John Oda
The Reverend John Oda is the Senior Pastor at Pine United Methodist Church. He holds a Masters in Social Welfare and a Masters of Divinity. For a number of years he worked in non-profits as well as in higher education. Reverend Oda has also served as the Youth Minister at Berkeley Methodist United Church as a chaplain at Marin General Hospital. He would like to express his appreciation to Dr. Matsuoka for his assistance in the creation of this article and for providing some of the basic ideas for this work.
Updated Spring 2001
Stories from This Author
A Spiritual Evolution
July 12, 2007 • John Oda
There is a spiritual hunger among many Japanese Americans today who, like myself, dropped religious observances when they were in high school or college but now admit they long for spiritual nourishment of some sort. Although Japanese American spirituality is not a novel topic, the interest in spirituality within today’s diverse Japanese American community is new. In the past, one’s spirituality was defined by one’s association with a certain religion or denomination. Today, Japanese American spirituality is not necessarily based …
