Jesus in Japan

In May 1859, the first Protestant missionary, Episcopalian John Liggins, set foot in Japan and by the end of the year seven missionaries, all American, had arrived. Catholic missionaries also came.

150 years ago Japan was still a feudal society ruled by a shogun with lords (daimyo) and knights (samurai) as well as peasant farmers, artisans and merchants. The Emperor lived in Kyoto but had minimal political influence. Buddhism and native Shinto (‘the way of the gods’) combined with ancestral veneration to make a unique religious blend, while Confucianism had a strong influence on society. Only five years earlier a treaty had been signed with America to open the doors slightly to the outside world. For over 200 years Japan’s seclusion had been virtually complete; no foreigner could enter Japan, except for a few Dutch and Chinese traders on a tiny island near the city of Nagasaki. Any Japanese who left the shores of his country, even if by accident, was forbidden to return on pain of death.

‘Let no Christian be so bold’

The first missionaries were housed in Buddhist temples by the Japanese authorities so that they would be kept away from ordinary people. A major challenge was learning the Japanese language. As foreigners were looked upon with suspicion and closely watched, getting a language teacher was almost impossible. And missionaries were doubly suspect as Christianity was strictly forbidden, with rewards for informers.

In public places signs such as the following warned: ‘So long as the sun shall warm the earth, let no Christian be so bold as to come to Japan; and let all know that the King of Spain himself, or the Christian’s God, or the Great God of all, if he violate this command shall pay for it with his head’.

Apart from the official policy, the attitude of most people to ‘the evil sect’ was very unfavourable. A few years after arriving, Dr. James Hepburn set up a dispensary and posted some Bible verses. His wife wrote: ‘An intelligent Japanese said to him that “these were excellent, all but the name of Jesus and that was very disgusting to a Japanese”’.

Tread on ‘Jesus’

This hatred and fear of anything Christian had been inculcated into the Japanese for generations, going back to the Roman Catholic missionary effort some 300 years earlier. A period of widespread success gave way to a strong backlash from the ruling shogun. Missionaries were suspected of being advance agents of imperialism resulting in the ruthless suppression of Christianity and the policy of isolationism. Thereafter people were required to prove their rejection of Christianity by treading on Catholic images that bore the face of Jesus or Mary. Despite this, thousands managed to secretly pass on their faith (though syncretised with Buddhism) for almost 250 years until religious freedom came.

One-to-ones

In the early years missionaries were limited in what they could do. One of these, Guido Verbeck, saw this period as a time to develop trust among the Japanese in order to lay the groundwork for the future growth of Christianity once the prohibitions against it were lifted. Christian witness was only possible on a one-to-one basis with the few brave individuals that were met through English teaching and language study. Verbeck sometimes felt that English teaching was ‘perhaps an unprofitable drudgery, and which often tried my time and patience’. However, this led to Bible studies with a number of students, some of whom were eventually converted. Later on schools, mainly for samurai sons, were started in Nagasaki and elsewhere, with Verbeck as principal. Ten years later, several ex-students invited him to Tokyo to help in planning new government. His early work was not in vain.

‘Expel the barbarians’

Sometimes the missionaries’ lives were in danger. There were many Japanese who felt that the shogun should never have let the foreigners into their sacred land. In 1860, a British visitor was killed by samurai because he had failed to show ‘appropriate respect’ and, for a while, conditions became particularly dangerous. Several Japanese came asking for instruction but actually intended to rid their country of the ‘evil foreign priest’. Missionaries left Japan to wait in China for a few months until the tension died down somewhat. However, for those Japanese who showed any interest in Christianity the danger was much greater. As late as 1872 a missionary language teacher died in prison because of the ‘crime’ of possessing a copy of Hepburn’s translation of Mark’s Gospel.

First convert

The first convert was baptised in 1864, though he died soon afterwards. In the same year a young man, Shimeta Niijima, secretly left Japan for America in his quest for the truth. He had been deeply impressed by the words of Genesis 1.1 which he’d read in an English textbook. Surely this was the true God! In America he put his faith in Christ, helped by someone who had befriended him. Several years later he was able to return to his homeland and founded an English school on a Christian basis in Kyoto, which later became Doshisha University.

First church

In 1868, after a brief civil war, the military shogunate was overthrown and the Emperor, moving to Tokyo, was restored to the centre of government. It was the start of the long Meiji era in which extensive reform was rapidly introduced to turn Japan into a modern state. However the anti-Christian law was not immediately repealed and persecution continued.

The first British missionary, George Ensor of the CMS, arrived in 1869. Then, in 1872, after an intensive week of prayer and nine baptisms, the first church was established in Yokohama with just 11 members. 1873 at last saw the taking down of the boards prohibiting Christianity. Missionaries and national believers could now begin to evangelise and teach more openly. A new era had begun. Before long ‘foreign experts’ were invited to give advice about developing the country and among these were some Christians. (One of them, William Clark, came to teach in Sapporo in 1876. In less than a year he had a great impact for Christ on his students. His name is still widely known today.) There now came a time of great enthusiasm for all things Western and many students went overseas to study. Though Christianity was seen as part of Western culture, some students came to true faith in Christ, as one who had studied in England and after returning was able to lead 50 people to faith and baptism. In the 1880s revival was to occur and there was talk of Japan soon becoming a ‘Christian nation’, though such optimism did not last long.

Emperor worship

There were many challenges to be faced thereafter, not the least the emerging strong nationalistic spirit that, through the national education system, aimed at uniting the nation in supreme loyalty to the ‘divine’ Emperor. There was increasing pressure for every loyal Japanese to worship at Shinto shrines. This did not cease until the end of WWII when religious freedom came to Japan. New missionaries arrived and, for a time, churches grew fairly rapidly. For about the last 50 years the number of professing Christians has stayed at around 1% of the population with a little more than half of those being Protestant. On the other hand, during that time the proportion of churches that are evangelical in belief has greatly increased.

Ongoing spiritual need

The church has Japanese leadership and Christianity, though very small in numbers, is acknowledged. But are there any similarities between 1859 and 2009? Certainly the challenge of the language remains. Christianity is still widely regarded as a Western religion, despite the increasing number of Asian (mainly Korean) missionaries. Japan remains a country that is very needy spiritually, despite its great material wealth. It’s not hard for missionaries to enter and there are many opportunities to teach English. Response to the gospel is generally slow, but God is at work! Furthermore, Japanese abroad are usually much more open to consider the Christian faith, especially if it’s presented in the context of love and friendship. And, of course, God himself hasn’t changed. He is still looking for people to help bring the good news of Jesus to the Japanese. Could you be one of them?

Roger Stevens,
who, with his wife and daughter, has been with OMF International, Japan, since 1995

© Evangelicals Now - August 2009
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