By Yuri Yamamoto

When I began my Clinical Pastoral Education to become a chaplain, I was still exploring my Christian identity in baby steps. When some hospital patients asked me about my religion, I didn’t feel comfortable claiming myself as a Christian lest someone might call me out on being an imposter. Friends have warned me about Christians who would quickly condemn people to hell when they disagreed on theology or “lifestyle” such as the LGBTQIA+ community, and I didn’t want any confrontations with them.

Instead of calling myself a Christian, I often said, “I’m a follower of Jesus.” Most people probably interpreted my statement as being a Christian. For me, there was a difference between the two. Jesus taught how to realize God’s will on earth through loving God and each other, and I wanted to follow him on this ministry.

As for Christian theology, I didn’t find some mainstream theological concepts such as trinity, virgin birth, and atonement relevant to this ministry. Excluding people based on such a theological litmus test seemed antithetical to Jesus’s ministry.

At that time, I thought that there was a neat box in which all real Christians fit into. When I started my seminary education, I wanted to figure out what my kind of Christian looked like. As I studied the Afrocentric curriculum alongside African American classmates at Shaw University Divinity School, I was inspired to explore how the global and local history of Christianity and my ancestors, my family stories, and my personal stories shaped me. Today I am not afraid of claiming my Christian identity. Christianity is not monolithic nor fit into a tight box. I practice the kind of Christian I am and want to become: Love God and each other to realize God’s will on earth. And Jesus clearly showed the way.

Yuri Yamamoto (they/she) is a board-certified chaplain, ordained and endorsed by the Federation of Christian Ministries. After coming from Japan to the U.S., Yuri was a scientist (molecular biology/plant biology) and a church musician in a Unitarian Universalist congregation. Their theological education is from Shaw University Divinity School, and after two CPE residencies, Yuri is serving as a clinical chaplain in a close custody state prison. Yuri and their husband have six kids, four kids-in-law, four grandkids, and one dog.