Idolatry, the Japanese Church, and the Revival We Need
There is a particular kind of pastor in Japan that everyone respects and no one truly knows.
He preaches faithfully. He visits the sick. He counsels the struggling. He is called sensei, and the weight of that title shapes everything about how he leads — and perhaps most dangerously, how honest he is allowed to be about his own inner life.
This is not a criticism. It is an observation about a trap the culture has set, and one that the gospel alone is capable of dismantling.
Deeper Than Behaviour
Japan’s shame and honour culture shapes idolatry in particular directions. In a culture where worth is closely tied to social role and public performance, the heart naturally gravitates toward approval and the fear of shame. The need to be seen as competent, morally consistent, and above reproach is not merely a personality preference — it is a cultural survival mechanism. And when that need moves into the place of ultimate value, it becomes an idol.
This is what makes the biblical concept of idolatry so uncomfortable and so necessary. Idolatry is not a problem confined to pagans bowing before statues. As Richard Keyes writes, it is found “in well-educated human hearts and minds,” not on the fringes of life but “center stage.” And in the Japanese church, it is hiding in plain sight behind the very things that look most like faithfulness.
The iceberg image is helpful here. Above the waterline are the visible sins and struggles — the behaviours we confess, more or less, in moments of accountability. But beneath the waterline, invisible and far more powerful, are what Tim Keller and David Powlison call the root idols: the four fundamental desires of the fallen heart that drive every surface behaviour.
Approval: the need to be loved and accepted.
Comfort: the need to avoid pain and demand.
Control: the need to master one’s environment and outcomes.
Power: the need for significance and influence.
Every person has one of these functioning as their dominant root — the engine beneath their most persistent struggles, the thing that, when threatened, produces a reaction far more intense than the situation warrants.
What the Sensei Culture Conceals
The tragedy of Japan’s pastoral culture is not that its pastors are hypocrites. Most of them are not. The tragedy is that the cultural framework makes it nearly impossible to see what is actually driving them.
A pastor whose dominant idol is approval will find the sensei role simultaneously fulfilling and terrifying. The honour that comes with the title feeds the idol. But the possibility of disappointing his congregation — of being seen to fail — governs everything. It shapes what he preaches and what he avoids. Over time, the gap between his public self and his private self widens, and he becomes unable to close it even if he wants to.
A pastor whose dominant idol is comfort will be warm and accessible in easy seasons, but will quietly disappear when ministry demands become costly. He avoids difficult conversations, delays hard decisions, and finds reasons to step back precisely when the community most needs him to step forward. His boundaries are real, but they are set by his need for personal peace rather than by wisdom or genuine care. Those around him feel the absence more than any overt unkindness — they are not pushed away, they are simply not pursued when it costs something to pursue them.
A pastor whose dominant idol is control will build a ministry that looks disciplined and impressive, but will struggle when the Spirit moves in unplanned directions. Delegation feels dangerous. Vulnerability feels intolerable.
A pastor whose dominant idol is power will produce visible results, but his team will quietly feel expendable. When someone challenges his authority, his reaction will be disproportionate in ways that confuse and hurt those around him.
In each case, the idol is operating beneath the surface of what looks, from the outside, like faithful service. And the shame and honor framework surrounding the sensei role has no mechanism for surfacing it. Quite the opposite — it actively rewards concealment.
The Diagnosis We Need
This is precisely why the concept of idolatry is both threatening and essential for the Japanese church.
Threatening, because to diagnose one’s own root idol is to acknowledge that beneath one’s visible faithfulness lies a heart still significantly organized around something other than God. For a pastor whose identity is built on the sensei ideal, this is not a small admission. It is a dismantling.
Essential, because without it, nothing genuinely changes. Addressing only surface behaviour while leaving the root idol untouched is like cutting weeds at the stem. The same patterns will return, in the same or different forms, because the root beneath has never been touched.
As Ezekiel 14 makes clear, it is entirely possible to perform religious leadership while having, as God puts it, “set up idols in their hearts.” The elders came to inquire of God while their hearts were fundamentally oriented elsewhere. They believed they were seeking God. They were not.
The Only Way Out
Thomas Chalmers argued in his famous sermon that the heart cannot be commanded out of an old affection. It can only be displaced by a new and more compelling one. The idol loses its grip not through willpower or moral effort but when the heart encounters something more beautiful, more satisfying, and more ultimate than the idol itself.
This is why the gospel is not simply one component of the solution. It is the only solution.
The three realities in 1 Corinthians 6:11 — washed, sanctified, justified — are not descriptions of moral achievement. They are declarations of what Christ has already done for people who were, as the text bluntly says, exactly the kind of people on that list.
For the approval idol: you have already been chosen and declared precious by the one whose opinion is the only one that ultimately matters.
For the comfort idol: the shame and filth you are running from have been entirely removed. The rest you are seeking has already been secured.
For the control idol: you have already been declared righteous — not by your own management of outcomes but by the perfect life of another on your behalf.
For the power idol: a glory surpassing anything this world offers has already been given to you, freely, as an inheritance.
This is the expulsive power of a new affection. The idols of the Japanese church will not be displaced by more preaching about them. They will be displaced when the beauty of Christ becomes so personally real that the idols begin to look pale by comparison.
The Revival We Truly Need
The Japanese church needs revival. Not the kind produced by a better program or a more impressive ministry. The kind that begins when God’s own people turn back to him — truly, wholly, and from the heart.
And in my reading of church history, that kind of revival has always begun with exactly the kind of painful, honest self-examination that idolatry demands. It begins when leaders stop performing and start confessing. When the sensei is willing to be known not by his moral example but by his ongoing need for the gospel. When the gap between public self and private self is closed — not because the private self has finally been cleaned up enough to be presentable, but because the gospel has created a community safe enough to be honest in.
The sensei culture will tell you that you must be the example before you can be the pastor. The gospel tells you something different: you must be the patient before you can genuinely lead others to the physician.
That is not a threatening discovery. It is the most liberating thing in the world.
(Drawing on: Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods; David Powlison, “Idols of the Heart and Vanity Fair,” Journal of Biblical Counselling (1995); Richard Lints, Identity and Idolatry (IVP, 2015); Richard Keyes, “The Idol Factory”; Thomas Chalmers, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection; Steve Childers; and 1 Corinthians 6:9-11.)
For Further reflection:
Pastor Tanaka was reflecting on a recent board meeting. When Kaito, a young leader, offered a sharp critique of church policy, Pastor Tanaka felt an immediate defensive impulse, a flash of anger—a sense that his leadership was being denied. In the past, he might have brushed this off as "zeal for the church" and forcefully or cleverly steered the discussion to a close.
However, he recalled a discussion he had recently had with fellow leaders: "Idols aren’t necessarily bad things in themselves, but they become idols when we become overly dependent on them instead of God. Moreover, they don't work alone; they are complex and intertwined." Honestly examining his reaction during that board meeting, he realized that on the surface, there was a desire for "dominance"—to control the discussion. Deeper down, however, lay a "need for approval" as a leader. Even deeper was a craving for "comfort"—the desire to avoid difficult conflict or change and to maintain an easy, pleasant relationship. He realized that he had integrated all of these into an unconscious image of "what a pastor should be," acting it out to maintain his authority and the power to influence church decisions.
Later, while cleaning chairs together, Pastor Tanaka spoke to Kaito: "Kaito, during our discussion at the board meeting, I don't think I really heard you. I didn't have the space in me at the time to listen calmly. I’m sorry." Pastor Tanaka’s tone was more natural than usual. Kaito was surprised; he had never heard his pastor admit his limits before. "…No, it’s okay, Pastor. I think I might have been rushing ahead a bit too much myself," Kaito replied, brushing it off lightly.
If Kaito were to deepen his reflection later, he might realize some things: that he had been placing Pastor Tanaka on a pedestal as an "infallible saint," expecting perfection. This might also lead him to realize that he himself had been unconsciously reproducing the "pastor idolatry" culture prevalent in Japan. Furthermore, digging into his own inner weaknesses, he might find the desire for approval from a strong leader, the comfort of avoiding responsibility under a perfect leader, or perhaps even a desire for the kind of power that a leader possesses.
This conversation did not solve everything dramatically. But the two of them, who might easily have fallen into the oppositional structures of “Senior pastor" and "young leader," stood there in the same sanctuary, cleaning chairs together. It was a moment that hinted at a future where they could approach each other as simply someone in need of the Gospel.
Author: CTCJ Collaborative Writing Team
In 2025, CTCJ set out a new vision to become a thought leader in the field of urban church planting in Japan. The Collaborative Writing Team (Co-writing Team) is one of the ways we are working towards this goal. The team is made up of a core group of staff members, as well as a number of writers and editors from diverse backgrounds, who work together to produce articles on topics that are useful for church planters, with the gospel as the foundation and focus.