By: Chef Niku
The Japanese people are considered unreached but not a frontier people group per se (a frontier people is where there is no existing church movement and virtually no Christ followers). The Japanese have been engaged with the Gospel but there are very few viable and indigenous churches among them and the church planting movement has been very slow. Yet, the country is very open for cross-cultural workers to travel to and evangelize and plant churches.
According to the Joshua Project, the percentage of Japanese who are Christian are around 1.20% with evangelicals topping out at 0.30%. From this data, we can see that the population of Japanese who are Christian is barely at 1%, therefore making them unreached. Joshua Project defines unreached peoples as having “few evangelicals and few who identify as Christians” and the threshold for evangelicals should be less than 2% and those profess Christ are less than 5%.
Operation World states that those who are Buddhist are at 69.59%, Others at 23.70%, Non-religious at 5%, Muslim at 0.15% and Baha’i at 0.002%. In reality, most “Japanese claim no personal religion, but the majority follow the demands of idolatrous and ancestor-venerating Buddhism, and rituals of polytheistic Shintoism” (Operation World). There also exists newer variants and forms of Buddhism such as Sokka Gakkai, Risshokosekai and Seicho no le among others. Given all of these facts, the data points to the Japanese as being an unreached people. This can also be confirmed with those already working in the field to back up the data.
The Japanese are a considerably spiritually lost people due to spiritual bondage and strongholds present within the Shinto and Buddhist religions. Most Japanese follow Shinto practices and any “formal disassociation from this connection is extremely difficult in a land where conformity rules” (Operation Japan). Also, the effects of materialism combined with the Japanese culture and the concept of いいとこ取り (iitoko-dori, adoption of elements from other cultures) makes it difficult for Japanese to be wholly devoted to Jesus and not add Him to their pantheon of uncountable other gods that they worship.
As you can see, the Japanese are unreached and desperately need to hear of the hope of Jesus Himself and the salvation that he offers from sin, shame and fear. Hopefully, you are made more aware of the spiritual lostness of the Japanese and realize that the Lord loves all of them very much. I encourage you to be praying that the Japanese would know of God’s everlasting love for them and also how you reach out them if they are in your area.