Japan embraces Christian weddings
By Andrew Leon Meeko
Special to The Advertiser
As Christian-style weddings in Japan continue their enormous popularity, many ministers hope to see more than a fashionable performance.
The dominant reason chapel weddings are still the rage? Brides want to wear the wedding dress and walk the virgin road — to be a princess for a day with all her friends watching.
This may chagrin some ministers, but many are just as eager to cater to this unprecedented opportunity.
Chapel weddings gained status in the '80s with a few celebrities doing it Christian style. Today, bridal magazine Zeksi reports, more than 70 percent of Japanese weddings are chapel-type, far outnumbering traditional Shinto weddings.
Even though most couples say they are Buddhists, Buddhist weddings are a rarity. Brides in vogue want the flowing white lace gown and a sparkling crown, compared with being bound in up to 12 kimono and donning a large wig wrapped with a cloth designed to hide her "horns," as in the Shinto ceremony.
Yet many couples have never read from the Bible, and are also unfamiliar with the Christian wedding ceremony. Samoan missionary Tone Faialaga had to stifle a laugh when the father escorting the bride lifted the veil during the exchange with the groom. And Sam Ishikawa of Hawai'i says the one common element of these weddings is the giggling and fretting over a wedding kiss in front of family and friends. Surrendering to fears over the kiss, some couples even settle for a handshake.
Though ministers are divided on the respectability of performing such weddings, some see it as a God-given chance in a country that has rebuffed Christianity for decades.
"If the Christian churches in Japan had seized upon this opportunity and embraced non-Christians in their desire to be married in a church, I believe the number of Christians in this country would have doubled," said missionary John Wright.
Such claims are not far-fetched when considering on any given weekend the number of people attending a chapel wedding nearly triples that of church worship services.
Besides hoping for conversions, ministers hope to have a positive impact for the success of fledgling marriages. Japan has set a record for divorce each year for more than a decade. Divorce will likely continue its rise as Japan has one of the highest levels of marital dissatisfaction in the industrialized world.
In 2001, laws regarding domestic violence were established in response to a government study that found one in five women suffer physical violence from their husband.
If physical intimacy is a thermometer of marital bliss, Japan rates low. One of Japan's leading women's magazines, Josei Jishin, reported last winter that 55 percent of couples in their 30s are "sexless," an arrangement where husband and wife are more like roommates, and don't even share a bedroom.
Premarital counseling, usually the mainstay of a Christian church wedding, falls by the wayside when hotels and wedding agencies seek ministers who will perform the rites without it. A group of missionaries in the Osaka area banded together to put pressure on the wedding industry, repudiating any weddings without at least an hour of counseling.
Since wedding times and Sunday worship times often conflict, the demand for bona fide ministers far outstrips the supply. Thus the wedding industry — not the church — has mobilized to meet this demand for preachers. Companies have built more than 1,000 chapels nationwide, many importing entire defunct Anglican churches in Britain. A couple can have two-story stained-glass windows of the crucifixion, a choir singing hymns, a pipe organist and a large Bible on display.
Until recently, wedding agencies in Tokyo employed more than 500 foreigners and 200 Japanese to perform weddings, with little regard to their status as ordained ministers.
"Phony baloney preachers are giving us a bad name," said missionary Kenny Joseph. "We're weeding them out."
Joseph, a native of Chicago, has trained and certified more than 90 "pinch-hitter" wedding chaplains.
Laws pertaining to ministers have recently become stiffer: Those who operate without a missionary visa may face a $2,500 fine, three years in prison, and/or expulsion.
The lure for real ministers is big. A three wedding/three-hour commitment on a Saturday or Sunday typically earns the chaplain $450. With ministry and money so easy, many missionaries have dedicated themselves to nothing but weddings.
Nathan Mikaelsen of Sendai bemoans the loss of an estimated 200 missionaries to the trend, but adds: "Perhaps they do more good there anyhow."
However, some, such as Kyushu missionary Philip Visser of South Africa, a veteran of 2,000 weddings, say their earnings go directly into mission operating funds.
How long will the trend last? Ask Hokkaido missionary Richard Goodall, 70, from New Zealand: "Until Christ comes back or the Shinto boys see their income source shriveling up."
