Christianity In Japan Research Articles

«Теология боли Господа» Китамори Кадзо: основные идеи

Kitamori Kazoh (1916–1998) is considered to be one of the most prominent Ja­panese theologists, whose ideas had a wide response from abroad. His main work, “Theology of the Pain of God” (Kami no Itami no Shingaku), became a spiritual breakthrough for the Japanese after the WWII, signifying a new way of development of Christianity in Japan in the postwar period. Kitamori’s idea that people feeling pain and suffering can get closer to understanding God and His pain of loving the unlovable, i.e. sinners deserving His wrath, not love, re­flected the sentiments characteristic of the Japanese who had experienced atomic bombings and defeat in the war. “Theology of the Pain of God” gained much at­tention in the 1970-s with the spread of the so-termed genitive theology, on one hand, and the rise of the interest of theologians in the reevaluation of suffering, on the other. The article aims at analyzing the key statements of “the theology of the pain of God” by Kitamori Kazoh, and the historical and cultural context of its emergence. The author focuses on Kitamori’s idea of the pain of God as emerging on the joint of God’s wrath and God’s love, being the essence of God and the keypoint upon which Christian theology should be built; on the idea of the suffering of the mankind as a symbol of God’s pain, and on Kitamori’s supposition that the Japanese, as a people that has experienced great suffering and sorrow, is chosen by God and is much closer to the understanding of the pain of God and, consequently, of the essence of God

The Interaction Between Japanese Buddhism and Christianity in the Meiji Period

Although initially fraught with tension, spanning roughly two decades, Buddhists employed various strategies to combat the spread of Christianity and uphold their traditional values. As the 1890s dawned, a new wave of Buddhists emerged, spearheading the reconstruction of Japanese Buddhism through processes of secularization and westernization in alignment with the currents of the Meiji Restoration. This paper delves into the intricate relationship between Buddhism and Christianity in Japan following the Perry Expedition. By scrutinizing the writings and orations of numerous Buddhist leaders spanning the period from the 1860s to the 1890s, this paper elucidates the multifaceted conflicts and interactions between Japanese Buddhism and Christianity. A nuanced analysis of their endeavors, reveals the evolving dynamics and strategies employed by both religions in navigating their coexistence in Japan's religious landscape, where both involuntarily made corresponding relative changes to be involved in social trends and Japanese traditions. This paper also discusses the cooperation and potential union between the two religions at the beginning of the 19th century, when New Buddhists received education in Western philosophy and examined Christianity. In short, the Buddhist-Christian relationship underwent a conversion from opponents to equal religion, even collaboratively enforcing social justice and care.

The Interaction Between Japanese Buddhism and Christianity in the Meiji Period

Although initially fraught with tension, spanning roughly two decades, Buddhists employed various strategies to combat the spread of Christianity and uphold their traditional values. As the 1890s dawned, a new wave of Buddhists emerged, spearheading the reconstruction of Japanese Buddhism through processes of secularization and westernization in alignment with the currents of the Meiji Restoration. This paper delves into the intricate relationship between Buddhism and Christianity in Japan following the Perry Expedition. By scrutinizing the writings and orations of numerous Buddhist leaders spanning the period from the 1860s to the 1890s, this paper elucidates the multifaceted conflicts and interactions between Japanese Buddhism and Christianity. A nuanced analysis of their endeavors, reveals the evolving dynamics and strategies employed by both religions in navigating their coexistence in Japan's religious landscape, where both involuntarily made corresponding relative changes to be involved in social trends and Japanese traditions. This paper also discusses the cooperation and potential union between the two religions at the beginning of the 19th century, when New Buddhists received education in Western philosophy and examined Christianity. In short, the Buddhist-Christian relationship underwent a conversion from opponents to equal religion, even collaboratively enforcing social justice and care.

Disputas entre los Jesuitas y los Franciscanos: una revisión histórica de las políticas de dos ordenes cristianas en Japón

Abstract: Throughout the history of Christianity in Japan, tension and conflict have persisted between the Jesuits and Franciscans. At face value, this appears to be due to their different readings of the policies of Rome and varied approaches to apostolic work. However, upon closer examination, politics also played an important role. Behind the two orders were two rival maritime powers - Portugal and Spain, whose fellow countrymen’s feelings of national sentiment may occasionally have outweighed their interests in the mission in Japan. In an attempt to keep the peace, Rome had issued the Patronatus missionum. However, it intensified the conflict and rendered the situation into an irreparable state of disarray. This eventually caused heavy losses to the whole mission. For a better understanding, in this thesis I summarize the following arguments between the Jesuits and Franciscans. The first, and most salient, argument pertains to commerce; the second pertains to the separation of parishes; the third to their apostolic approaches, and the final argument is on their practical policies. It is also worth mentioning that the relationship between the Jesuits and the Franciscans was not eased by the 26-person Nagasaki martyrdom incident. Indeed, this was a heavy loss.

The Japanese Translations of the Hebrew Bible: History, Inventory and Analysis (Doron B. Cohen, Leiden: Brill, 2013)

The Japanese Translation of the Hebrew Bible: History, Inventory and Analysis (Leiden: Brill, 2013) is the first of its kind, that is, the first English scholarly book focusing on the history of translating the Hebrew Bible into the Japanese language. It compares and analyzes 12 full translations (A-1…A-12), 16 partial translations (B-1…B-16), 13 fragmentary translations (C-1…C-13), and 6 further editions of the Bible (D-1…D-6). The book consists of two main parts: part one (History and Inventory) and part two (Analysis and Translated Verses). Part one has three chapters. Chapter 1 is introduction which deals with The Bible in Japan (1.1), Christianity in Japan (1.2), Translation (1.3), and Scope and Method (1.4).<BR> Chapter 2 talks about a historical review of Bible translation according to several periods: the Kirishitan Period (2.1), the Bible in China (2.2), the 19th Century and Early Meiji (2.3), from Late Meiji until World War II (2.4), and the Post-World War II Period (2.5). And Chapter 3 introduces various kinds of Japanese Bible in four categories: full translations (3.1), partial translations in book form (3.2), fragmentary translations, early digests and partial translation in magazines (3.3), and some further editions of the Bible, using previous translations (3.4).<BR> Part two has four chapters. Chapter 4 focuses its study on Deuteronomy 32:8-9, and compares and analyzes 12 different full Japanese translations. In each translation, the author gives a Japanese translation of two verses and their transliteration. However, he does not give the English translation of the given Japanese translation of the verses. Unless the reader is fluent in Japanese, he/she could not understand what the Japanese translation means. With only the Japanese verses and their transliteration, the readers are unable to see what the author explicates.<BR> Chapter 5 deals with Psalm 23 in various translations as well as the analysis of words and expressions like YHWH ro‘i, mizmor ledavid, and many others. Furthermore, the author touches on the issue of faithfulness in the process of translating Psalm 23. In 5.5, he also talks about the three early versions of Psalm 100 and the identity of the translators. Chapter 6 chooses several examples of translation and compares them. Some passages from Genesis, Proverbs, and Job are picked and analyzed. In 6.4, Hebraism in the Japanese translations are discussed in two categories: Hebraism retained and Hebraism avoided. Chapter 7, the last chapter mentions several issues including faithfulness and new translation or revision. It ends with the author’s personal perspective appreciating the enormous efforts of the missionary translators and the Japanese assistants.<BR> Although there are some weaknesses in this book, the beneficial aspects are much more than enough. I hope someday this kind of study is published on the Korean translations of the Hebrew Bible.

1883 Osaka Protestan Misyonerleri Konferansı: Japonya’da Hristiyanlığın Yayılmasının Önündeki Engeller Konusu

1858’de Japonya’nın limanlarını uluslararası ticarete açmasından bir yıl sonra Batılı Protestan misyonerler ülkeye gelerek liman kentlerde Hristiyanlığı yayma faaliyetlerine başlamıştır. Misyonerler, Japonya’da 1639’dan beri devam eden Hristiyanlık yasağından dolayı faaliyetlerini gizlilikle yürütmüştür. Yapılan diplomatik görüşmeler neticesinde 1873’te ülkedeki bütün Hristiyanlık yasağı son bulmuş ve misyonerlerin faaliyetlerinin önündeki önemli bir siyasi engel ortadan kalkmıştır. 1883 yılına kadar misyonerler, sağlık, eğitim, dil vb. alanlarda yürüttükleri faaliyetlerle, Japonların Hristiyanlığa yönelik önyargılarını kırabilmiştir. Kurdukları okul, hastane ve kiliselerle, Japonya’da Hristiyanlığın temellerini atmıştır. Bu süreç içerisinde faaliyetlerini yürütmelerine rağmen ülkede Hristiyanlığın anlaşılmasını zorlaştıran, yayılmasına engel olan durumlar onların önemli sorunu haline gelmiştir. Bu sorunlar, 1883’te Japonya’da bulunan tüm Protestan misyoner topluluklarından seçilen üyelerin Osaka’da bir araya geldiği konferansta detaylıca tartışılmıştır. Bu makalede 1883 Osaka Protestan Misyonerleri Konferansı analiz edilerek Batılı Protestan misyonerlerin gözünden Japonya’da Hristiyanlığın yayılmasının önündeki engeller konusu incelenmiştir.

The Jesuit painting Seminario in Japan: European Renaissance technology and its influence on Far Eastern art

European painting technology reached Japan in 1583 with the arrival of Giovanni Cola, the Italian Jesuit painter who was assigned the task of establishing a painting Seminario to supply missionaries with the sacred images needed for their activities. Historical records failed to report information relating to specific European pigments, and only generic mentions of oils are associated with the Seminario. Yet, on a random basis, European pigments and binding media have been identified on some of the paintings that survived the 250‐year ban on Christianity in Japan. In order to fully understand the crucial role of the Seminario in terms of technological and material transfer to Japanese and Chinese artists, for the first time, four extremely important paintings (Important Cultural Property of Italy) have been analyzed. Owing to their extraordinary significance, it was mandatory to carry out a non‐destructive analysis on site. Therefore, energy‐dispersive X‐ray fluorescence was used to detect the presence of inorganic chromophores that would not exist in Japan at the time. The paintings depict the martyrdom of Japanese Christians at Nagasaki (1619 and 1622), the martyrdom of Jesuit Missionaries in Japan (1630s), and the portrait of Father Ricci SJ (1610). The results provide definitive evidence of the transfer of technology and use of European pigments at the Jesuit Seminario in Japan and also enable, for the first time, the identification of the transfer of technologies and materials to China as a result of the movement of Jesuit missionaries escaping the fierce persecutions enforced by Japanese authorities.

The Aspects of Transmission and Acceptance of Christianity in Japan -Focus on early Christianity-

The Aspects of Transmission and Acceptance of Christianity in Japan -Focus on early Christianity-

Tachibana Kosai about Christianity in Japan

Tachibana Kosai about Christianity in Japan

Non-Christian Religions in the work of Uchimura Kanzō

Non-Christian Religions in the work of Uchimura Kanzō James Harry Morris (bio) Keywords Uchimura Kanzō, Non-Church Movement, Interreligious Dialogue, Interfaith Dialogue, Interreligious Relations, Christian-Buddhist Relations, Christian-Muslim Relations The first Protestant missionaries came to Japan in 1859 following the ratification of the five Ansei Treaties negotiated between Japan and several western powers (the United States, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands) the previous year.1 The missionaries initially focused on language acquisition, translation and teaching, gaining only a handful of converts until the government began to adopt a more liberal stance toward Christianity in 1873.2 By 1891, there were approximately 30,000 Japanese converts to Protestantism and by 1930 there were over 190,000.3 Nevertheless, Christianity has, historically and contemporarily, failed to take seed amongst the Japanese people, with Mark Mullins noting, for instance, that "annual statistics have indicated for decades that no more than one percent of the Japanese are church members."4 Indeed, since Christianity "cuts across vital social aspects of belonging, [it] tends to be rather antithetical to Japanese feelings of identity."5 In addition to this, foreign Protestant missionaries have tended to import Christianity as part of a colonial and neo-colonial western package that provides little to no room for dialogue between Christianity and Japanese modes of thought, being, and practice, whether religious or secular. Historically missionaries "tended to emphasize a total discontinuity between the Christian faith and Japanese religious traditions and practices. Indigenous traditions needed to be 'displaced' or removed to make room for the Gospel and authentic Christian faith. The missionaries had the 'truth of the Gospel,' and the Japanese were totally lost in sin."6 [End Page 196] Simultaneously, during the second half of the nineteenth century many Japanese viewed Christianity as incompatible with Japanese values.7 As a result of these factors, some Japanese theologians have attempted to theologize from Japanese contexts in an ecclesial environment independent from western missionary organizations. Uchimura Kanzō's (1861–1930) founding of the Mukyōkai (Non-Church Movement) in 1901 marked the first—and one of the most famous—attempts to develop an indigenous Christian movement along these lines. Uchimura's attempts to find points of commonality between Christianity and the Japanese context led him to begin to grapple theologically with themes pertinent to interfaith dialogue.8 In this paper, I will explore some of these themes in Uchimura's work and seek to situate his theology within its wider historical context. I will argue that Uchimura uses references to non-Christian religions as literary devices and as examples for the betterment of Christianity, while also postulating that God was active in the religious histories of non-Christian peoples. a man of two worlds From his youth, Uchimura lived abridge two worlds: Asian and western, Japanese and North American, non-Christian and Christian. Scholars have been divided in their assessments as to whether it was Japanese or western contexts and their influences that played the most important role in Uchimura's life and work. Mullins, however, provides a suitable middle ground, illustrating that Uchimura was simultaneously indebted to western thought and convinced, in contradistinction to the missionaries, that "native traditions provided a positive foundation for Christianity in Japan."9 A brief overview of Uchimura's life may help to elucidate some of the multiple factors that shaped his thought. Uchimura's educational background was predominantly western. Born into a samurai family, he attended Takasakihan Eigakkō (Takasaki Domain English School) until 1873, Arima Shigakkō (Arima Private School), where he had his first interactions with Christianity, until 1874, and Tōkyō Gaikokugo Gakkō (Tokyo School of Foreign Language),10 before enrolling in Sapporo Nōgakkō (Sapporo Agricultural College) in 1877.11 It was here that Uchimura converted to Christianity, receiving a Methodist baptism from American missionary Merriam Colbert Harris (1846–1921) in 1878.12 Following several years of work after his graduation in 1881, Uchimura emigrated to the United States, where he matriculated at Amherst College in 1885 and completed his second bachelor's [End Page 197] degree in 1887.13 Following his graduation from Amherst, he initially enrolled in Hartford Theological Seminary, but returned to Japan in 1888 to...

La foi des ancêtres: Chrétiens cachés et catholiques dans la société villageoise japonaise XVIIe–XIXe siècles by Martin Nogueira Ramos

Reviewed by: La foi des ancêtres: Chrétiens cachés et catholiques dans la société villageoise japonaise XVIIe–XIXe siècles by Martin Nogueira Ramos Nathalie Kouamé La foi des ancêtres: Chrétiens cachés et catholiques dans la société villageoise japonaise XVIIe–XIXe siècles. By Martin Nogueira Ramos. Paris: CNRS Editions, 2019. 416 pages. Hardcover, €25.00. One of the main attractions of this book is that Martin Nogueira Ramos draws abundantly from two distinct traditions of historiography and succeeds in making them complementary. The first of these traditions is an international one consisting of [End Page 362] research on the first Christians in Japan. This line of inquiry began in the 1870s with Hirai Kishō, was continued by Murakami Naojirō and then Anesaki Masaharu, and then developed further in the 1930s with the emergence of the journal Monumenta Nipponica; it then entered a kind of postwar golden age with the publication of Western-language masterworks such as La Compagnie de Jésus et le Japon by Léon Bourdon, The Christian Century in Japan by Charles Boxer, and Deus Destroyed by George Elison in addition to studies by Okamoto Yoshitomo and Okada Akio in Japan. The second tradition upon which Ramos's work rests, a wholly Japanese one, is the study of the social history of Japanese religions, which has advanced markedly since the 1990s, notably as a result of increasing emphasis on the question of the social status (mibun) of religious persons. Both the content and the style of Ramos's book (a revised version of his doctoral thesis) clearly derive from these two main currents of scholarship. From the first tradition we see the fascination of a number of historians with the Christians of Japan, and from the second, a focus on human relations and the social fabric, particularly the framework of village life in premodern and modern Japan from the beginning of the seventeenth century to the end of the nineteenth. Ramos however succeeds in avoiding the pitfalls inherent in the two traditions. He does not give way to religious sectarianism, instead remaining rigorously objective, and he does not hesitate to take into consideration the spiritual and existential character of the people he is examining, thus enabling himself to go beyond "basic" sociological considerations. Ramos's definition of what constitutes a "hidden Christian" is of particular interest given that he has stripped it of all romance or religious bias. "From the 1630s onward," Ramos writes, "Christians did all they could to hide their religion from view of the authorities. They might be described using the term Crypto-Christian or hidden Christian" (p. 70). And so, finally, we have a Western specialist clearly establishing the true nature of these individuals or groups of individuals, who have all too often been considered invisible. Ramos characterizes hidden Christians not as a population unnoticed by and unknown to those around them but as one whose members concealed and disguised themselves even though their neighbors and superiors might have been perfectly aware of their beliefs and religious practices. On several occasions Ramos emphasizes how Edo-period local authorities turned a blind eye to the existence of these groups, mainly because hidden Christians were almost all peasants, artisans, or fishermen, or in other words a source of tax income that they did not wish to jeopardize. To me, this is doubtless why Christian communities were able to survive over two and a half centuries. Ramos also deserves ample praise for his analytic method, specifically his combination of European sources, including missionary letters and testimonies by religious believers, with Japanese sources such as investigative reports. When Ramos is able to collate these two categories of sources, his findings are stimulating: in examining the question of the internal hierarchy of mid-nineteenth-century Christian communities (pp. 98–103), for example, he tellingly juxtaposes the testimony of Bernard-Thadée Petitjean, a priest of the foreign missions in Paris (Missions [End Page 363] étrangères de Paris) who in March 1865 "discovered" Christians living in Japan, with a report produced some years earlier in 1856 by Japanese investigators during the third "dismantlement" of the hidden Christians of Urakami. The...

Consuming the Tower of Babel and Japanese Public Art Museums—The Exhibition of Bruegel’s “The Tower of Babel” and the Babel-mori Project

Two Japanese public art museums, the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Gallery and the National Art Museum of Osaka, hosted Project Babel, which included the Babel-mori (Heaping plate of food items imitating the Tower of Babel) project. This was part of an advertising campaign for the traveling exhibition “BABEL Collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen: Bruegel’s ‘The Tower of Babel’ and Great 16th Century Masters” in 2017. However, Babel-mori completely misconstrued the meaning of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:1–9. I explore the opinions of the curators at the art museums who hosted it and the university students who took my interview on this issue. I will also discuss the treatment of artwork with religious connotations in light of education in Japan. These exhibitions of Christian artwork provide important evidence on the contemporary reception of Christianity in Japan and, more broadly, on Japanese attitudes toward religious minorities.

高瀬弘一郎著 『キリシタン時代の研究』, (岩波書店、一九七七年、五〇〇〇円)

高瀬弘一郎著 『キリシタン時代の研究』, (岩波書店、一九七七年、五〇〇〇円)

李元範・櫻井義秀編著, 『越境する日韓宗教文化-韓国の日系新宗教 日本の韓流キリスト教-』, 北海道大学出版会, 二〇一一年一二月刊, A5判, xxxii+四六一+八頁, 七〇〇〇円+税

李元範・櫻井義秀編著, 『越境する日韓宗教文化-韓国の日系新宗教 日本の韓流キリスト教-』, 北海道大学出版会, 二〇一一年一二月刊, A5判, xxxii+四六一+八頁, 七〇〇〇円+税

村田充八著, 『宗教の発見-日本社会のエートスとキリスト教-』, 晃洋書房, 二〇一〇年三月三〇日刊, A5判, xvii+二五〇+一九頁, 三六〇〇円+税

村田充八著, 『宗教の発見-日本社会のエートスとキリスト教-』, 晃洋書房, 二〇一〇年三月三〇日刊, A5判, xvii+二五〇+一九頁, 三六〇〇円+税

Book review: Critical Readings on Christianity in Japan

Book review: Critical Readings on Christianity in Japan

Buddhism, Unitarianism, and the Meiji Competition for Universality by Michel Mohr

Reviewed by: Buddhism, Unitarianism, and the Meiji Competition for Universality by Michel Mohr Micah Auerback Buddhism, Unitarianism, and the Meiji Competition for Universality. By Michel Mohr. Harvard University Asia Center, 2014. 346pages. Hardcover $39.95/£29.95/€36.00. Compared with their nearest counterparts in South Korea and the Sinophone world, the strains of Christianity dominant in Japan stand out for their theological liberality and relative amity toward other religious groups and teachings. In no polity of East Asia do Christians constitute an overwhelming majority of the population; in most, including Japan, they remain a small minority. The very distinct disposition of Christianity in Japan must therefore result not only from demography, but also from factors in history. Although writers of English have in fact been chronicling Protestant Christianity in Japan continuously since its introduction there in the mid-nineteenth century, the Japanese encounter with the one Christian group that has been arguably the most committed to liberal theology and cooperation across religions—the Unitarian Church—has only recently become the subject of a comprehensive monograph: Michel Mohr’s Buddhism, Unitarianism, and the Meiji Competition for Universality. Unlike most previous literature in English about Unitarianism in Japan, Mohr’s research is not limited to sources written in that language. It not only draws on the formidable archives of the Andover-Harvard Theological Library, but also cites copiously from contemporary sources in Japanese, with special emphasis on serial publications. This welcome study treats events from the first suggestion in the Japanese press (in 1886) that Japan might adopt the Unitarian creed to the establishment and development of a Unitarian mission in Japan and its closure in 1922 following the final refusal of the American Unitarian Association (AUA) to grant its Japanese branch full autonomy. Laudably, the study documents not only developments among the associates of the mission proper, but also the interpretations and uses of Unitarianism by parties in reformist Japanese Buddhist circles, at Waseda University, and in Japan’s socialist and labor movements. As the title suggests, the theme of universalism binds together these disparate developments; here, too, the author’s concerns are not limited to imported European notions of universality, but instead extend to the possibility of indigenous sources for universalism and to its use removed from the Unitarian world. The three main sections of the text employ three metaphors: “Seeds and Transplant,” “Bloom and Tensions,” and “Fracture and Rebuttals.” Not solely for the sake of metaphorical consistency, this review will propose that the final section could also be read as “Withering and Hybridization.” The first chapter in “Seeds and Transplant” begins by discussing the parameters of the study, setting up a contrast between the Meiji-era search for “universal truth” and the “surge in chauvinist expressions and . . . the emergence of Japanese colonialism” (p. 4). Elsewhere, the chapter notes competing claims within “universalism” itself—one an [End Page 418] appeal to the universal nature of religion and the other “an attempt to justify supremacy on the world stage, meaning quite the opposite of what this word seems to imply”—that gave “two diametrically opposed meanings” to the term (p. 16). The second chapter covers the 1887 dispatch of Unitarian representative Arthur May Knapp from the United States to Japan in response to an invitation by the political journalist Yano Fumio (Ryūkei); Knapp’s departure and succession by Clay MacCauley in 1890; and ambitious early efforts by the mission to build (and rebuild) its headquarters, operate a school of instruction in liberal theology, and spread its message—an aim it pursued through publication (of a periodical that merged in 1898 with Japan’s leading Christian journal, Rikugō zasshi), direct mailings, and public lectures. Contrary to its title, the section’s final chapter, “The Wavering of Early Japanese Support,” opens with the abrupt decision of the Boston headquarters of the AUA to stop funding the Unitarian school in Tokyo in 1895, which in the long term sabotaged the prospects of Unitarianism in Japan. Meanwhile, in the atmosphere of growing national self-confidence and self-assertiveness of the 1890s, some prominent Japanese allies of the Unitarian cause, including Kaneko Kentarō and possibly Fukuzawa Yukichi, proved themselves fair-weather friends. From 1900...

Book review: Developing a Contextualized Church as a Bridge to Christianity in Japan

Book review: Developing a Contextualized Church as a Bridge to Christianity in Japan

The Activities of the Marianists and Catholic Intellectuals in Japan Prior to the Second World War

I. Introduction The intellectual apostolate of the Society of Mary (Marianists) was important in forming Catholic intellectuals before the Second World War. Since the Tokugawa Shogunate prohibited the propagation of Christianity, few adherents of this faith, except for some Kakure Kirishitan (hidden Catholics), existed in Japan at the beginning of the Meiji period (1868-1912). In this difficult context, Marianist missionaries devoted themselves to an intellectual apostolate. Their educational methods separated evangelization and education and adopted Japan's culture and educational system. Marianist missionaries did not compel their students to take religious instruction, though some received spiritual guidance and became Catholics. Many students were initially reticent about Catholicism, but the committed person-to-person communication of their teachers led them into the Catholic Church. With the support of their Marianist teachers, these converted alumni endeavored to form Catholic circles among intellectuals. In this way, they built the foundation for Catholic culture in modern Japan. In this article, I examine the ideas and activities of Marianist missionaries in Japan and of Catholic intellectuals in four parts. First, I review modernization and the intellectual apostolate by the Society of Mary in Japan. Second, I discuss the founding and development of the Marianists' school, the Gyosei Gakko (Gyosei School). Third, I recount the activities of notable converted alumni and their endeavors in forming Catholic circles among intellectuals. Finally, I review the interpretations of expansionism of two Catholic priests and scholars, Soichi Iwashita (1889-1940) and Bunkei Totsuka (1892-1939). II. The Intellectual Apostolate by the Society of Mary in Japan The Tokugawa Shogunate prohibited the propagation of Christianity in Japan. However, the Meiji government, which replaced the Tokugawa regime in 1868, changed this policy. In 1873, it permitted the dissemination of Christian beliefs. The urgent aim of the Meiji government was to modernize Japan through the adoption of Western ideas and technology. As part of this process, it promulgated the Meiji Constitution on February 11, 1889. This document granted freedom of belief, stating, Japanese subjects shall, within limits not prejudicial to peace and order, and not antagonistic to their duties as subject, enjoy freedom of religious belief. The dissemination of Christian thought in Japan had begun before the Meiji period. Roman Catholic missionary leaders, especially those of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in Rome, had long hoped for the restoration of the Japan Mission. (1) Consequently, the Paris Foreign Mission Society was in charge of the Japan Mission in 1831. (2) In 1875, Bernard-Thadee Petitjean (the Paris Foreign Mission Society, 1829-1884) went to Rome and proposed the division of the vicariate into northern and southern areas to make its work more systematic. At the request of Petitjean, the vicariates in Japan consisted of northern Japan (Hokkaido and Honshu east and north of Lake Biwa) and southern Japan (Honshu west of Lake Biwa, Shikoku, and Kyushu) in 1876. Pierre-Marie Osouf (the Paris Foreign Mission Society, 1829-1906) was in charge of northern Japan and Bernard-Thadee Petitjean of southern Japan. The Paris Foreign Mission Society organized bishoprics and it conferred educational activities onto other missionary groups, one of which was the Society of Mary. Pierre-Marie Osouf requested the Society of Mary to found a Catholic middle school in Tokyo. Joseph Simler (fourth superior general of the Society of Mary, 1833-1905) accepted his request in about August 1886. Joseph Vernier (1870-1945), who served as a school inspector in Japan province, explained in La Societe de Marie au Japon 1887-1932 that Marianists had been happy to save souls, an activity that accorded with article 2 of the Constitution of the Society of Mary. …

Worldviews and Altruistic Behavior: A Progress Report on Experimental Study

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of worldviews on individual altruistic behaviors toward anonymous others, through experimental researches conducted in churches and universities in Korea, Japan and the US. The experiments were designed to compare the results between Christians and non-Christians and among the Koreans, Japanese and Americans. We found a significant correlation between the worldview and the amount of donation among Christians in Japan and Korea. Among Korean and Japanese Christians, those who believe in punishments for any bad behaviors are less likely to donate. One possible interpretation is that the punishment-related worldview might be correlated with the perception of the origin of suffering. If respondents believe that suffering is resulted from one's own irresponsible deeds, they would be less willing to make a charitable donation to anonymous others. It should be noted that the small size of our samples hinders from drawing concrete comparisons between Christians and non-Christians and between countries. Our overall estimation results should be interpreted as hinting that worldviews might affect a set of rules that determine individual altruistic decision.