John William Krummel (1960, 1961)
By Thoburn T. Brumbaugh ‘24, Education Secretary, Retired, Board of Missions of The Methodist Church
JOHN WILLIAM KRUMMEL is a native of Illinois, born in the town of Windsor on June 5, 1932. Reared in a devout Methodist home, it is not surprising that he matriculated at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. After majoring in Philosophy and English, he graduated in 1954 with an A.B. degree and a Phi Beta Kappa key. That Autumn he entered Boston University School of Theology, but before finishing his studies he succumbed to the lure of the Far East and to the call of the Gospel to overseas missionary service. Ordained a Deacon in the Central Illinois Conference in 1955, he went out to Japan as a short-term worker under the Methodist Board of Missions in the Fall of 1956. He was one of a group of young college graduates known for three years thereafter as J-3’s.
Krummel’s appointment on the field was to the teaching of English at the old Methodist school, Aoyama Gakuin in Tokyo. Prior to 1945 “Aoyama” was best known as a boys’ school, with a girls’ high school attached but not integrated. With the infusion of American ideas of democratic education, most schools after the war in Japan became co-educational. By the time of John’s arrival in Tokyo Aoyama Gakuin embraced the following schools and departments: kindergarten, elementary schools, junior and senior high schools, a junior college of domestic arts and home economics, and several colleges, plus graduate courses in liberal arts, economics, law and education. It thus qualified for recognition by the Education Ministry of the Japanese government as a University, and is now able to give the Master’s degree and the Ph.D. in these fields of study.
In this post-war structure John Krummel found an important niche in the teaching of English and in the establishment of one of the most effective religious work programs in post-war Japan. In the latter relationship, Krummel began to think of continued missionary service and of return to the United States for further training for the post he now holds as one of a corps of Christian Chaplains at Aoyama Gakuin.
Re-entering the School of Theology at Boston University in 1959, Krummel graduated with the S.T.B. degree “cum laude” in 1960, and the M.A. degree in Christian Education in 1961. That summer he was ordained an Elder in his annual conference and returned to Tokyo. Since then he has given largely of time, experience and training to the development of religious work in the several colleges of the university, now grown in total enrolment to over 15,000.
On January 26, 1964 John was married to a lovely, well-educated Japanese lady named Fusako Kudo, herself a graduate of a Methodist school and a teacher in its junior high school and in the public schools of Northern Japan. They now have a son, John Wesley Megumu Krummel, aged just over one year. By the time this pen-sketch appears in Nexus, the Krummels will be in the United States for John’s third furlough, Fusako’s and Megumu’s first. Many of their friends will have opportunity to see and hear first-hand of their experiences in Japan.
Perhaps some of the information, however, which has come to hand about what John has been doing at Aoyama Gakuin will be relevant in the writing of this report. He writes:
As a member of the faculty, I carry a light teaching load, share in various committee responsibilities, have an Advisor group, attend faculty meetings, etc. . . . During the past year I’ve served as a member of the Student evangelism committee of the Tokyo district of the United Church of Christ in Japan, and was manuevered into taking responsibility as editor of the statistics section of the 1966 issue of the Japan Christian Year-Book. . . . I am active in the Japan Wesley Study Society, and presently am translating and preparing materials for the Wesleyan Quarterly Review: A magazine of Methodist History published in the U.S.A., which is devoting an entire issue to “Japanese Contributions to the Study of John Wesley” . . . Last January the Kinseido Company Ltd. in Tokyo published an annotated edition of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Stride Toward Freedom which a Japanese colleague and I prepared for use as a college English reading-course textbook. An early issue of the Aoyama Gakuin University Educational Journal will carry a paper of mine entitled “The Question of Authority (The Relation of Revelation and Reason) and it’s Implications for Christian Education”.
In discussing the problem of maintaining an officially authorized organizational structure of Christian influence in the University’s life, involving the administration, the faculty and the student body, Mr. Krummel points out the importance of including Christian faculty members and office personnel as participants in the Campus Ministry. With this as a basis of vigorous leadership it can then carry the Gospel into the various structures of campus life, including all of the many student organizations that proliferate in such a school. This emphasizes the importance of worship as the heart of the witnessing community both on the campus and off, and in the local churches in which Christian students should participate.
Another area of concern with which both chaplains and individual Christians and “witnessing” groups must deal, says Krummel, is “the tension that obtains between the academic integrity of the university and his mission as a Christian. . . As the leaders of our campus Christian ministry have become aware of these tensions, they have been freed from the negative reactions that such tensions can produce and are able to use them creatively.”
With respect to the Christian approach to Aoyama’ s students, Krummel says there must be recognition of three levels of concern on the part of the Campus Ministry: (1) those who are baptized or practicing Christians and who must be nurtured into effectiveness as “witnesses” and even as leaders as the Gospel is made relevant to others; (2) those who can be regarded as “seekers” and therefore proper objects of positive evangelistic effort; (3) the indifferent, who constitute by far the largest proportion of the student body. While programs calculated to nurture those who are at least nominal Christians, and efforts to reach those who are genuinely interested in Christianity are an important aspect of Campus Ministry, other techniques must be used among those who have as yet no preparation to receive the Gospel message. One significant procedure is to have the school’s chaplains and Christian faculty members visit and participate in the life of the college clubs, athletic team programs, round table discussions, etc. Such concerns for the non-Christian elements in church-related schools extend to inter-college visitation, discussions, and conferences of various types. Out of all such efforts come gratifying results in the hearts, minds and commitments of students.
Mr. Krummel continues:
The educational revolution in Japan is not yet finished . . . The change in the educational system after World War II, the tremendous influx of students which has come in the intervening years, the shift from pre-war university education of the elite to post-war mass education for democratic citizenship—all of these factors create complex problems for school administrations. . . . Only now are educators beginning to wake up to what has happened during the past twenty years. . . . There is in most Japanese universities no category for professional workers in counseling, dormitory leadership, Christian student workers or the like. . . . Yet, I believe that the next ten years will see some major improvements in these areas In other words, some of the problems and frustrations which the Campus Christian Ministry faces are inherent in the situations of the university as it is today, and will be solved only as the university itself evolves to meet its destiny.
And a final word from this writer should be to the effect that John William Krummel is one of the Christian educators in Japan playing an outstanding role in bringing these changes to pass.