SOURCE: Durfee, Jr., Richard E. “Portrait of an Unknowingly Ordinary Man: Endo Shosaku, Christianity, and Japanese Historical Consciousness.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 16, no. 1 (March 1989): 41-62.

In the following essay, Durfee addresses the question of whether or not it is possible to be both fully Japanese and fully Christian, and examines the ways in which Endō handles the seeming paradox in his writing.

Introduction

In many ways, Endō Shūsaku 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. Endō Shūsaku 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...