What took place with the Christians in Japan?

                                          Yokohama Country and Athletic Club in 1920's and 1930's

July 5, 2013

Dear Friends and Students

What took place with the Christians in Japan?

The earliest possible Christian converts took place under Jesuit priest Francisco Xavier.

It was the period Japanese were facing the Warring States and people were looking for salvation 

under the hardship.  Christians, too helped  the Japanese with hospitals, orphanages, and seminaries.

Many joined for salvation as well as for trade. Christian westerners brought guns and exotic goods which

Japanese were eager to get. 

One unwritten account for the early Christians I think is that many leaders joined the Christianity but through 

the change of leadership from Nobunaga to Hideyoshi to Iyeyasu and later to his grandson, Iyemitsu, Christians were disliked and persecuted. This is due to political reason more than anything. 

 

Meiji period changed this scene to convert many Japanese Samurais into Christianity after the fall of Tokugawa Shogunate and their lords. The reason why many Samurais became Christians is studied by many scholars.  Recently I am interested in the Religious Organization of Friends(Quakers) in Japan.

Strange to say their number is very small but had a tremendous influence among the early Meiji leading scholars, namely Nitobe Inazou, Uchimura Kanzou, Tsuda Umeko, the founder of Doshisha, and Arishima Takeo.

gto