Murai Jun
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Murai Jun (Japanese: 村井純, 1897-1970), was the founder of the Spirit of Jesus Church. The second son of a Methodist minister, he was raised in a Christian environment and went on to study theology at the Methodist-affiliated Aoyama Gakuin in Tokyo. At one point during his studies Murai became deeply troubled and was contemplating suicide.
In 1918, while taking a ferry at Okayama Prefecture, he made up his mind to throw himself overboard and put an end to it all. At that moment, he felt the presence of the Holy Spirit overpower him and he began to speak in tongues. the experience cleared his mind of all religious doubt and filled him with new strength and vision for the Christian mission.
Murai dropped out of Aoyama Gakuin and began evangelistic work. In time, he assumed the role of pastor in the Japan Bible Church (the church that was to become the Japan Assemblies of God in 1949). In 1933, word of the Pentecostal experience that had changed his life spread among the membership of his small congregation in Nishisugamo, Tokyo.
But in 1941, after visiting the True Jesus Church in Taiwan, a Chinese indigenous movement that had been in existence for just over twenty years , Murai decided to leave his congregation. it was in this same year that his wife, Suwa, received a revelation from God in which the name Iesu no Mitama Kyōkai (Spirit of Jesus Church) was given to designate them as a new church.
Murai launched a rather strident critique of the existing Japanese mission churches and indigenous movements in the course of defending the establishment of his independent Spirit of Jesus Church. This is hardly surprising , given that conservative evangelical groups accused him of being a “servant of satan” for practicing tongues-speaking and sponsoring emotional healing services. Speaking in tongues, in their view, was a mark of possession by an evil sirit, not the work of the Spirit of God.
Hence, Murai was extremely critical of conservative evangelical churches for their rejection of his Pentecostal emphasis on speaking in tongues and healing. According to Murai, these groups had “blasphemed the Holy Spirit” and were unpardonable. He was equally harsh in his assessment of the indigenous Nonchurch movement for its rejection of Spirit and water baptism, going as far to say that “The Nonchurch movement cannot last very long since it is not something from heaven” . For his part, Murai insisted that he was restoring the authentic form of New testament Christianity that was no longer practiced by churches in the West or in transplanted mission churches.
Unlike Uchimura and Matsumura, sho were prolific authors, Murai left behind very few writings. His only publications are Biblical Theology (聖書神学), and a short Guide to Christianity (基督教案內), both of which are still used for traiing pastors in the Spirit of Jesus Bible School in Tokyo. These writings elaborate traditional pentecostal traits (Spirit baptism, speaking in tongues, healing), unitarian Jesus-only doctrine, the renewed emphasis on sabbath worship, the restoration of the New testament rituals of foot-washing and baptism for the dead, and a strong eschatological orientation and emphasis on the doctrine of the Second Coming of Christ. Murai maintained that true Christianity is a religion of signs and miracles, and that the church today is called on to reproduce what went on in the early Christian movement in preparation for the triumphant return of Christ,
