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Select Bibliography on Interpretation of Shusaku Endo’s Silence

Compiled by James T. Bretzke, S.J. Professor of Moral Theology: Boston College School of Theology & Ministry

bretzke@bc.edu

Last update: March 19, 2018

Table of Contents Works by Endo Shusaku Related to Silence ................................................................................... 1

Books by Endo ............................................................................................................................ 1

Articles by Endo ......................................................................................................................... 2

Historical and/or Complementary Works on Themes Related to Silence....................................... 2

Selected Secondary Works on Endo’s Silence................................................................................ 6

Articles on Endo Shusaku ........................................................................................................... 6

Books Related to Endo Shusaku ............................................................................................... 18

Works on Martin Scorsese’s film adaptation of Silence ............................................................... 20

Interviews with Martin Scorsese ............................................................................................... 20

Selected Secondary Works on Martin Scorsese’s film adaptation of Silence ........................... 21

Works by Endo Shusaku Related to Silence

Books by Endo

N.B. This is NOT a comprehensive list of Endo’s works, but only those that have a more direct bearing on Silence and the related themes treated in this book.

Endo, Shusaku (遠藤 周作). 沈黙 (Chinmoku). 1966. Silence. Translated by William

Johnston, S.J. Tokyo: Kodansha, 1969. ________. 深い河 (Fukai kawa) 1993. Deep River. Translated by Van C. Gessel. New York:

New Directions, 1994.

Traces the stories of four Japanese tourists who come to India and the Ganges River for various reasons that have aspects of a religious pilgrimage. In this sense this final novel

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of Endo fits in well with many of his earlier works, especially Silence, Samurai, and A Life of Jesus.

________. イエスの生涯 1973. A Life of Jesus. Translated by Richard A. Schuchert. New

York: Paulist Press, 1978.

Endo’s theological interpretation of Jesus Christ, based on the Gospels, and with a view to explaining Christ to a Japanese non-Christian audience.

________. 侍 1980. Samurai. Translated by Van C. Gessel. New York: Harper and Row,

1982.

A historical novel concerning cultural clashes encountered in a diplomatic mission of Hasekura Tsunenaga to Mexico and Spain in the 17th century. In 1613 a small group of Samurai join a group, including a Spanish missionary, that travels to Mexico, Spain and eventually Rome.

Articles by Endo Endo, Shusaku. “Kirishitan and Today." In Peter Milward, ed. The Mutual Encounter of East

and West, 1492-1992, 187-97. Tokyo: The Renaissance Institute (Sophia University), 1992.

________. “Literature and religion, especially the role of the unconscious.” In The Voice of the

Writer 1984. Collected Papers of the 47th International P.E.N. Congress in Tokyo. Tokyo , The Japan P.E.N. Club: 29-37.

Endo, Shusaku, and Johnston, William, S.J. “Endo and Johnston talk of Buddhism and

Christianity (Interview).” America 171/16 (November 19, 1994): 18-21. Endo, Shusaku, and Rafferty, Kevin. “The sharpened pencil and acerbic views of Japan's

Graham Greene (Interview).” The Guardian (October 22, 1994): 31.

Supplied Abstract: “Japanese novelist Shusaku Endo still uses a pencil rather than a typewriter or even a pen because he likes to feel what he is writing. Endo, a Roman Catholic, writes novels that tell of the frequently bleak search for salvation through God. This differs from the theme of the novels of his Nobel prizewinning compatriot, Kenzaburo Oe, which Endo sees as being 'salvation without God.' However both men are equally distrustful of the entire Japanese establishment. Endo, who is 71, is extremely pessimistic and fears the consequences were Japan ever to become isolated again.

Historical and/or Complementary Works on Themes Related to Silence

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Bretzke, James T., S.J. Bibliography on East Asian Religion and Philosophy. Studies in Asian Thought and Religion, 23. Lewiston NY: Mellen Press, 2001. ISBN 0773473181

This is a 568 page book which compiles, annotates, indexes and cross-references resources in the principal Western languages of English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish which focus on East Asia (principally China, Japan, and Korea) in the primary areas of philosophy and religious studies, with supporting resources in theology, history, culture, and related social sciences. The bibliography is organized both thematically and geographically, and the index gives not only author=s and subject=s names, but includes a wide range of topics and sub-topics as well. A notable additional feature of this bibliography is the inclusion of extensive Internet-based resources, such as a wide variety of web-sites, discussion lists, electronic texts, virtual libraries, online journals and related materials which allow for easy further research.

Focus of the Sections and Sub-sections

The initial section of the bibliography treats general and/or miscellaneous works on philosophy or religion in Asia as a whole, i.e., without particular reference to one of the specific themes or geographical areas treated in the other sections. This section also lists a number of resources concerned with the theme of the inculturation or contextualization of Christianity into the various areas of Asia and Asian life.

The next major section of the bibliography concentrates on the major religious and philosophical traditions of East Asia, namely, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. Each of these sub-sections begins with a listing of primary sources in translation of the principal sacred texts, and then moves on to a listing of secondary resources, divided according to further specializations of the individual tradition (e.g., Zen Buddhism or Neo-Confucianism), followed in turn by works dealing with inter-religious dialogue and/or interaction with the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Following treatment of these three major religious traditions of East Asia there are separate sections dealing the Chinese and/or Confucian Understanding of Religion, Business and Economic Ethics in East Asia, and Human Rights in the East Asian Context, and Asian Feminist Philosophy and/or Theology. These sections in turn are followed by a geographical breakdown of China, Japan, and Korea, and these three geographical areas are further sub-divided into religious thematic areas.

Reviewed in H-Asia and Korean Studies (internet academic discussion lists); Theology Digest 48 (Winter 2001): 355; Bibliographia Missionaria 76 (2002): 303-304.

________. "Cultural Particularity and the Globalization of Ethics in the Light of Inculturation."

Pacifica 9 (1996): 69-86.

Increased interest in the so-called "globalization of ethics" has led to a number of studies which utilize various hermeneutical and communicative theories to sketch out viable paradigms for developing a fundamental Christian ethics as a whole, as well as its various

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components such as moral reasoning, which together would be capable of entering into and maintaining such discourse. The accent of most of these studies falls on the universalizability of ethical discourse and scant attention has been given to the cultural particularity of each and every ethos and ethical system. This article briefly rehearses the principal elements of the concerns raised by the globalization of ethics and then focuses on the particularity of culture using insights from both cultural anthropology and inculturation. The Confucian context of Korea is employed to illustrate some of the issues raised by greater attention to cultural particularity.

________. “A New Pentecost for Moral Theology: The Challenge of Inculturation of Ethics.”

Josephinum 10:2 (Summer/Fall 2003): 250-260.

A principal task for the discipline of moral theology in the twenty-first century will be to engage the challenge of developing a cross-cultural ethics which will recognize first that a certain plurality of views on important moral concepts such as virtue, duty, the common good, the natural law, etc. is a positive value in itself, rather than an obstacle to be overcome, side-stepped, or obliterated, and second, that a process of cross-cultural dialogue based on mutual respect for the various cultures will facilitate the cultivation of the richness of this moral pluralism. If such an approach is adopted and followed then ethical pluralism itself can be transformed and we shall be able to move from a pluralism of "co-existence" in which several moral outlooks exist along-side one another, and whose primary moral claim is for mutual tolerance, to a healthier pluralism whose central value is better expressed by the metaphor of "cross-fertilization." Through ethical cross-fertilization a fuller understanding of the richness and complexity of the moral world would develop both within individual cultures as well as across cultures as well as to help correct some persistent and tenacious problems connected with the darker side of any culture's moral world-view and ethical values and practices.

________. ATeaching Cross-Cultural Ethics in a Context of Pluralism & Multiculturalism:

Teaching Where Religion and Ethics Intersect.@ Journal of Ecumenical Studies 48:3 (Summer 2013): 369-377.

This essay begins with a brief discussion of what Across-cultural ethics@ is and how Across-fertilization,@ can help students come together to discover not only the ethical perspectives of the cultural Aother,@ but to become more deeply aware of how their own Aglobal pre-scientific convictions@ (Rahner) and Fundamental Values & Root Paradigms (Turner, Douglas, Geertz, et al.) shape their ethical worldviews. Seen in this context pluralism can be a positive resource rather than a threat to an objective understanding of morality. Taiwanese theologian C.S. Song=s stages of dialogue are briefly analyzed and the essay concludes with a reflection on a APathways to Spiritual Wisdom@ course team-taught with Tendzin Choegyal, the 15th Ngari Rinpoche and the younger brother of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. The final endnote provides the URL to a mixed media cross-cultural Power Point presentation used in the beginning of the course.

________. “Through Thick And Thin: Teaching Ethics in a Cross cultural Perspective.” Horizons 27 (Spring 2000): 63-80.

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This article outlines the graduate course in which Endo’s Silence is used. Recent discussion concerning the globalization of ethics and the prospects for a common morality, as well as related issues such as inculturation, pluralism, and multi-culturalism all provide a challenging context for critical reflection on how religious ethics can and should be done in these universities, theological centers and seminaries. This article outlines both some of the major concerns raised in teaching ethics from cross cultural, ecumenical, and inter religious perspectives in the United States, as well as developing a coherent methodology which is grounded in the theological tradition of Christian ethics, but which seeks to integrate these different perspectives.

Chauvet, Louis-Marie, Symbol and Sacrament: A Sacramental Reinterpretation of Christian Existence. Translated by P. Madigan & M. Beaumont. Collegeville, MN: Pueblo, 1995.

While not dealing in any explicit way with Endo’s Silence Chauvet’s theological reflections on “silence” in terms of language and culture do help in fleshing out a fuller framework to consider the key theme of “silence” in Endo’s novel.

Fujita, Neil S. Japan’s Encounter with Christianity: The Catholic Mission in Pre-Modern Japan. New York: Paulist Press, 1991.

Gives a quite readable historical account of the introduction and development of the Catholic missions in Japan. In the Epilogue he provides a brief analysis of Endo’s “mudswamp” metaphor in the context of what Japanese social critic Shichihei Yamamoto terms “Japanism,” which postulates that the Japanese are not a-religious nor anti-religious, but that they tend not to commit themselves to any particular religion.

Jennes, Joseph, C.I.C.M A History of the Catholic Church in Japan: From its Beginnings to the Early Meiji Era (1549-1873). Revised, enlarged edition. Tokyo: Oriens Institute for Religious Research, 1973.

Originally written in 1959 as a handbook to introduce Japan to newly arrived Catholic missionaries it has been expanded for a larger audience.

Kiyoko, Takeda. “Apostasy—A Japanese Pattern.” Japan Interpreter 12/2 (1978): 171-200.

Considers several issues involved with “indigenization” (what Catholic theologians usually term “inculturation”) in the Japanese context.

Whelan, Christal, translator and annotator. The Beginning of Heaven and Earth: The Sacred Book of Japan’s Hidden Christians. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996.

Description of contents: The Beginning of Heaven and Earth -- The Evil fruit cast to Middle Heaven -- The Division of Deusu's body for the salvation of humankind -- The King's death -- The Tribulations of Santa Maruya -- The Five mysteries of the morning -- A Nationwide search -- Yorotetsu captures the Holy One -- Up Karuwaryu Hill -- Money

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bedazzled -- The Kirinto -- The Holy One's selection -- Establishment of the officials -- The Destruction of our world. From a universal religion the Tenchi constructs a system of beliefs entirely Japanese in spirit. Its earliest context was in all likelihood the encounter between a storyteller and a group of Kakure Kirishitan [Hidden Christians].

Selected Secondary Works on Endo’s Silence (See also the separate section that follows which focuses on Martin Scorsese’s film adaptation of Silence)

N.B. Since the announcement of the Scorsese film adaptation the novel version of Silence has produced a renewed interest in both the theological and literary arenas. The entries below are selected to represent some of these differing perceptions and do not pretend to be an exhaustive, comprehensive list.

Articles on Endo Shusaku Askew, Rie Kido. “Can a "maternal" Catholicism be Christianity? The issue of inculturation in

Silence.” Asia Pacific World 5/1 (2014): 68-92.

Author supplied abstract: “This article examines Endo Shusaku's (1923-1996) Chinmoku (Silence, 1966), a novel based on the history of Christian persecution in seventeenth century Japan. Like many other Japanese Christians, Endo struggled throughout his life attempting to reconcile Christianity and Japan. Endo's solution was to transform Christianity into something acceptable to Japanese religious traditions. In Silence, Endo reshaped "paternal" (strict) Catholicism into a "maternal" (forgiving) religion of love. This change has triggered much debate. Some have praised it as a humane inculturation, while others criticized it as a distortion of orthodox teaching. This raises an old yet unresolved question: what is the essence of Christianity?”

Beverly, Elizabeth. “A silence that is not hollow: the mindfulness of Shusaku Endo.”

Commonweal 116/16 (September 22, 1989): 491-495. Bosco, Mark, S.J. “Charting Endo’s Catholic Literary Aesthetic.” Ch. 5 in Approaching Silence:

New perspectives on Shusaku Endo's classic novel, 77-92. Edited by Mark W. Dennis, and Darren J. N. Middleton. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

Bretzke, James T., S.J. “Giving Voice to Shusaku Endo’s Novel Use of Zen Ascetical Spirituality.” Catholicism, Literature and the Arts: 1850 – Present International Conference, 5-7 July 2017, Durham, UK Script: https://www2.bc.edu/james-bretzke/HearingSilenceInEndoScript.pdf and Power Point at https://www2.bc.edu/james-bretzke/HearingSilenceInEndo.ppsx

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Bussie, Jacqueline Aileen. “Believing Apostates: Laughter in Shusaku Endo’s Silence.” Ch. 4 in Id. The Laughter of the Oppressed : Ethical and Theological Resistance in Wiesel, Morrison, and Endo, 77-124. New York : T & T Clark International: 2007.

Laughter "from below" -- Authoritative voices speak: philosophers and theologians weigh-in on laughter -- "God's mistake": Holocaust laughter in Elie Wiesel's Gates of the forest -- Believing apostates : laughter in Shusaku Endo's Silence -- Flowers in the dark : African American consciousness, laughter, and resistance in Toni Morrison's Beloved -- Toward a theology of laughter.”

________. “Laughter Out of Place: Risibility as Resistance and Hidden Transcript in Silence. Ch. 14 in Approaching Silence: New perspectives on Shusaku Endo's classic novel, 241-258. Edited by Mark W. Dennis, and Darren J. N. Middleton. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

Uses the same interpretative structure to make quite similar points in the article above.

Cavanaugh, William T. “Absolute Moral Norms and Human Suffering: An Apocalyptic Reading of Endo's Silence.” Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 2/3 (1999): 96-116.

Critiques Endo’s novel in light of Pope John Paul II’s 1993 Encyclical on Fundamental Moral Theology Veritatis splendor for the supposed violation of an absolute moral norm forbidding apostasy. Cavanaugh concludes that “Compassion has become a deadly virtue in our society that can no longer make sense of suffering. We have lost the root meaning of the word compassion, meaning to "suffer with." A follower of Christ may be able to set individual suffering within a larger drama of the confrontation of the Kingdom of God with the principalities and powers that killed Jesus Christ. In a society in which personal choice has overtaken such a grand narrative, however, suffering and truth become dissociated, and we come to believe that our highest calling is to eliminate any suffering at any cost, even the cost of truth. … We feel we must act because God will not. To read history in the light of the crucified Jesus, however, is to refuse such murderous compassion, and to find the silent activity of God among the victims of this world” (p. 115).

_________. “The god of silence: Shusaku Endo's reading of the Passion. (critique of the Japanese novel Silence).” Commonweal 125/5 (March 13, 1998):10-12.

A rather negative view of Endo’s novel from a noted conservative Catholic professor of theology.

Cohen, Doron B. “The God of Amae: Endo’s Silence Reconsidered.” Japanese Religions 19/1-2 (January 1993): 106-121.

Dennis, Mark W. “A Buddhist Reading of the Blue Eyes of Jesus in Silence.” Chapter 10 in

Approaching Silence: New perspectives on Shusaku Endo's classic novel, 159-185. Edited by Mark W. Dennis, and Darren J. N. Middleton. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

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Looks at Endo’s Silence through perspectives offered by Buddhist thought and contemporary hermeneutical theory. The “blue eyes” of Jesus as envisaged by Fr. Rodrigues in Endo’s novel serve as “not only as the fount and guarantor of meaning and action, but also as a symbol of the oppositions that inform his view of the ‘Oriental other’. For example, the beautiful blue-eyed face of Christ imagined by Rodrigues contrasts starkly with the yellow ‘Japanese’ eyes of Kichijiro, an ugly Judas-like figure who ultimately betrays the priest.” (p. 160)

Dennis, Mark W., and Darren J. N. Middleton. “Introduction: Silence in the World.” In Approaching Silence: New perspectives on Shusaku Endo's classic novel, xi-xxiv. Edited by Mark W. Dennis, and Darren J. N. Middleton. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

Dietz, Steven. “Silence, a Play (“Chinmoku”). Adapted from the novel by Shusaku Endo.” Ch. 16 in Approaching Silence: New perspectives on Shusaku Endo's classic novel, 279-395. Edited by Mark W. Dennis, and Darren J. N. Middleton. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

Doak, Kevin M. “Before Silence: Stumbling Along with Rodrigues and Kichijiro.” Ch. 1 in Approaching Silence: New perspectives on Shusaku Endo's classic novel, 3-23. Edited by Mark W. Dennis, and Darren J. N. Middleton. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

Durfee, Richard E., Jr. “Portrait of an Unknowingly Ordinary Man: Endo Shusaku, Christianity, and Japanese Historical Consciousness.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies (JJRS) 16/1 (Fall 1989): 40-61.

From the opening paragraph: “In many ways, End6 Shosaku is anything but an ordinary man. He possesses the peculiarity of living as a socially unorthodox and religiously radical minority in a nation of people who strongly value homogeneity and conformity. EndO Shosaku is a contemporary novelist who lives the somewhat unordinary life of what some consider to be a profound paradox; he is both Catholic and Japanese. Many, both foreigners and native Japanese alike, see being Christian as denying much of what it means to be genuinely Japanese, and view being Japanese as excluding the possibility of being completely Christian. End6 is to some extent an enigma because most of his literary work has been a response to this unordinary situation. Furthermore, by responding publicly, he has become a spokesman of sorts for those who share his dilemma. All of these things combine to render Endo Shusaku something other than an ordinary man.” (p. 40).

Endo, Junko. “Reflections on Shusaku Endo and Silence.” Christianity and Literature 48/2 (Winter, 1999): 145-148.

Junko Endo was the wife of Shusaku Endo.

Enright, Lyle. “Reading Shusaku Endo’s Silence with an Eschatological Imagination.” Renascence 69/2 (Spring 2017): 113-128.

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From the author supplied abstract: “Entering into conversation with the theological work of Michael Patrick Murphy and Hans Urs von Balthasar, this essay articulates a starting-point for reading Shusaku Endo’s Silence and exploring its relevance for contemporary discussions between Christian aesthetics and postmodernism. Under particular examination are the ways in which both Endo and von Balthasar bring postmodern hermeneutics into conversation with Christian eschatology to address questions of knowledge and identity, examining not only how themes of resurrection appear aesthetically in the novel, but also how reading the novel from within this thematic framework speaks to its central concerns. Thus, this essay articulates an anticipatory or eschatological hermeneutic which hopes to do justice to both the violence of Endo’s story and the hope of the Christian narrative.”

Fehler, Brun. “Re‐defining god: The rhetoric of reconciliation.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 33/1 (January 2003): 105-126. From the author supplied abstract: Religious people who encounter crisis and tragedy often question the premises of their faith. Many of those believers, in order to continue in a life of faith, must re‐imagine their conceptions of God. This process of re‐imagining God, whether for an individual believer or a professional theologian, is a dialogical one. Utilizing Bakhtin's conception of speech utterances, we will model a process of reconciliation by which believers such as C.S Lewis and Shusaku Endo and theologians such as Schmuel Boteach and Enrique Dussell contribute to a rhetorical, dynamic understanding of God.

Fujita, Neil S. “Shusaku Endo: Japanese Catholic Novelist.” Religion and Intellectual Life 3/3 (1986): 101-113.

Galbraith, Elizabeth Cameron. “Agape and Bodhisattva Ideal in Shusaku Endo’s Silence.”

Dharma World 33 (2006): 28-34.

_________. “Agape Unbound in Silence and Deep River.” Ch. 8 in Approaching Silence: New perspectives on Shusaku Endo's classic novel, 125-138. Edited by Mark W. Dennis, and Darren J. N. Middleton. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

Excerpted by her article in Dharma World listed above.

Gallagher, Michael. “For the Least of my Brethren: The Concerns of Endo Shusaku.” Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese JATJ 27/1 (April 1993): 75-84.

Gessel, Van C. “Endo Shusaku and ‘Behind the Program’.” Literary Review 39- (Winter 1996):

243.

From the author supplied abstract: “Japanese author Endo Shusaku is one of the most prolific, acclaimed and widely-read authors in Japan today. Shusaku's short story "Behind the Program" is based on his concern for the pain hidden just under the surface of people's lives.”

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________. “Endo Shusaku: His Position(s) in Postwar Japanese Literature.” Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese JATJ 27/1 (April 1993): 67-74.

________. “Hearing God in Silence: The Fiction of Shusaku Endo.” Christianity and Literature 48/2 (Winter, 1999): 149-164.

_________. “Salvation of the Weak: Endo Shusaku.” Chapter Six in Id. The Sting of Life: Four Contemporary Japanese Novelists, 231-281. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989.

Reviewed by Chia-Ning Chang in Monumenta Nipponica 45/1 (Spring, 1990): 100-103; Janet Goff in Japan Quarterly 37/3 (July 1990): 373-4.

________. “Silence on Opposite Shores: Critical Reactions to the Novel in Japan and the West. Ch. 2 in Approaching Silence: New perspectives on Shusaku Endo's classic novel,25-41. Edited by Mark W. Dennis, and Darren J. N. Middleton. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

Hall, Douglas J. “Rethinking Christ: Theological Reflections on Shusaku Endo’s Silence.” Interpretation 33/3 (1979): 254-267.

From the author supplied abstract: Since Dietrich Bonhoeffer asked, 'who is Jesus Christ for us today?', there have been many attempts to 'update' Christology; but what is lacking is a 'picture' of the Christ which can move our Age at the level of the imagination, not merely rationally. Imago Christi must precede theologia Christi. In the work of the contemporary Japanese novelist, Shusaku Endo, such an image of Christ is powerfully glimpsed. Endo, a convert to Christianity, offers a devastating critique of the triumphant Christus of Western Christendom. In place of the kingly Christ who accompanied Western imperialism to the East, he shows us a suffering and broken Christ reminiscent of Luther's theologia crucis. His novel, Silence, as well as his more recent life of Christ, has relevance not only for the East but for the Western Church, which must 're-think' its Gospel in the light of contemporary experience. At this writing was on the Faculty of Religious Studies at McGill University.

Heidelberger, Kathryn Bradford. “The Liberative Theology of Silence.” WIT (Women in Theology) November 23, 2106 at https://womenintheology.org/2016/11/23/the-liberative-theology-of-silence/ (accessed December 14, 2016).

Heidelberger draws comparisons between Gutierrez and Endo.

Heremans, Marc. “The problem of evil and its perception in the novels of Endo Shusaku.” Transactions of the International Conference of Orientalists in Japan 32 (1987): 120-122.

Higgins, Jean. “The Inner Agon of Endo Shusaku.” Cross Currents 34 (Winter, 1984-85): 414-

426.

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Looks at the Eastern and Western understandings of “God” in Endo’s work.

Hirota, Dennis. “Discerning the Marshland of this World: Silence from a Japanese Buddhist Perspective.” Ch. 9 in Approaching Silence: New perspectives on Shusaku Endo's classic novel, 139-158. Edited by Mark W. Dennis, and Darren J. N. Middleton. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

Hoffer, Bates. “Shusaku Endo and Graham Green: Cross-Cultural Influences in Literary Structure.” Language and Literature 28 (2003): 127-133.

From the author supplied abstract: Endo Shusaku was one of the most famous writers of 20th century Japan. He admired the work of the great English novelist Graham Greene and he wrote some books that led to him being called the "Graham Greene of Japan." Endo's novel Silence has interesting parallels to Greene's The Power and the Glory. These parallels can be used to help solve a controversy in the literary criticism of Endo's novel.

Inoue, Masamichi. “Reclaiming the universal: intercultural subjectivity in the life and work of Endo Shusaku.” Southeast Review of Asian Studies 34 (2012): 153-170.

From the author supplied abstract: “In an attempt to question the ascendency of today's relativism, this essay asks two different but interrelated questions: (1) Does the celebration of cultural differences guarantee the disappearance of ethnocentric universalism? (2) Is it possible to envision a universalism that is not ethnocentric? Answering the first question negatively and the second question affirmatively, this essay analyzes the life and work of the Japanese Catholic writer Endo Shusaku (1923-96), with particular attention to his Chinmoku (Silence), a novel that explores intercultural subjectivity in the context of Japan's encounter with the Christian West in the seventeenth century. It further elaborates the notion of the "common," whereby people of various backgrounds enter into a commonality that enables them to communicate and act together from the shared perspective of the oppressed even as they articulate and maintain their differences.

Kaltner, John. “Silence in the Classroom.” Ch. 15 in Approaching Silence: New perspectives on

Shusaku Endo's classic novel, 261-276. Edited by Mark W. Dennis, and Darren J. N. Middleton. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

Kazusa, Hideo. “The Background and Implication of Chinmoku [Silence].” Japan Christian Quarterly JCQ (Summer 1988): 150-153.

Keuss, Jeff. “The Lenten Face of Christ in Shusaku Endo’s Silence and Life of Jesus.” The Expository Times 118/6 (2007): 273-279.

From the author supplied abstract: “While much has been written in literary criticism about Shusaku Endo’s various historical and literary novels particularly by William Johnston, SJ and Van C. Gessel who have also served as key translators of Endo into English, this essay builds on their work and provides a necessary theological and

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phenomenological exploration of Endo’s work through his fluidity of imaging the face of Christ in Silence and Life of Jesus. In particular, Endo’s use of the ‘fumie’ image of Christ provokes a reading of Jean Luc Marion’s notion of idol and icon and creates a compelling reassessment of the dislocating images of Christ found in the Lenten season.”

_________. “Literature as Dōhansha [“companion”] in Silence.” Ch. 11 in Approaching Silence: New perspectives on Shusaku Endo's classic novel, 189-204 Edited by Mark W. Dennis, and Darren J. N. Middleton. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

Lee (I), Ban. “Endo Shusaku’s Chinmoku [Silence] and the Potentiality of Korean Christian Literature.” Japan Christian Quarterly JCQ (Summer 1988): 154-159.

Long, Susan Orpett. “Silences and Voices: The Writings of Endo Shusaku.” Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese JATJ 27/1 (April 1993): 57-58.

Introduction to essays presented at a conference held on May 18, 1991 at John Carroll University in University Heights OH and published in this same issue, on the occasion of the awarding of the honorary doctorate to Shusaku Endo.

Magister, Sandro. “Enough Proselytism, It’s Time for ‘Silence.’ Even for the Catholic Missions.” Settimo Cielo January 9, 2017 http://magister.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/2017/01/09/enough-proselytism-it’s-time-for-“silence-”-even-for-the-catholic-missions/ (accessed 1/9/2017 3:51:01 PM)

Magister is a well-known arch-conservative lay Italian “Vaticanista” (journalist who focuses on the Holy See) and constant critique of Pope Francis and his papacy. In this blog posting he uses the recent release of Scorsese’s movie Silence to critique a recent article in La Civilta Cattolica on evangelization in Japan which (mistakenly in Magister’s view) focuses too much “on common human demand for religious values.”

Mase-Hasegawa, Emi. “Image of Christ for Japanese---Reflections on Shusaku Endo’s Novels.”

Inter-Religio 43 (Summer 2003): 22-33. ________. “Religion and Contemporary Japanese Novelists—Endo’s Concept of God

Reconsidered.” Interreligious Insight 4/4 (October 2006): 20-27.

Looks at how Endo’s concept of God was developed in three stages of Conflict, Reconciliation, and Mutual Transformation to express an approach finally to inculturating Christianity into Japan in a “Glocal” mode of joining the local culture to the Global world.

Matata, J.P. Mukengeshayi. “Endo Shusaku’s Novels and Religious Pluralism: A Reply to Prof.

Emi Mase-Hasegawa.” Inter-Religio 43 (Summer 2003): 34-38.

Considers some of the issues of inculturation in a post-modern and post-colonial world, focusing on insights from Endo’s novels, especially Silence and Deep River.

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Matata is an African missionary priest who at this writing was connected with the Oriens Institute for Religious Research in Tokyo.

Mathy, Francis, S.J. “Endo Shusaku: White Man, Yellow Man.” Comparative Literature 19/1

(Winter, 1967): 58-74. _________. “Shusaku Endo: Japanese Catholic novelist.” Thought (Winter, 1967): 585-614. _________. “Shusaku Endo: The Second Period.” Japan Christian Quarterly (Fall 1974): 214-

220. Matsuoka, Fumitaka. “The Christology of Shusaku Endo.” Theology Today 39/3 (October,

1982): 294-299. McCormack, Frances. “’And Like the Sea God was Silent’: Multivalent Water Imagery in

Silence.” Ch. 13 in Approaching Silence: New perspectives on Shusaku Endo's classic novel, 223-239. Edited by Mark W. Dennis, and Darren J. N. Middleton. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

McFadden, William C. “The Broken Silence of Shusaku Endo.” Listening 25 (Spring 1990): 166-177.

Middleton, Darren J. N. “Endo and Greene’s Literary Theology.” Ch. 4 in Approaching Silence: New perspectives on Shusaku Endo's classic novel, 61-75. Edited by Mark W. Dennis, and Darren J. N. Middleton. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

Netland, John. “Encountering Christ in Shusaku Endo’s Mudswamp of Japan. In Christian encounters with the other. Edited by John C. Hawley. New York: New York University Press, 1998.

________. “From Cultural Alterity to the Habitations of Grace: The Evolving Moral Topography of Endo's Mudswamp Trope.” Christianity & Literature 59/1 (2009): 27-48.

________. “From Resistance to Kenosis: Reconciling Cultural Difference in the Fiction of Endo Shusaku.” Christianity and Literature 48/2 (Winter 1999): 177-194.

Ninomiya, Cindy. “Endo Shusaku: Bridging the Gap between Christianity and Japanese Culture.” Japan Christian Quarterly (Fall 1990): 227-236.

O’Leary, Joseph Stephen. “Conventions and ultimacy in Japanese religion: a challenge to Christian theology.” Studies in World Christianity 6/1 (2000): 38-58.

de Paiva, M. Geraldo José. Psychologie culturelle de la religion: l’évolution de la perception du catholicisme dans trois romans de l’écrivain catholique japonais Shusaku Endo.” Studies in Religion-Sciences Religieuses 36/2 (2007): 241-259.

From the author supplied abstract: Abstract: Shusaku Endo’s (1923-1996) novels, Wonderful Fool, Silence and Deep River are examined in order to psychologically follow

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the spiritual path the writer, born and nurtured in both Japanese traditional culture and western Catholicism, took until, after initially perceiving the incompatibility of being a Catholic and being a Japanese, he became able to bring Catholicism near to the Japanese way of being founded upon amae, which views the Christian God, humanized in Jesus, as a maternal God, who preferably and unconditionally loves sinners. This perceptual moving does rsise psychological questions about divine fatherhood/motherhood approached from diverse religious and cultural presuppositions.

Peachey, Roy. “The Troubling Legacy of Shūsaku Endō’s Silence.” First Things December 27, 2016 https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2016/12/the-troubling-legacy-of-shsaku-ends-silence

Argues that Endo’s work was rightly viewed as hostile to Catholicism and reflects a 1960’s existentialism that has “Orwell’s Winston Smith being Rodrigues’s most significant literary antecedent. The Portuguese priest may not come to love his equivalent of Big Brother but, after interrogation and the threat of torture, he does submit to the intransigent political power of his day and willingly serves it.”

Roy Peachey is a doctoral student at the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, Melbourne and teaches at Woldingham School in the UK.

Pinnington, Adrian. “Yoshimitsu, Benedict, Endo: Guilt, Shame and the Post-war Idea of

Japan.” Japan Forum 13/1 (2001): 91-105.

From the author supplied Abstract: “The idea that Japan is a ‘shame culture’ and that the Japanese have a weak sense of sin has been an influential one, both in Japan and abroad. It has also often influenced attitudes towards Japan’s behaviour in World War II. This idea, however, has its roots in the Japanese critique of pre-war ideology after World War II and in the Japanese reception of Ruth Benedict’s The Chrysanthemum and the Sword. In various forms, the idea also became an important element of Nihonbunkaron, those theories of Japanese culture which have been so popular in post-war Japan. The same idea was also given a powerful and influential expression in the novels of Endo Shusaku (1923–96). Earlier Christian theologians in Japan, such as Yoshimitsu Yoshihiko (1904–45), had often seen traditional Japanese culture as closer to Christianity than modern European culture. To such thinkers, Japan’s war with Britain and America was in part a war on modernity itself. By contrast, Endo accepted the post-war belief that Japan was a shame culture, distant from European Christianity. As his career proceeded, however, he came to take a more positive view of the ‘weak’ Japanese self. In this sense, his work closely parallels the development of Nihonbunkaron itself. Paradoxically, however, Endo’s ‘Japanese’ reinterpretation of Christianity proved highly popular not only in Japan but also abroad, raising the possibility that it was less exclusively Japanese than his work suggested.

Reinsma, Luke M. “Shusaku Endo's River of Life.” Christianity and Literature 48/2 (Winter

1999): 195-211.

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Overview of Endo’s major works Rimer, J. Thomas. “That Most Excellent Gift of Charity—Endo Shusaku in Contemporary

World Literature.” Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese JATJ 27/1 (April 1993): 59-66.

Sano, Hitoshi. “The Transformation of Father Rodrigues in Shusaku Endo’s Silence.”

Christianity and Literature 48/2 (Winter 1999): 165-175.

A close look at Rodrigues as revealed in the novel, especially in connection with the character Kichiro and the events post-apostasy detailed in the “Appendix” of the novel which contains the “diary” of Dutch merchant to Japan.

Schroth, Raymond A., SJ. “Shusaku Endo, Silence: Persecution and betrayal in seventeenth

century Japan.” Ch. 42 in Id. Dante to Dead man walking: one reader's journey through the Christian classics, 190-193. Chicago: Loyola Press 2001.

Jesuit priest Raymond Schroth repeats the common identification of Endo’s Rodrigues with Graham Greene’s whiskey priest in the latter’s The Power and the Glory, but notes some differences (which I believe he mistakes): “Endo asks whether the Western and Eastern image of God can ever be reconciled.” P. 191-2. He states that the Jesuit missionaries in Japan “virtually court martyrdom as if it were a seventeenth-century Catholic version of the Congressional Medal. But rather than spiritual triumph, they experience a terrible shame and learn another kind of spiritual lesson: that maybe this whole hundred years of sacrifice has not been a good idea. Perhaps it is not even God’s will.” P. 192. Schroth posits that Endo’s upbringing, marked by betrayal from his parents’ divorce and childhood experiences helped him “develop his own felt image of Christ, not as the triumphant judge of Western Christology but as one who suffers and forgives.” P. 192. Schroth concludes “Silence is one of the most depressing novels I have ever read. Bu I’ve read it three time.” P. 193.

Chapters in Schroth’s book: 1. Book of Genesis -- 2. Book of Job -- 3. David Story: A Translation with Commentary of 1 and 2 Samuel / Robert Alter -- 4. Gospel of Luke -- 5. Gospel of John -- 6. Confessions / St. Augustine -- 7. Inferno / Dante Alighieri -- 8. Butler's Lives of the Saints / Michael Walsh -- 9. Imitation of Christ / Thomas a Kempis -- 10. Idea of a University / John Henry Newman -- 11. Walden / Henry David Thoreau -- 12. "The Second Inaugural Address" / Abraham Lincoln -- 13. Brothers Karamazov / Fyodor Dostoyevsky -- 14. Story of a Soul / St. Therese of Lisieux -- 15. Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres / Henry Adams -- 16. Orthodoxy / G. K. Chesterton -- 17. Dubliners / James Joyce -- 18. Kristin Lavransdatter / Sigrid Undset -- 19. Therese / Francois Mauriac -- 20. Death Comes for the Archbishop / Willa Cather -- 21. Mr. Blue / Myles Connolly -- 22. Out of My Life and Thought: An Autobiography / Albert Schweitzer -- 23. Diary of a Country Priest / Georges Bernanos --24. Power and the Glory / Graham Greene -- 25. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey through Yugoslavia / Rebecca West -- 26. Brideshead Revisited / Evelyn Waugh -- 27. Cry, the Beloved Country / Alan

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Paton -- 28. Seven Storey Mountain / Thomas Merton -- 29. Letters and Papers from Prison / Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- 30. Long Loneliness / Dorothy Day -- 31. Family of Man / Edward Steichen -- 32. Divine Milieu / Pierre Teilhard de Chardin -- 33. Canticle for Leibowitz / Walter M. Miller, Jr. -- 34. Morte D'Urban / J. F. Powers -- 35. Other America / Michael Harrington -- 36. Four Loves / C. S. Lewis -- 37. Historic Reality of Christian Culture: A Way to the Renewal of Human Life / Christopher Dawson -- 38. Edge of Sadness / Edwin O'Connor -- 39. "Letter from Birmingham Jail" / Martin Luther King, Jr. -- 40. Everything That Rises Must Converge, "Revelation" / Flannery O'Connor -- 41. Autobiography of Malcolm X / Alex Haley -- 42. Silence / Shusaku Endo --43. Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation / Gustavo Gutierrez -- 44. Fate of the Earth / Jonathan Schell -- 45. Love of Jesus and the Love of Neighbor / Karl Rahner -- 46. In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins / Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza -- 47. Black Robe / Brian Moore -- 48. Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States / Helen Prejean -- 49. Life of Thomas More / Peter Ackroyd -- 50. All Saints: Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time / Robert Ellsberg.

Snow, Patricia. “Empathy Is Not Charity.” First Things (October, 2017) https://www.firstthings.com/article/2017/10/empathy-is-not-charity (accessed September 18, 2017)

A wide-ranging, scattered, condemnatory essay of Endo’s Silence, Scorsese’s film adaptation, and a range of other punching bags. Snow equates Endo’s novel with the 1960’s “Death of God” theology and castigates the emotion of “empathy” that she sees as the prominent flaw in the work. “Silence is an anachronism a projection of the modern mind, a hallucination of an anxious, confused, and codependent imagination. It is a story dreamed up by Endō himself, a troubled twentieth-century Catholic, which attracted the attention of Martin Scorsese, another troubled, long-lapsed cradle Catholic. … In a world without God, the new commandment of empathy might have been foreseen. Once God has been pronounced dead and the loyalty we owe him void, the question of what we owe to others and what we can expect from them becomes urgent. Unable to locate our life’s meaning in God and his eternity, we seek it in our relationships with other people. This is the eventuality the Death of God theologians anticipated: a horizontal, desacralized world that has broken down every barrier to inclusion, a world in which, undistracted by an outgrown God, we can finally give our full attention to one another.”

Patricia Snow is a freelance writer in New Haven, Connecticut and a frequent contributor to conservative Catholic journals.

Startzman, Eugene. “Can there be Faith in Betrayal?” Christianity Today 28 (1984): 63-63.

Takamura, Toshihiro. “Sebastian Rodrigues in Shusaku Endo's Silence as a Theologian of the Cross1.” Dialog 56/1 (March 2017)L 17-27.

Author supplied abstract: “In his book, Gerhard Forde asserts, “[T]he theology of the cross is an offensive theology. The offense consists in the fact that unlike other theologies

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it attacks what we usually consider the best in our religion.” If causing an offense against Christian theologians and the populace in general is considered a criterion for this theology, Shusaku Endo surely sets forth the theology of the cross in his novel. Although he would not identify his thesis by such a term, Endo presents the theology of the cross challenging the conventional understanding of the Christian faith. This short article explores Endo's book, examines how it demonstrates an articulation of the theology of the cross, and argues that Sebastian Rodrigues, the main character of the novel, is a theologian of the cross.

Tokunaga, Michio. “A Japanese Transformation of Christianity.” Japanese Religions 15/3 (January 1989): 45-54.

Wachal, Christopher B. “Forbidden Ships to Chartered Tours: Endo, Apostasy, and

Globalization.” Ch. 6 in Approaching Silence: New perspectives on Shusaku Endo's classic novel, 93-106 Edited by Mark W. Dennis, and Darren J. N. Middleton. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

Washburn, Dennis Charles. “Is Abjection a Virtue? Silence and the Trauma of Apostasy.” Ch. 12 in Approaching Silence: New perspectives on Shusaku Endo's classic novel, 205-221. Edited by Mark W. Dennis, and Darren J. N. Middleton. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

Considers whether “abjection” can be understood as a genuine virtue, and whether this then might be a key to interpreting Rodrigues’ “apostasy” as “conversion” in Endo’s Silence. Washburn repeats many of the points he had made in his earlier 2007 essay “The Poetics of Conversion and the Problem of Translation in Endo Shusaku’s Silence.”

________. “The Poetics of Conversion and the Problem of Translation in Endo Shusaku’s Silence.” In Converting cultures: religion, ideology, and transformations of modernity, 344-363. Edited by Dennis Charles Washburn and A. Kevin Reinhart. Leiden: Brill, 2007.

While Washburn does make many helpful observations about the text and the understandings of the struggles that both Rodrigues and Endo himself faced with the conflict between Christianity and its cultural expressions, Washburn does “miss” many of the subtler points of the novel, especially Rodrigues’ own pilgrimage to truer identification with Jesus Christ and the core of genuine Christianity as it might be inculturated in a land like Japan. His final sentences, though, do hold true: “The silence Rodrigues experiences is a textual aporia. It is a marker of what cannot be translated; it is a textual supplement that functions poetically to describe the complex dynamics of the experience of conversion.” (p. 363)

Whelan, Christal. “The Catholic Shift East: The Case of Japan.” Ch. 7 in Approaching Silence: New perspectives on Shusaku Endo's classic novel, 109-124. Edited by Mark W. Dennis, and Darren J. N. Middleton. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

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Williams, Mark. “Inner Horizons towards Reconciliation in Endo Shusaku’s Samuarai.” Japan Christian Quarterly (Fall 1996): 74-6.

_________. “Redrawing the Starting Line.” Insight Japan 9/1 (July 2000): 4-7.

Yamagata, Kazumi. “Mr. Shusaku Endo Talks about His Life and Works as a Catholic Writer.” The Chesterton Review 12/4 (1986): 492-507.

Yancey, Philip. “Japan’s Faithful Judas, Parts 1 & 2.” Books & Culture, (January—February 1996) Available online at http://www.booksandculture.com/articles/1996/janfeb/6b103a.html (accessed September 3, 2017)

Sustained reflection on the supposed notion of “betrayal” in Shusaku Endo’s Silence.

Books Related to Endo Shusaku

Bussie, Jacqueline A. The Laughter of the Oppressed: Ethical and Theological Resistance in Wiesel, Morrison, and Endo. New York: Continuum, 2007.

Reviewed by T. Howland Sanks III, S.J. in Theological Studies 69/4 (2008): 964. From the Sanks Review: “Putting these three novels in dialogue with other theologians from their own and other traditions, B. makes a persuasive and convincing case for the functions of laughter of the oppressed. The book is clearly organized and well written, a model for the use of literature as a rich resource for theology.”

Dennis, Mark W., and Darren J. N. Middleton, eds. Approaching Silence: New perspectives on Shusaku Endo's classic novel. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

Acknowledgments Introduction: Silence in the World Mark W. Dennis (Texas Christian University, USA) and Darren J. N. Middleton (Texas Christian University, USA) Part One: Background and Reception 1. Before Silence: Stumbling Along with Rodrigues and Kichijiro Kevin M. Doak (Georgetown University, USA) 2. Silence on Opposite Shores: Critical Reactions to the Novel in Japan and the West Van C. Gessel (Brigham Young University, USA) 3. The 'Formality' of the fumie?: A Re-consideration of the Role of the fumie in Silence Mark Williams (University of Leeds, UK) 4. Endo and Greene's Literary Theology Darren J. N. Middleton (Texas Christian University, USA) 5. Charting Endo's Catholic Literary Aesthetic Mark Bosco, S.J. (Loyola University, Chicago, USA) 6. Forbidden Ships to Chartered Tours: Endo, Apostasy, and Globalization Christopher B. Wachal (Marquette University, Milwaukee, USA) Part Two: Christianity and Buddhism 7. The Catholic Shift East: The Case of Japan Christal Whelan (Independent Scholar and Filmmaker) 8. Agape Unbound in Silence and Deep River Elizabeth Cameron Galbraith (St. Olaf College, USA) 9. Discerning the Marshland of This World: Silence from a Japanese Buddhist Perspective Dennis Hirota (Ryukoku University in Kyoto, Japan) 10. A Buddhist Reading of the Blue Eyes of Jesus in Silence Mark W. Dennis (Texas

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Christian University, USA) Part Three: Endo's Theology 11. Literature as Dohansha in Silence Jeff Keuss (Seattle Pacific University, USA) 12. Is Abjection a Virtue?: Silence and the Trauma of Apostasy Dennis Washburn (Dartmouth College, USA) 13. 'And Like the Sea God was Silent': Multivalent Water Imagery in Silence" Frances McCormack (National University of Ireland, Galway, Republic of Ireland) 14. Laughter Out of Place: Risibility as Resistance and Hidden Transcript in Silence Jacqueline Bussie (Concordia College, USA) Part Four: Teaching Silence15. Silence in the Classroom John Kaltner (Rhodes College, USA) Part Five: Later Adaptations16. Silence, a play Steven Dietz 17. Silence, a film Martin Scorsese Contributors for Further Reading Index.

Reviewed by Claire Kohda Hazelton in The Times Literary Supplement 5922 (September 30, 2016): 31.

Fujimura, Makoto. Silence and Beauty: Hidden Faith Born of Suffering. Foreword by Philip Yancey. Downers Grove IL: InterVarsity Press, 2016.

Fujimura is a bi-cultural Japanese—American Christian convert and artist who probes at length the novel for hidden positive Christian themes of evangelization, and thus encourages a much deeper reflection on many of the key events in the novel, especially the notions of “apostasy” and “silence.” F.observes that approaching “Endo is like reading a mystery novel in which many of the clues prove to misdirect the reader” (p. 27) and throuughout the book F. helps the non-Japanese reader understand some of the key “clues” from Japanese culture that Endo uses in his novel. In the final section “The Art of Brokenness” F. offers a key theological insight on the Eucharistic elements of wheat and grapes that are “trampled” to make bread and wine for the Lord’s Supper which “provides a narrative and metaphorical journey into any experience of brokenness” as well as an important place of healing from life’s traumas “in which bread is broken and wine is shared” (p. 205).

Reviewed by Jessica Hooten Wilson in Christianity Today 22/5 (September-October 2016): 37 and by James T. Bretzke, S.J. in Theological Studies Theological Studies 79/1 (March 2018): 219-220.

Higgins, Jean. An Analysis of the Life and Works of Shusaku Endo Using T.S. Kuhn's Theory of Paradigm Shifts as the Conceptual Framework for Investigation. 1984.

Lakeland, Paul. The Wounded Angel: Fiction and the Religious Imagination. Collegeville MN:

Liturgical Press, 2017.

Lakeland uses a number of novels, including Endo’s Silence to consider how these can support human imagination in probing more deeply the mystery of God which goes beyond earthly horizons. Lakeland posits that this sort of attention to religious imagination in literature may aid in bringing a secular mind to consider this mystery in ways that more traditional theological approaches tend to fail with this particular audience.

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Mase-Hasagawa, Emi. Christ in Japanese Culture: Theological Themes in Shsuaku Endo’s Literary Works. Brill's Japanese studies library; 28. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008.

From Reference & Research Book News. 23/2 (May 2008): “Mase-Hasegawa (religion and culture, Nanzan U.) provides a theological analysis of the work of Japanese writer Endo and his struggles to inculturate Christian faith in Japan. She argues that fundamental to his thought on inculturation is the concept of koshinto, the indigenous beliefs and spirituality of the Japanese people, and that any successful process of missiological inculturation demands a serious anthropological consideration of indigenous faith and spirituality. The study began as her doctoral dissertation in missiology at Lund University, Sweden.

Williams, Mark B. Endô Shûsaku: A Literature of Reconciliation. Routledge, 1999.

Reviewed by Stephen Dodd in Literature and History 9/2 (November 2000): 96-97; and by Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit in Monumenta Nipponica, 55/4 (Winter 2000): 16-619.

From Dodd’s Review: “In the course of six chapters of close readings focusing on individual novels, Williams examines several important themes addressed by Endô: the inner conscience that enters a character’s mind and refuses to be silenced; the problem of whether a Christian writer’s first duty is to his religion or position as novelist; use of the doppelganger in order to view the self from an external perspective. Particularly interesting is his exploration of how Endô, far from condemning ‘weakness’ in characters (like the apostate Rodrigues in Silence), instead interprets it as a means to a more rounded and sympathetic understanding of humanity. I wonder if this urge towards reconciliation is not also related to his acknowledgement and ‘forgiveness’ of an earlier generation’s shortcomings during the war.”

Works on Martin Scorsese’s film adaptation of Silence

Scorsese, Martin. “Afterword.” In Approaching Silence: New perspectives on Shusaku Endo's classic novel, 397-398. Edited by Mark W. Dennis, and Darren J. N. Middleton. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

Interviews with Martin Scorsese

Cooper, Rands Richard. “An Interview with Martin Scorsese: Faith, Film & 'Silence'.” Commonweal (December 15, 2016) https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/interview-martin-scorsese

Martin, James, S.J. “Creating Silence: an Interview with Martin Scorsese.” America (December

19-26, 2016) https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2016/12/06/exclusive-martin-scorsese-discusses-his-faith-his-struggles-his-films-and

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_______. “Full Transcript of Interview with Martin Scorsese.” America (December 10, 2016) https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2016/12/10/full-transcript-martin-scorsese-discusses-faith-and-his-film-silence (accessed August 30, 2017).

Spadoro, Antonio, S.J. “«SILENCE» Interview with Martin Scorsese.” Civiltá Cattolica 3996

(December 2016): 1-26.

Narrative of several interviews conducted with Scorsese relating his various films to one another, to Scorsese’s own Catholic faith, and especially to his film of Endo’s novel Silence.

Selected Secondary Works on Martin Scorsese’s film adaptation of Silence

N.B. The film occasioned a good deal of response across the theological and cultural spectrum. The entries below are selected to represent these differing perceptions and do not pretend to be an exhaustive, comprehensive list.

Barron, Bishop Robert. “Scorsese’s “Silence” and the Seaside Martyrs.” Word on Fire (December 16, 2016) https://www.wordonfire.org/resources/article/scorseses-silence-and-the-seaside-martyrs/5360/

A rather critical appraisal of Martin Scorsese’s film adaptation and of the positive reception by many of the movie: His Grace opines “My worry is that all of the stress on complexity and multivalence and ambiguity is in service of the cultural elite today, which is not that different from the Japanese cultural elite depicted in the film. What I mean is that the secular establishment always prefers Christians who are vacillating, unsure, divided, and altogether eager to privatize their religion. And it is all too willing to dismiss passionately religious people as dangerous, violent, and let’s face it, not that bright.” Various shortened versions of this interview are posted to a number of other ecclesial blog sites.

Detweiler, Craig. “Silence: Scorsese’s Spiritual Masterpiece.” Patheos (January 4, 2017)

http://www.patheos.com/...ce-scorseses-spiritual-masterpiece/?utm_source=[!]%20Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NL%20Best%20of%20Patheos%20&utm_content=5698 (Accessed 1/9/2017 3:47:18 PM)

Detweiler served as a missionary in Japan and his piece is carefully done in paying close attention to the complexities of the characters, especially that of Kichijiro: “Kichijiro is the face of the Judas that resides within each and every one of us. He becomes the foil upon which Silence’s key questions emerge. Is forgiveness available even to those who betray friends and family? Father Rodrigues must confront the spirit of Judas residing within himself and accept that grace extends to even the most deplorable humans.”

Douthat, Ross. “Fear and Trembling.” National Review 69/3 (February 20, 2017): 54.

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The conservative Catholic convert columnist for the New York Times writes of the Scorsese film/Endo novel that it “cuts to the heart of his own uncertain faith. It also cuts to the heart, in striking ways, of the great Pope Francis-era debate within the Roman Church about sin and mercy, remarriage and the sacraments, and how the Church should or shouldn't bend to contemporary mores. …[Calling the apostasy] a tempter's case, delivered by a sinister torturer and a broken, self-justifying father figure. The cinematography around the moment of crisis is infernal, not celestial. The aftermath--corruption, collaboration, the triumph of the persecutors--seems to make ridiculous the idea that this achieved a higher good.”

Greydanus, Stephen D. “SDG Reviews ‘Silence’.” National Catholic Register (December 21,

2016) http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/sdg-reviews-silence (Accessed 2/10/2017 1:52:57 PM]

Greydanus, the film critic of the conservative National Catholic Register, gives a largely unsympathetic and critical review of the portrayal of Rodrigues in the film, and he contrasts this with a “true” martyr, Mokichi: “Not long after, Mokichi refuses an apostasy test and is sentenced to a ghastly crucifixion in the surf, slowly overwhelmed by the incoming tide. Toward the end, as villagers and executioners keep a mute vigil, Mokichi raises his voice and sings a plaintive Tantum Ergo (the last two verses of St. Thomas Aquinas’ Eucharistic hymn Pange Lingua). In a story of a long defeat, here is a privileged moment of grace. Here, for all with ears to hear, God is not silent.” However, in a follow up reflection Greydanus does allow that perhaps there might be an alternative “reading” of the film: “Silence is many things: an indictment of Western imperialism and cultural chauvinism, a jeremiad for the ruthless ingenuity of Japanese cruelty, a hymn to Japanese martyrs and a tribute to hidden Christians. Thinking about it over the last several months, I confess, I’ve gone back and forth on what I think of the climax. The cock crow, among other things, clearly frames Rodrigues’ act as a betrayal. Is it Jesus he betrays? Could he possibly have heard the voice of Jesus at the climax, and what would it mean if he did? However we answer these questions, we shouldn’t answer them too quickly.’ From his Apostasy and Ambiguity: ‘Silence’ Asks Hard Questions About Faith and Persecution” National Catholic Register (February 11, 2017) http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/apostasy-and-ambiguity-silence-asks-hard-questions-about-faith-and-persecut (accessed 2/11/2017 11:16:16 AM)/

Horvat II, John. “Why Catholics Cannot be Silent about Scorsese’s ‘Silence’.” American TFP

(Tradition, Family, and Property) (January 11, 2017) http://www.tfp.org/catholics-cannot-silent-scorseses-silence/?utm_source=sm-tfp&utm_medium=email&utm_content=TFP170113&utm_campaign=tfp_newsletter (Accessed 1/14/2017 7:10:03 PM)

Typical of any number of very conservative reactions to Scorsese’s film and its portrayal of the struggles of the Jesuit missionaries: “The modern world has a problem with martyrs. People cannot understand the glory of their witness for Christ. Modern man

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would rather try to find some justification behind the anguished decision of those who deny the Faith. Such is the case of Martin Scorsese’s latest film “Silence.” It is a tale about this second category of non-martyrs—of whom Our Lord said: “But he that shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 10:33).”

Van Biema, David. “An eerie echo in ‘Silence’.” Religion News Service (January 10, 2017)

http://religionnews.com/2017/01/10/an-eerie-echo-in-silence-commentary/ (Accessed January 11, 2017).

Connects Silence with some of Scorsese’s other films, as well as questions of what constitutes “faith” in the light of contemporary struggles, whether at the time of Christ, Galileo, or 17th century Japan. “How eager we are to spread the truth, as we understand it. How suspicious and vicious we become when our established truth is challenged by another one. And how convinced we are that despite all, the truth will out, and set us free.”

Wilkinson, Alissa. “Silence is beautiful, unsettling, and one of the finest religious movies ever

made.” Vox (January 5, 2017) http://www.vox.com/culture/2016/12/21/14005760/silence-review-spoilers-martin-scorsese-andrew-garfield-adam-driver (Accessed 1/9/2017 9:43:56 PM)

Thoughtfully done assessment of the complexity of the themes of the novel and the movie. “Silence is the kind of flm that cuts at everyone’s self-perceptions, including my own. I haven’t been able to shake it, because I need to remember — now, frankly, more than ever — that I am not able nor responsible to save the world, let alone myself. How the world changes is a giant, cosmic mystery. To grow too far from that and become hardened in my own belief is a Silence is beautiful, unsettling, and one of the finest religious movies ever made - danger: I grow complacent and deaf, too willing to push others away. In Silence, nobody is Christ but Christ himself. Everyone else is a Peter or a Judas, a faltering rejecter, for whom there may be hope anyway. What Scorsese has accomplished in adapting Endō’s novel is a close reminder that the path to redemption lies through suffering, and that it may not be I who must save the world so much as I am the one who needs saving.”

Williams, Mark. “The ‘Formality’ of the fumie?: A Re-Considerataion of the Role of the fumie

Scene in Silence.” Ch. 3 in Approaching Silence: New perspectives on Shusaku Endo's classic novel, 43-60. Edited by Mark W. Dennis, and Darren J. N. Middleton. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.