Jonathan Rauch once wrote an article titled, "Why Is Japanese Baseball So Dull?" The article is not about baseball at all. It is about business. In it he discusses some differences between the Japanese and American ways of doing business. He tells of interviewing a well-known Japanese political scientist who became very excited when he discussed American meetings. The source of his enthusiasm was the fact that in American meetings he could jump up and down and call out, "I disagree! I disagree!" In Japan, it is considered rude to disagree with someone outright. Japanese men must sit through meetings without expressing positive or negative emotions for fear of offending someone. (1)

St. Paul would have preferred a Japanese church, I suspect, to the church at Corinth. The church at Corinth …