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In November 1877, three months after Emperor Meiji's conscript army of commoners defeated forces led by Japan's famous "last samurai," the Reverend Tom Alexander and his new wife, Emma, arrived in Japan, a country where Christianity had been punishable by death until 1868. A Christian in the Land of the Gods offers an intimate view of hardships and challenges faced by nineteenth-century missionaries working to plant their faith in a country just emerging from two and a half centuries of self-imposed seclusion. The narrative takes place against the backdrop of wrenching change in Japan and Great Power jockeying for territory and influence in Asia, as seen through the eyes of a Presbyterian missionary from East Tennessee. This true story of personal sacrifice, devotion to duty, and unwavering faith sheds new light on Protestant missionaries' work with Japan's leading democracy activists and the missionaries' role in helping transform Japan from a nation ruled by shoguns, hereditary lords, and samurai to a leading industrial powerhouse. It addresses universal themes of love, loss, and the enduring power of faith. The narrative also proves that one seemingly ordinary person can change lives more than he or she ever realizes.
This volume provides researchers and students of religion with an indispensable reference work on the history, cultural impact, and reshaping of Christianity in Japan. Divided into three parts, Part I focuses on Christianity in Japanese history and includes studies of the Roman Catholic mission in pre-modern Japan, the 'hidden Christian' tradition, Protestant missions in the modern period, Bible translations, and theology in Japan. Part II examines the complex relationship between Christianity and various dimensions of Japanese society, such as literature, politics, social welfare, education for women, and interaction with other religious traditions. Part III focuses on resources for the study of Christianity in Japan and provides a guide to archival collections, research institutes, and bibliographies. Based on both Japanese and Western scholarship, readers will find this volume to be a fascinating and important guide.
Japan closed its doors to foreigners for over two hundred years because of religious and political instability caused by Christianity. By 1859, foreign residents were once again living in treaty ports in Japan, but edicts banning Christianity remained enforced until 1873. Drawing on an impressive array of English and Japanese sources, Ion investigates a crucial era in the history of Japanese-American relations the formation of Protestant missions. He reveals that the transmission of values and beliefs was not a simple matter of acceptance or rejection: missionaries and Christian laymen persisted in the face of open hostility and served as important liaisons between East and West.
In Search of Japan's Hidden Christians is a remarkable story of suppression, secrecy and survival in the face of human cruelty and God’s apparent silence. Part history, part travelogue, it explores and seeks to explain a clash of civilizations—of East and West—that resonates to this day. For seven generations, Japan’s ‘Hidden Christians’ preserved a faith that was forbidden on pain of death. Just as remarkably, descendants of the Hidden Christians continue to practise their beliefs today, refusing to rejoin the Catholic Church. Why? And what is it about Japanese culture that makes it so resistant to Western Christianity?
Beginning with Japan's early exposure to Christianity by the very successful Roman Catholic mission to Japan in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the resultant persecution and prohibition of Christianity, Laman lays the groundwork for understanding the experience of nineteenth-century Protestant missionaries, among whom those of the Reformed Church in America were in the forefront. The early efforts of the Browns, Verbecks, Ballaghs, and Stouts, their failures and successes, are recounted within the cultural and political context of the anti-Western, anti-Christian Japan of the time. Verbeck's service to the government helped bring about gradual change. The first Protestant church was organized with a vision for ecumenical mission, and during several promising years, churches and mission schools were organized. Reformed Church missionaries encouraged and trained Japanese leaders from the beginning, the first Japanese ministers were ordained in 1877, and the Japanese church soon exhibited a spirit of independence, ushering in an era of growing missionary/Japanese partnership. The rise of the Japanese empire, a reinvigorated nationalism, and its progression to militarist ultranationalism brought on a renewed anti-Western, anti-Christian reaction and new challenges to both mission and church. With the outbreak of World War II, the Japanese government consolidated all Protestant churches into the Kyodan to facilitate control. Laman continues the account of Reformed Church partners in mission in Japan in the midst of post-war devastation and subsequent social and political tensions. The ecumenical involvement and continued clarification of mutual mission finds the Reformed Church a full participant with a mature Japanese church.