Shusaku Endo as a Theologian of the Cross January 9, 2018 By Event Details Date: Thursday, Feb 15th, 2018, 7:45 pm Venue: Quadrangle Building 264 Categories: Lecture, Scholar Presentation Tags: Lutheran, Shusaku Endo, Toshihiro (Toppo) Takamura Watch a Recording of the Lecture Below: Martin Scorsese’s 2016 film Silence has rekindled among Catholics and Protestants their interest in its original novel by Shusaku Endo, a Japanese Catholic novelist. 50 years after its publication, Endo’s work still offers Christians serious challenges and stimuli and thus remains controversial. In this lecture, the presenter shares a Lutheran interpretation of the novel, showing how Rodrigues, the main character, is “a theologian of the cross,” and argues that Endo, too, was “a theologian of the cross.” Thursday, February 15 at 7:45pm Quad 264, Saint John’s University Toshihiro (Toppo) Takamura is a Kilian McDonnell, OSB Fellow in Faith and Culture at the Collegeville Institute. He is a pastor of the Japan Evangelical Lutheran Church and a PhD candidate at United Lutheran Seminary (ELCA) in Pennsylvania. Toppo graduated from Saint John’s School of Theology and Seminary in 2003 (MA) and studied toward a Master of Divinity degree before transferring to Japan Lutheran Theological Seminary in Tokyo where he completed his study and was ordained in 2010. He is an oblate of Saint John’s Abbey.
