the chaplain and Bible women of the Peace Hospital and Chuen-Hwa Wang's clinic evangelised bed to bed (DeVol 1988, 10, 22, 165). The Semi-Annual Meeting sent domestic missionary Lydia Wu to Yunnan province in 1930 and recorded more than 1,000 members in 1934 (DeVol 1988. 191; Williams 2006, 257). Pastor Li of Nanking Friends Church and his wife were tortured to death and Lindley Chiang, pastor of Luho Church and Bible scholar, died in jail. The Chinese Communist Party confiscated their churches and combined them into the sole state-sanctioned church, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement. Some individuals still identified as Quaker in the 1980s (DeVol 1988, 190-217).
With nearly 10,000 members in more than sixty churches in six districts, Taiwan Friends Church (TFC) is the largest in the region, representing 30 percent of Asia-Pacific Quakers. Charles (1891-1968) and Elsie V. Lambright Matti (1891-1982) and Ella Ruth Hutson (1922-2012) of the Nanjing Mission held their first sing-along in Chiayi, Formosa (later Taiwan; formally, Republic of China) in 1953.
Yuijie Ma (?-1980) unofficially pastored Northside Friends Church through daily door-to-door visits to invite women to church (including miracle reports), standing guard at the church gate so women could not sneak out and leading Sunday school in the mornings; planting Lake View Chapel in the afternoons; and running Northside's evening service. Ma and husband Ching-Swan Chow planted Round Hills Friends Church in 1960 and then co-pastored Northside from 1966. Hui Ming led husband, Titus Tung, to pastor Harmony Friends Christian Church, which has an attendance of 600-700 for services, 300 for weekly prayer meetings, hour-long pre-workday morning prayer (accompanied by 100 or so streaming video hits), a 100-member choir and an orchestra. Luho Mission's Charles E. (1903-89) and Leora Van Matre DeVol (1902-95) figured prominently in TFC's growth (DeVol 1988, 303-6, 393-95; Duh, personal communication, 2016; Lei, personal communication, 2016).
Taiwanese Friends are apt to cite Bible verses to describe Taiwan YM, first convened in 1977 and characterised as buoyant, overwhelmingly young and expressing grandeur. Friends esteem the commitment of their pastors to God, their congregations and evangelism; mutual care and unity of the Spirit within the church; believers' obedience; and fear of God (Lei 2015; Zheng and Huang, personal communication, 2016). 'In the grace of God, the Friends Church family members will continue to maintain their original aspirations and follow their ancestors' footsteps, willing to put themselves in ministry,' envisages women's fellowship and Sunday school leader Chen Yu-Jhu Zheng (1946-), summarizing TFC as '[hove God, love people and love to preach the gospel. Let the good news of the gospel be spread to every corner of the world' (Zheng and Huang, personal communication, 2016).
Adapting Chinese New Year chunlian poetry decorations, churches affix brush-painted blessings on strips of red paper around the door and gate, and they compare this to doorpost marking in the Book of Exodus. Friends develop ways to be alongside adherents of other religions, such as assisting a bereaved family's funeral preparations whilst maintaining their own faith understandings, for example, holding a flower rather than bowing or inhaling incense. TFC makes home visits with would-be converts to worship, pray and replace idols with a wooden cross. Its 'Beauty Life Association' manages orphanage and senior citizen visitation, hospital volunteers, tutoring, single-parent services, a helpline and counselling (Lei, personal communication, 2016).
The Evangelical Friends Church denomination (with no affiliation to Evangelical Friends Church International (EFCI)) is an independent Taiwanese church that joined TFC in 1957 through Samuel Cheng's Mainland China acquaintance with Charles DeVol but left in 1959 (Duh, personal communication, 2016).
Hong Kong Friends Meeting, an Unprogrammed Monthly Meeting of fewer than thirty members, founded Oxfam Hong Kong in 1979.
India
India is home to four expressions of Quakerism, non-pastoral Programmed, mission-affiliated Evangelical, autonomous Evangelical, and Unprogrammed. Composed of more than 25 percent of Asia-Pacific Friends, India is a microcosm of the region's diversity.
India's oldest Yearly Meeting is non-pastoral, non-sacramental Programmed Mid-India YM in the state of Madhya Pradesh. Rachel Metcalf (1828-89) (London YM) arrived in 1866 and Samuel Baker (1856-99) (Ireland YM (FFMA)) introduced Programmed worship beginning in 1877. Bal Mukand Naik (1857-1950) evangelised the Chamar shoemaker caste whilst Ojha chief Jagraj converted forest village communities (Sykes 1997, 60-61, 78-79, 102-3). Friends aided 11,000 victims of the 1890s famine, flood, and cholera epidemic and rescued nearly 1,000 orphans (Sykes 1997, 119-21).
For reasons both political and religious, close to 2,000 Friends in six churches incorporate hymns, sermons and extended time for sharing a song, Scripture or an edifying word as Programmed worship; practise silent worship from time to time; and read the Bible and Britain YM's Quaker Advices and Queries monthly (Rhodewalt 2012a; Jonathan, personal communication, 2016). Extended families such as the Jonathans, Roberts, Lals, Samuels and Daniels nurture familial community through home meetings (Rhodewalt 2012b). Mid-India YM has run Compassion International child development centres since 2008, providing daily meals, education and health support and sports training such as football and karate to 560 children in Itarsi and Sehore. Friends serve on the Friends School Governing Board for three Quaker-founded higher secondary schools and a primary school to 'protect the children and ... make their bright future' (Jonathan, personal communication, 2016). Over the years, Friends Rural Centre, Rasulia, Hoshangabad, has adapted from industrial apprenticeship to adult education, cottage industries, cooperatives, well building, village schools and no-till agriculture and water filtration (Choudhry 1977,165-93; Sykes 1997, 269).
Mid-India YM established Sehore Leprosy Asylum in Bhopal state in 1891. A dispute over meetinghouse ownership led Bhopal MM to separate into Bhopal YM in 1966. In the aftermath of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy, widely considered the worst industrial accident in history, Friends initiated medical care, meals, school supplies and needlecraft training in the worst affected areas; 150 members in two churches practise weekly Programmed worship and monthly Unprogrammed worship, with goals of educating Young Friends and cultivating concern for global sufferings (Williams and Terrell 1897, 114; Preckel 2012. 198-99; Titus 2016. 1-2).
Programmed Friends organise the triennial All India Friends Gathering for problem solving, increasing understanding and strengthening unity. Their primary challenge is fluctuating government policy that jeopardises or terminates their charitable initiatives (Jonathan, personal communication, 2016; Titus 2016. 2-3).
India's largest Evangelical Friends demographic is a church network of 4,000 Friends in Bihar state (EFC-ER) who enjoy cultural music and worship style, prayer, Bible reading and preaching. Babir and Lalita Gautam and about thirty circuit rider-esque pastors discipled by Victor and Lori Tovar (on-site in 2010-11, then via Internet) started fellowships that have grown into 200 churches. They contribute wells, sanitary latrines and schools in slums to village communities (Evans, personal communication, 2016).
The Yearly Meeting of EFM Kolkata has 1,150 Friends in more than twenty churches and sixty fellowship groups in West Bengal and Uttarakhand states. D K (Diptendra Kumar) Sarkar (1951-) reports experiencing his noontime room in 1979 turn 'very dark and a small light is coming from a hole to my face. I heard a voice - "I need you." Though shaken, he later felt Hinduism offered enough truth for India, but upon dreaming of Christ's nail-scarred hands and a voice saying, 'I died for you, nobody else,' Sarkar committed himself to Jesus as Lord. Meeting Charles (Chuck) E. Mylander (1941-) while preaching in Kolkata slums led to EFM supporting and advising the church network since 2003. Sarkar expressed, "Friends" are known as praying people. I thank God that I have come to the right mission' (Sarkar 2013. 1-3; Cammack, personal communication, 2016).
Evangelical Friends Church, South India (EFC-ER) has 580 members in about twenty churches in Kerala state, where P. K., Mariamma, Benson and Annie Sam plant churches through institutions, public transportation hubs, open-air meetings and villages (Duh, personal communication, 2016; Evangelical Friends Church - Eastern Region 2016a; Evangelical Friends Church - Eastern Region 2016b).
Through the Children's Refuge and Bundelkhand's earliest education and hospital for girls in Madhya Predesh state, Delia Fistler (1867-1916), Esther Baird (1861-1950), Martha (Matti) Barber and Mary Thomas (Ohio YM) raised pastors, educators, doctors and nurses beginning in 1892 - notably, the Bai, Das, Prakash and Singh families, whose descendants number among more than 300 BundelkhandYM (EFC-ER, EFM) members in three churches that observe the liturgical year and teach Quaker testimonies (Nixon 1985, 16-18, 87, 424-25). Everett Lewis (1905-81) and Who's Catherine Isabella DeVol Cartel! (1906-86) strategised for the Yearly Meeting established in 1961, whilst William Ezra (1909-92) and Frances Hodgin DeVol (1909-96) headed medical missions (Nixon 1985, 146; 1987, 110, 121). Chhatarpur MM manages English Christian College, primary school and nursery, featuring outdoor prayer and yoga. Jack-of-all-trades Gabriel Massey (1935-) has served as chief editor of the Bimdeli language Bible translation, pastor, pharmacist, school manager and director of Christian Organization for Rural Nurture, describing, 'I, being a Friend ... [wjait upon the Lord for His leading in Silence. Believe on the Bible as Word of God With my life and service I must show forth that I belong to Jesus' (Massey, personal communication, 2016).
Karnataka YM (EFC-ER) has 250 members in five churches on the Arabian Sea V-Coast, whose Caring Hands NGO rehabilitates devadasi Hindu temple prostitutes by providing job skills, counselling and children's homes. India Sikkim Friends Church (Evangelical Friends Church, Bhutan) in northeast Sikkim state is a Yearly Meeting of roughly 100 members in two churches established in 2006. Fewer than ten vibrant, ethno-cultural Maithil Friends churches4 (Evangelical Friends Church Yearly Meeting of Nepal) inhabit India's Terai plains (Cammack, personal communication, 2016; Caring Hands 2016; Duh, personal communication, 2016; Stansell, personal communication, 2016; Tamang, personal communication, 2016). Himalayan Garhwali converted through EFM's 1991-2010 Mussoorie region mission function as an autonomous Friends church network in Uttarakhand state (Hadley 1994, 20; Cammack, personal communication, 2016; Duh, personal communication, 2016).
Members of General Conference of Friends in India, founded by Shri Ranjit M. (1902-77) and Doris Chetsingh (1902-77) in 1959, collaborated with Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Horace Alexander (18891989) and Marjorie Sykes (1905-95), include fewer than thirty Unprogrammed Quakers separated by great distance who gather for an annual meeting (Sykes 1997, 273-74; Khurana, personal communication, 2016).
Indonesia
Friends Church Indonesia (EFCSW) is a Yearly Meeting of approximately 4,000 members in around thirty-five churches. In 1987, William (Bill) Hekman offered to start Friends work in Indonesia for EFCSW (Friends United Meeting (FUM) until 1993). Initially, EFCSW sent Bible school students in short-term church-planting appointments, resulting in reports of supposed rapid growth - which proved to reflect Hekman recruiting churches by paying their pastors twenty dollars per month to be Friends. Though many stipendiary churches left after Hekman was removed and compensations terminated, some remained because they liked who Friends were. Superintendents Misterlian Tomana (1963-) and Arbiter Simorangkir (1968-) steadied the network whilst Suryani (Yani) S. Wattimena (1962-) and her husband Rodoif (Ruddy) Pantou (1957-201 3)'s itinerant ministry successfully rooted peacemaking, spiritual renewal and ecumenical reconciliation. Yani mobilised women in intercessory prayer through Indonesia's prayer movement and describes 'being a part of the Friends Church is such a blessing in my life. Love God and love each other is so real in Friends' (Amavisca, personal communication, 2016; Pfeiffer, personal communication, 2016).
Indonesian Friends promote peace in schools, support homeless children and medical programs for the poor and share the Gospel (Quaker Peace & Legislation Committee 2014. 6). One enthusiastic schoolteacher/ pastor conceived an idea of spending time in village mosques until someone would inquire, 'You are not Muslim, are you?' Upon being asked who he was a follower of, he would then show the Koran's description of Jesus and supplement this with an account of the resurrection. By his count, two or three people would commit to following Jesus each time, with whom he continued to follow up (Amavisca, personal communication, 2016).
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From Orthodox to Liberal by Way of War, a Case Study of Japan Yearly Meeting
Whilst Asia-Pacific Friends typically preserve their received strain of Quakerism, Japanese Friends began as Orthodox with hymn singing and closing prayer bookending otherwise silent meetings, appropriated assorted Quaker influences and retained some early customs within their amalgamated post-WWII identity. Japan YM numbers fewer than 110 Friends in five Monthly Meetings composed of between five and fifty members (Yamamoto, personal communication, 2016).
Born a samurai, Inazo Nitobe (1862-193 3) was baptised in the Sapporo Band, an indigenous Christianity of non-pastoral, non-Programmed meetings. A Baltimore meetinghouse reminded him of Sartor Resartus's description of George Fox (Nitobe 1969c). WFMA's interests in Japan and in starting a girls' school to elevate the status of women coalesced when Nitobe and Kanzo Uchimura strongly proposed that this was Japan's pressing need (Nitobe 1969b, 208; Toda 2014, 61-64). WFMA sent Gurneyite Joseph (1851-1932) and Sarah Ann Newson Cosand (1846-1915) (Kansas YM) to form Friends' Church (FurendoKyoukai) in 1885 (Angell 2002). Chuzo Kaifu (1858-1942), preacher, evangelist, and principal of the 1887 Friends Girls School (later, the Friends School), which begins with Daily Meeting for Worship and ends with a hymn and moment of silence, helped found Tokyo Meeting in 1886 (Binford 1950. 106).
Canada YM (Orthodox, later FUM) and London YM joined the Japan Mission in 1888 and 1891, respectively. At its largest, Japanese Quakerism numbered around 350 members, chiefly in Ibaraki prefecture's seven Monthly Meetings through Kwansen Yoshioka and his wife's pioneering missionary work and Gurney (1865-1951) and Elizabeth Julia Schneider Binford (1876-1948) (Indiana YM (Orthodox))'s Gospel Tent Meetings of Bible, organ and brass (Sharpless 1937, 98; Binford 1950, 183-89; Brownstein 1987. 38-41).
Baltimore MM's Nitobe and Mary P. Elkinton Nitobe (1857-1938) started an unaffiliated meeting in Sapporo in 1893 and had a mystical experience about founding Distant Friends Night School (Nitobe 1969a, 574; Katoh 2002. 30). Nitobe spoke at and hosted meetings, authored Bushido, The Soul ofJapan, served as under-secretary-general of the League of Nations and articulated peace and anti-militarism in the Matsuyama Incident, House of Peers, and newspaper articles (Oshiro 1995,258-61; Satô 1995. 222-33; Ootsu 2012,45-46, 57-64).
After Tokyo MM's first split due to the earliest Friends having joined under an 1885 Confession of Faith without a peace testimony, Cosand restarted the pacifist Society of Friends (Kirisuto Yuukai) in 1895, with Japan YM founded in 1917 (Binford 1950, 42-49; Takahashi 1995). After the 1940 Religious Bodies Law granted recognition to large Christian groups, Japan YM merged into the United Church of Christ in Japan, which included creed, sacraments, ordination, Shinto training and youhai ((imperial) worship from afar), and in 1942 stated its support for the war (Best 1948, 5156; Breen 2003, 266; Yamaguchi 2015, 1), but approximately twenty dissenting Friends led by Seiju Hirakawa (1874-1963), Iwao Ayusawa (1894-1972), Kikue Kurama (1910-98), Ichiro Koizumi (1912-91), Kiyoshi Ukaji (1914-98) and Toshi Ishida (1912-2002) practised resistance through underground silent meetings (Sharpless 1944, 39-41; Akashi, personal communication, 2016).
After WWII, Tamon Maeda (1884-1962) and Yasaka Takagi (1889- 1984) lobbied that Emperor Hirohito not be prosecuted in the Tokyo War Crimes Trials, and Elizabeth Janet Gray Vining (1902-99) (Germantown MM) was appointed Crown Prince Akihito's tutor through American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)'s recommendation (Hoshino 2010, 3 1-35). Three former meetings reorganised Japan YM in 1947 under leadership of the non-cooperating Friends, who steered it towards Liberal Quakerism (Brinton and Watahiki 1958, 258, 269; Toda 2003, 16-20).
Japan YM organises the Nitobe Memorial Lecture and publishes Japanese Quaker history and thought. Japanese Friends support
the Friends School,
two kindergartens both named 'Small Friends Kindergarten'
and featuring silent prayer in their daily programmes,
Japan Friends Service Committee (JFSC, formerly Japan Friends Organisation) and Friends Old Folks Home.
- JFSC's Friends Setagaya Centre Building fosters preschooler/ senior citizen interaction by housing Friends Nursery School (with the traditional mochi rice-cake pounding ritual and Doll Festival),
- Friends Home,
- Friends Care Centre and Shimouma Reassurance Health Centre.
- Offshoots are Friends LARA Nursery School and two crèches.
- Kamiuma and Nakamaru Day Care centres provide senior rehabilitation and dementia care along with Japanese calligraphy and ikebana (flower arranging), marking the year with a New Year's shrine visit, taiko drum and mikoshi (portable shrine) festival and Bon Odori (dance welcoming ancestral spirits)
(Otomodachi Hoikuen [Friends Nursery School] 2015; Japan Friends Service Committee 2016; Yamamoto, personal communication, 2016).
Tokyo MM practises Unprogrammed worship with sharing from those who 'receive the working of God' or hymn requests. Tokyo Friends enjoy monthly evening worship, hymn singing, a study group and a peace roundtable, and they have written statements opposing Japan's legislation on national military secrets and collective self-defence (Kirisuto Yuukai Tokyo Gekkai [Society of Friends Tokyo Monthly Meeting]).
Mito MM introduced conscientious objection to Nagasaki atomic bombing survivor Susumu Ishitani (1931-2002), who founded COMIT (Conscientious Objection to Military Tax) and translated the historically important manga Barefoot Gen depicting the bombing of Hiroshima, challenging, '[P]eople say only saints such as Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. can do nonviolence Did they act nonviolently without fears? ... We need to grow and become a George Fox, a Gandhi, a Martin Luther King, Jr., or a Stephen' (Ishitani 1986. 7; Ishitani 1992, 2-3).
While Nitobe considered Quaker spirituality best suited to Japanese sensibilities, it turned out that pacifism - the testimony often seen as synonymous with Quakers today - proved the greatest challenge for Japanese Friends in the 1894 and 1941 fractures (Nitobe 1969b, 209; Brownstein 1987. 37; Furuya 1995, 69-71). Navigating evangelical Orthodox, non-evangelical Orthodox, London YM and Pendle Hill study abroad influences during the rise and fall of Japan's colonial imperialism, Japanese Friends aligned with Liberal Quakerism after WWII.
Nepal
Nepal's 5,600 Friends are organised into two Yearly Meetings (EFM) and represent more than 15 percent of Asia-Pacific Friends. Evangelical Friends Church Yearly Meeting of Nepal, primarily in the south, has upwards of 3,000 attendees in forty churches and twenty fellowship groups, whilst EFC-Nepal YM contains nearly fifty churches and eight fellowship groups throughout the country with average attendance of 2,500 (Cammack, personal communication, 2016).
After working alongside Bundelkhand Friends in Chhatarpur hospitals and schools, John and Sangi Vanlal (1953—) of India's Mizoram state moved to Nepal in 1994 to plant EFC-Nepal YM, where Sangi's village sewing centres and tailoring shop have trained more than 600 women since 1997 (Cammack, personal communication, 2016). Despite blockages and strikes, beatings and bomb threats, their candid 2016 report characterises a church-planting ministry focused on home visits for building strong relationships:
Evil spirits were troubling Jit Narayan Mahoto and his family, so Jit asked Pastor Maharaji for help. Maharaji shared the gospel, prayed, and the Lord delivered Jit Narayan and his family from the evil spirits. After the deliverance, Jit's family returned home and saw a cross that was suspended in midair outside their house. They viewed the cross for about an hour before it disappeared. All five family members accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. This incident happened in August of 2014.
In March of this year, Jit and his wife had a dream. They saw someone calling them to preach the Good News in Bardiya ... [and] an insane 24-year-old man with long hair and nails who was bound with ropes. lit and his wife headed to Bardiya, a town they had never been to ... A Christian, who was standing nearby, overheard ... [H]is son had been insane for more than three years. He led the couple to his home and opened a dark room where his son had been bound for one year ... They prayed for him, cut his long hair, trimmed his nails, and he became a normal man. Seeing this miracle, several people invited Jit and his wife to their homes ... A fellowship under the leadership of Kowasoti Friends Church has begun in the Kulieni village where the miracle took place.
(Evangelical Friends Mission 2016a, 1)
Samson (1952—) and Priscilla Retnaraj (1971—)'s team has facilitated Community Health Evangelism through community clinics since 2003 and adopted a holistic community development approach to friendship evangelism, empowering villages to develop their own self-sustaining projects. Retnaraj comes alongside village leaders to identify needs - often adult literacy, but also single-day pop-up medical camps, earthquake relief and agricultural projects - and matches these with resources that the community already has to avoid creating dependency. The Gospel is shared in the context of the friendships that form, resulting in a general pattern of entire families, rather than individuals, becoming Christians (Cammack, personal communication, 2016).
Philippines
The Friends affiliated with either PEFIM's Yearly Meeting (EFC-ER, EFM) approaching 1,000 attendees in twelve churches, or Taiwan Friends Ministries and Mission in the Philippines, Inc. (TFC), of more than 500 attendees in upwards of twenty churches, focus on propagating the Gospel and church planting. Filipino Friends are perceived as Protestants who - by definition - are 'protesting' against the established Roman Catholicism (Chen, personal communication, 2016; De la Cruz, personal communication, 2016).
Jaime P. and Lydia Tabingo's house-to-house evangelism and Bible studies started PEFIM in 1977. Jaime (Jim) G. Prieto, commissioned by EFC-ER to plant churches in his home country, discovered the Tabingos already doing this and merged his mission with theirs. Filipino Friends are musical, with original Tagalog songs, worship conferences and symposiums and evangelistic concerts. Crisanto De la Cruz (1981-), executive pastor of PEFIM, served during the 2013 Bohol earthquake and Typhoon Haiyan, one of the world's strongest cyclones, and he links a personal relationship with Jesus Christ to humanitarian work. De la Cruz mobilised PEFIM to hand-carry emergency foodstuffs to Higher Ground Friends Church's village subsisting on whatever root vegetables, coconuts, and banana plant stems they could find, and returned monthly to replant. He says, '[I]t is our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ which matters most to us ... - so that we would be able to appreciate more our being Friends ... [W]hat being a Friend is ... is becoming more and more vague ... [so we] identify ourselves as Christians who happen to be Friends' (De la Cruz, personal communication, 2016).
TFC sent Oliver Chen (1958-) and his wife Grace Hsieh (1959-) to launch Luzon Friends Mission in 1996. Chen planted Manila Mandarin Friends Church within a year and the first Tagalog service in 1999. After Xerxes L. Casas expanded Taiwan Friends Ministries and Mission in the Philippines, the three island groups run independently. Activities include pedicab driver fellowship, literacy and agricultural technology gatherings (Chen 2003, 2006; Chen, personal communication, 2016).
South Korea
Yoon Gu Lee (1929-2013), Shin Ai Cha, and fellow Koreans who worked with Friends Service Unit (FSU) in 1958 began an Unprogrammed Meeting for Worship, formed Seoul MM in 1964 and adopted Tandong leper village in 1966 (Lee 1969, 1984).
Sok Hon Ham (1901-89) was born in North Korea, baptised in Uchimura's Mukyoukai (non-church) movement in Japan; joined the South Korea March 1st Movement; joined Seoul MM in 1967 and established the National Council for the Protection of Democracy and National Congress for the Restoration of Democracy. Ham developed a Minjung theology of the excluded and described Korea as Queen of Suffering and Jesus as Son of Suffering, an allegory of the Korean people's mission 'to bear our load of iniquity ... [to] deliver ourselves and the world ... a sweetness that none but the bearer can hardly imagine' (Ham 1985, 182-83; see also Kim 1998, 12; Kwag, private correspondence, 2016).
South Korea's two meetings containing twenty-five members meet monthly for Bible or Quakerism discussions and quarterly for Family Gatherings, aid victims of catastrophe (such as land mines) and protest military expansion and nuclear operations (Jin 2008; Kwag, personal communication, 2016).
Worship Groups
Scattered across the Asia-Pacific region are outposts of Friends who differ from the dominant expression of Quakerism in their area, evangelise in closed countries or are geographically remote. Of the Unprogrammed worship groups ranging in size from one to forty members in Beijing, Bohol, Phnom Penh, Delhi, Singapore and Yangon, the most internationally active is the Bohol WG in the Philippines, where three Friends have conducted relief work and advocated vegetarianism, interfaith harmony, LGBT rights and environmentalism since 2009 (Henderson, private correspondence, 2016; Khurana, personal communication, 2016; Quirog, personal communication, 2016).
Christ-centred Beverley Friends Meeting (BFM), of around thirty members who received visitation and epistles from Ohio YM, was incorporated into Avon Valley General Meeting (AVGM) which itself left Australia YM in 1999. After AVGM folded in 2005 and BFM re-affiliated with Australia YM, Shane (1959-) and Valerie Moad (1969-) remain the region's only Conservative Quakers in association with the international Wider Fellowship of Conservative Friends of Ohio YM, and consider that Friends 'do the best we can to follow our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Often we get it right and many times we don't but hopefully we keep trying to ... seek that Light ... [which makes] a difference in someone['}s life to feel Christ's love
I do believe as Friends we have a good way to walk and live our faith in this world' (Moad 2011; Moad, personal communication, 2016).
A number of Evangelical Friends minister in countries of limited religious freedom as sponsored or tentmaker missionaries with the support of their Yearly Meetings (Stansell 2014, 109).
Regional Bodies and Humanitarian Organisations
The three primary regional bodies/gatherings for Friends in the Asia-Pacific region each follow a triennial fellowship cycle. The leading affiliation is with Evangelical Friends Church International - Asia Region (EFCI-AR, formerly Evangelical Friends International), which unites more than 99 percent of Asian Evangelical Friends.1 In addition to EFCI-AR's primary Asia Region Conference, its Friends South Asia Conference convenes roughly 200 Friends of Bhutan, India and Nepal who share ethnolinguistic ties. The second body is Friends World Committee for Consultation - Asia West Pacific Section (FWCC-AWPS), with which 15 percent of the region's Friends are affiliated. FWCC-AWPS coordinates a Triennial Gathering, Companion Meetings Meeting for Worship online, and visitation. The third, All India Friends Gathering, assembles more than sixty Programmed, Evangelical, and Unprogrammed Friends.
In addition to homegrown JFSC, QSA, QPSANZ and Caring Hands, global Quaker-initiated humanitarian relief, development, and mediation serve the region. Friends Ambulance Unit (later FSU and Quaker Peace and Social Witness) rescued Chinese and Indian civilians from 1941 by providing medical care and emergency supplies. Since entering China in 1925, post-WWII Japan relief and refugee work and civil disobedience in the Vietnam War, AFSC's shift from aid in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Pakistan, Thailand and Timor-Leste into peace building and intermediation organised Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 1959 India pilgrimage; has provided sustainable technologies for North Korean cooperative farms; has promoted conflict sensitivity between Chinese businesses and stakeholders; and has supported IndonesianJathilan (horse dance), Barongsai (Chinese lion dance), and Javanese theatre peace work. A Quaker Action Group and Canadian Friends Service Committee channelled wartime medical supplies to Vietnam. Nadine Hoover (1961-), Valerie Joy (1941-), John Michaelis (1945-) and Beverley Poizin (1939-) facilitate hundreds of Alternatives to Violence workshops, visiting, trauma resiliency, discernment and ending of violence and segregation in Indonesia, Nepal, the Philippines, Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand for the Asia West Pacific Initiative of Friends Peace Teams.
Asia-Pacific Friends, Risk Taking, Missional, Fox-y
If we ask, 'Have Asia-Pacific Friends made any difference?' I anticipate global Friends promptly agreeing on a resounding 'yes'. If we then ask, 'In what way?' we are reminded that differing convictions and motivations of Evangelical, Programmed, and Unprogrammed Friends are such that many are 'diminished by not knowing sufficient [sic] about the world family of Friends' (Meredith 1997, 1).
This chapter has attempted to reduce this knowledge gap. Conclusions include the following:
- Asia-Pacific Friends are risk takers. In a region vulnerable to religious violence, geopolitical conflict and natural disasters, many put their lives at stake to share their faith, secure a safer world and minister to victims of disaster.
- Whilst not denying the existence of West-to-East missions, Asian Friends have both initiated historical missions and led the majority of current missionary work.
- Just as the future of worldwide Quakerism is in the hands of the African and Latin American Friends (Abbott 2013. 550, 562), Asia-Pacific Friends are on a similar trajectory of rapid evangelical growth, pioneering new ways of being Quaker. Young, newly Christian and developing culturally relevant Meetings of traditional arts and hands
- lifted in prayer, these Friends thrive under persecution or in freedom. Church planting is a primary enterprise, often involving community development (Stansell, private correspondence, 2016).
- Management of philanthropic endeavours and safeguarding of properties amidst governmental policy shifts notwithstanding, holistic and congenial Programmed Friends steadily invest in children, environmentalism and countrywide Quaker unity.
- Unprogrammed Friends are active in peacemaking conflicts carved over centuries of injustice, mobilising to aid people in crisis and providing long-term education and training in Quaker testimonies.
- Intraregional camaraderie amongst Evangelical Asians who 'consider their work as a regional movement' (Stansell 2014, 1 10) and amongst Unprogrammed Quakers is unmistakable, with wariness between these two strains short on details of the other. Programmed Friends get along with both.
- Absence of scholarly attention is sorely evident. Despite Mid-India's 150+ and TFC's 60+ years of history, and no language barrier precluding consulting many national leaders, there are less than ten scholarly English works on more than 30,000 Asian Evangelical and Programmed Friends and their forebears. Scholarly and general writings have traced Western missionaries rather than illuminating Asian Friends themselves. Far more is written on the region's Unprogrammed 5 percent, suggesting ethnocentrism, but even here, stories of humanitarian workers, missionaries and immigrants can outstrip those of the native Friends.
Suggested Further Reading
DeVol, C. E. (1988). Fruit That Remains, The Story of the Friends Mission in China and Taiwan sponsored by The Evangelical Friends Church - Eastern Region (Formerly Ohio Yearly Meeting of Friends), Taipei: Dixon Press.
Saville, H. (2009). 'Friends in deed' in 50 Years of Quaker Service Australia, Surly Hills, NSW: Quaker Service Australia.
Stansell, R. (2014). 'Friends in India and Asia', Quaker Religious Thought 123:11, 107-14.
Sykes, M. (1997). An Indian Tapestry, Quaker Threads in the History of India, Pakistan & Bangladesh, From the Seventeenth Century to Independence, ed. by G. Carnall, York: Sessions Book Trust.
1 Some unprogrammed meetings count non-member attendees separately.
2 United Nations-resettled refugees Norbu and Juna Tamang (1973-) and Bhakta Tamang (1981-) have planted Bhutanese-Nepali Evangelical Friends Church - Eastern Region (EFC-ER) churches in the United States since 2015 (Tamang, personal communication, 2017).
3 Due to security concerns involving the physical safety of Friends, names have been omitted.
4 Due to security concerns, this group's name is confidential.
While appreciative of the Daodejing and Buddhist texts, Nitobe was careful to note their differences from Quakerism, writing, 'Let it be far from me to turn Quakerism into Oriental mysticism ... George Fox and his followers conceived of light as a person ... We read Laotze; we read Buddhist saints ... we are brought very near to the idea of redemption, atonement, salvation ... but not the one thing essential - namely, a perfect living Personality (Nitobe 1970, 334-35, 341).
Initially incorporated by PEFIM but separated after a conflict with EFCI-AR, the two churches later drafted a memorandum of understanding and co-exist (Duh 2016b).
7 The Garhwali churches and independent Taiwanese denomination church are not affiliated.
