A World of Crisis and Progress: The American YMCA in Japan 1890–1930. By Jon Thares Davidann. Bethlehem, Penn.: Lehigh University Press, 1998. 207 pp. $37.50.

Abstract

In May 1880, Kanda Naibu, Kozaki Hiromichi, and other young Japanese Christians, inspired by the example of YMCA in the United States, established the Tokyo Kirisutokyo Seinenkai (Young Men's Christian Association). As Jon Thares Davidann points out, Japanese Christians saw "Christianity as a set of precepts and the YMCA as an institution that could save and uplift the entire nation" (p. 63). By 1899, when the first American YMCA missionary arrived at the request of the Tokyo Association, the Seinenkai, together with its journal, Rikuge7zasshi (Cosmos), was already playing a significant role in the development of Meiji Protestantism. The beginning of American YMCA work in the 1890s coincided with a period of retarded growth for most Christian groups (with the notable exception of the Anglican Nippon Seikokai), demands for independence from foreign supervision as witnessed in the crisis over control of Doshisha College in Kyoto, and an impatience among Japanese Christians of liberal theological persuasion with the conservative theology of many missionaries, including YMCA ones. YMCA difficulties eased with the RussoJapanese War during which it gained widespread approval in official Japanese circles because of its program for providing comforts for the troops in the field. Following the war with Russia, the Japanese YMCA, supportive of Japanese imperialism, expanded its work into Korea where, "like the American YMCA moving into Japan in the 1890s, Japanese Christian leaders assumed that Christian progress could take place in Korea only if it was inspired by Japanese Christianity" (p. 131). As for American YMCA missionaries working in Japan or in Korea, they came "to identify themselves with the nations they served. They did not see themselves as representatives of a universal religion that could remain above the competition of nations" (p. 150). However, even in the 1920s, when doubts about their effectiveness in the face of nationalist reactions had led to a serious review of YMCA overseas missions, YMCA supporters in Japan like Yoshino Sakuzo still "returned to the hope of Meiji Christian nationalists that Christianity would become the guiding spirit of Japan" (p. 162). In this short book, Davidann set out "to examine the history of the intercultural interactions between two groups of modern Christians: American YMCA missionaries posted to Japan and Japanese Christians who became interested in YMCA activities and participated in the YMCA from 1890-1930" (p. 111). The cultural relations between the two groups were not without their difficulties. The author divides his book into six major chapters: The American YMCA and the Missionary Revival, Japanese Christians and Cultural Nationalism; The Struggle for Independence; Social Problems and the Russo-Japanese War; YMCA Postwar Imperialism in Korea and Manchuria, and The Crisis of Christian Nationalism. Among other things, Davidann