As we have noted before, C. Peter Wagner is widely regarded as the man responsible for the New Apostolic Reformation which gave rise to the self-proclaimed prophets and apostles like Lou Engle, Cindy Jacobs, Rick Joyner, Chuck Pierce, and the other Dominionist/7 Mountain advocates who are slowly working their way into the Religious Right mainstream.
Given that Pierce, Joyner, and Jacobs have all weighed in on the recent earthquake in Japan to claim that it was an effort by God to shake the nation free of its “spiritism” and pagan ideology, it only seems logical that Wagner would also weigh in and do so in a manner that puts all the others to shame.
You see, as Wagner explains, he has been working to free Japan from this paganism for decades but has failed miserably because “the enemy has built seemingly impenetrable strongholds to prevent [God’s destiny] from manifesting”:
Japan’s culture has been virtually uninterrupted for 3,000 years. Paganism is deeply rooted in the warp and woof of the nation. The spirits over Japan have had their way and they are not prepared to allow Christianity more than a token presence.
The most serious setback for Japan’s territorial spirits came during a seven-year period following World War II. Despite a Buddhist facade, Japan’s most deeply entrenched spirits are the principalities controlling Shintoism, which is a spiritualized form of nationalism. The chief visible figure employed by these dark angels is the emperor. In the popular mind, the emperor was himself a deity. But as a part of the World War II peace process, Emperor Hirohito publicly denied this status and the Japanese government agreed to separate itself officially from any religious institution, including Shintoism. General MacArthur called for thousands of Christian missionaries, many went, and Christianity grew well for what are now known as the “seven wonderful years.”
For more than 30 years it appeared, in the visible, that Japan was maintaining its status quo. But in the invisible world, the dark angels began regaining their foothold. The growth of the Church slowed to a crawl. Then Hirohito died and his son, Akihito, would become the new emperor. A crucial question revolved around the Daijo-sai ceremony, the spiritual component of the traditional inauguration of the new emperor.
Now, if you know anything about Wagner, you know that he believes that it is the “Daijo-sai ceremony” that is the key to Japan’s enslavement to demonic forces because, during it, the Emperor has sexual intercourse with the Sun Goddess:
Japan, as a nation, is one of the nations of the world which has consciously, openly, invited national demonization. And they do this though what’s called the Daijosai ceremony…where when a new Emperor comes in to power…And as a part of this ceremony the Emperor goes to this specially chosen…place…He eats rice that has been planted and harvested and chosen through witchcraft. And at a certain time that night the Sun Goddess visits him in person, and has sexual intercourse with the Emperor…So the emperor becomes one flesh with the sun goddess and that’s an invitation for the Sun Goddess to continue to demonize the whole nation.
So, according to Wagner’s logic, it only makes sense that Japan would continue to suffer unrelenting hardship and remains impenetrable to the Holy Spirit:
In the invisible world, the two ritually become one flesh and, through its supreme leader, the nation officially invites demonic control as long as he is emperor.
Unfortunately for Japan, as for Haiti, a foolish decision was made and Emperor Akihito decided to reverse his father’s post World War II position and once again became, in the popular mind, “deified” through the Daijo-sai ceremony. Not only that, but the government paid the expenses of the multimillion dollar ritual over the vehement protests of the Japanese Christian leaders.
Since then, predictably, the overt participation of government officials, as national leaders, in pilgrimages and rituals connected with traditional Japanese paganism, have been on the increase.
