Download or read book The Response of the Church in Changing Japan written by Charles Hugh Germany and published by . This book was released on 1967 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this symposium, Japan is seen from the perspective of a soaring phoenix, risen from the ashes of defeat to the triumphant phenomenon of renewal and reconciliation. From this vantage point, the past, the present and the future of the Christian movement in Japan are fused into reality for the reader. This excellent and authoritative overall perspective is presented by the editor and by three outstanding Christian leaders of Japan today, contributing these absorbing studies: Dr James M. Phillips, professor of Church History at Tokyo Union Theological Seminary, creates dramatic personal interest in an historical review of the Christian movement in Japan by examining its rich legacy inherited from three towering Japanese Christian leaders: Jo Niijima who founded an institution for Christian learning, Masahisa Uemura who developed theology in the service of churchmanship, and Toyohiko Kagawa who promoted awareness of the social dimensions of the gospel. David L. Swain, co-director of a student Christian center in Tokyo, shows us life as it is lived today in Japan's highly pluralistic society, and explores the fantastic diversity in political, social, cultural and religious life. The answer to the question "What lies ahead?" may find its roots in a new definition of Japan's international responsibility not only in Asia, but in the world. Yoichiro Saeki, Associate Minister of the Shinagawa Church, United Church of Christ in Japan and secretary of the Evangelism Committe, gives us a comprehensive picture of the Christian movement in Japan today. He helps the reader to see the objective aspects and also to be taken deeper into an identification of the problems, issues and dynamics at work within the Christian scene." - Publisher

Download or read book Christianity Made in Japan written by Mark R. Mullins and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 1998-10-01 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For centuries the accommodation between Japan and Christianity has been an uneasy one. Compared with others of its Asian neighbors, the churches in Japan have never counted more than a small minority of believers more or less resigned to patterns of ritual and belief transplanted from the West. But there is another side to the story, one little known and rarely told: the rise of indigenous movements aimed at a Christianity that is at once made in Japan and faithful to the scriptures and apostolic tradition. Christianity Made in Japan draws on extensive field research to give an intriguing and sympathetic look behind the scenes and into the lives of the leaders and followers of several indigenous movements in Japan. Focusing on the "native" response rather than Western missionary efforts and intentions, it presents varieties of new interpretations of the Christian tradition. It gives voice to the unheard perceptions and views of many Japanese Christians, while raising questions vital to the self-understanding of Christianity as a truly "world religion." This ground-breaking study makes a largely unknown religious world accessible to outsiders for the first time. Students and scholars alike will find it a valuable addition to the literature on Japanese religions and society and on the development of Christianity outside the West. By offering an alternative approach to the study and understanding of Christianity as a world religion and the complicated process of cross-cultural diffusion, it represents a landmark that will define future research in the field.

Download or read book Church Space and the Capital in Prewar Japan written by Garrett L. Washington and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2022-01-31 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christians have never constituted one percent of Japan’s population, yet Christianity had a disproportionately large influence on Japan’s social, intellectual, and political development. This happened despite the Tokugawa shogunate’s successful efforts to criminalize Christianity and even after the Meiji government took measures to limit its influence. From journalism and literature, to medicine, education, and politics, the mark of Protestant Japanese is indelible. Herein lies the conundrum that has interested scholars for decades. How did Christianity overcome the ideological legacies of its past in Japan? How did Protestantism distinguish itself from the other options in the religious landscape like Buddhism and New Religions? And how did the religious movement’s social relevance and activism persist despite the government’s measures to weaken the relationship between private religion and secular social life in Japan? In Church Space and the Capital in Prewar Japan, Garrett L. Washington responds to these questions with a spatially explicit study on the influence of the Protestant church in imperial Japan. He examines the physical and social spaces that Tokyo’s largest Japanese-led congregations cultivated between 1879 and 1923 and their broader social ties. These churches developed alongside, and competed with, the locational, architectural, and social spaces of Buddhism, Shinto, and New Religions. Their success depended on their pastors’ decisions about location and relocation, those men’s conceptualizations of the new imperial capital and aspirations for Japan, and the Western-style buildings they commissioned. Japanese pastors and laypersons grappled with Christianity’s relationships to national identity, political ideology, women’s rights, Japanese imperialism, and modernity; church-based group activities aimed to raise social awareness and improve society. Further, it was largely through attendees’ externalized ideals and networks developed at church but expressed in their public lives outside the church that Protestant Christianity exerted such a visible influence on modern Japanese society. Church Space offers answers to longstanding questions about Protestant Christianity’s reputation and influence by using a new space-centered perspective to focus on Japanese agency in the religion’s metamorphosis and social impact, adding a fresh narrative of cultural imperialism.

Download or read book Handbook of Christianity in Japan written by Mark Mullins and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-12-24 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Praise Be to You Laudato Si written by Pope Francis and published by Ignatius Press. This book was released on 2015-07-06 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The earth is the common home of humanity. It is a gift from God. Yet man’s abuse of freedom threatens that home. In his encyclical Praise Be to You (Laudato Si’), Pope Francis challenges all people to praise God for his glorious creation and to work to safeguard her. The encyclical letter takes its name from St. Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Creatures, which depicts creation as “a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us”. “This sister”, Pope Francis declares, “now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her”. He calls for an “integral ecology” based on what Pope St John Paul called an “ecological conversion”—a moral transformation linking the proper response to God for the gift of his creation to concern for justice, especially for the poor. He challenges people to understand ecology in terms of the right ordering of the fundamental relationships of the human person: with God, oneself, other people, and the rest of creation. Francis examines such ecological concerns as pollution, waste, and what he calls “the throwaway culture”. Climate, he insists, is a common good to be protected. He explores the proper use of natural resources and notions such as sustainability from a Judeo-Christian perspective. The loss of biodiversity due to human activities, decline in the quality of life for many people, global inequality of resources, as well as concerns over consumerism and excessive individualism also threaten the good order of creation, writes Pope Francis. While valuing technology and invnovation, he rejects efforts to repudiate the natural order, including the moral law inscribed in human nature or to rely simply on science to solve ecological problems. Moral and spiritual resources are crucial, including openness to God’s purpose for the world. Expounding the biblical tradition regarding creation and redemption in Christ, Francis stresses man’s subordination to God’s plan and the universal communion of all creation. “Dominion”, he maintains, means “responsible stewardship” rather than exploitation. He rejects treating creation as if it were “divine” and insists on the primacy of the human person in creation. He also explores the roots of the ecological crisis in man’s abuse of technology, his self-centeredness, and the rise of practical relativism. Without rejecting political changes, he implores people to change their hearts and their ways of life. Popes Benedict XVI, St John Paul II, and Blessed Paul VI addressed key themes regarding stewardship of God’s creation and justice in the world. But Pope Francis is the first to devote an entire encyclical to the subject.

Download or read book From the Rising of the Sun written by James M. Phillips and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2011-06-17 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ""Here at last we have in Professor Phillips' book an indispensable road map to guide us in our understanding of Christianity in postwar Japan. His research is impressive, prodigious, and carefully conceived. His findings are illuminating, disturbing, and hopeful. I predict that this book will remain definitive in its field for many years to come."" Robert Lee, San Francisco Theological Seminary, author of Stranger in the Land: The Church in Japan ""A helpful survey and source book for the understanding of the historical development of Christianity in Japan since 1945."" Masao Takenaka, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan ""This is an illuminating and scholarly study of the churches in Japan since 1945, churches of special interest because they have faced momentous changes and in some cases have been in continuous ferment. This book has significance also because it is about churches in which there has been intensive theological and social activity as they have gained more and more independence of the west; they have become a relatively new and very distinctive arena of Christian life."" John C. Bennett, former president, Union Theological Seminary, New York James M. Phillips served for seventeen years as a church fraternal worker in Japan, teaching church history at Tokyo Union Theological Seminary. He also served as Visiting Professor of Church History at San Francisco Theological Seminary and the Graduate Theological Union.

Download or read book Xavier s Legacies written by Kevin M. Doak and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2011-03-01 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Japan has had three Catholic prime ministers, and its current empress was raised and educated in the faith. How did a non-Christian nation come to foster more Catholic leaders than the United States, particularly when Protestantism is said to define Christianity in Japan and Catholicism is believed to be but a fleeting element of Japan’s so-called Christian century? Far from being a relic of the past – something brought to Japan by sixteenth-century missionaries such as Francis Xavier and then forgotten – Catholicism offered, and continues to provide, an authentic way for Japanese believers to shape their cultural identities. This volume documents the appeal of Catholicism, not only among farmers and fishers but also among scientists, diplomats, novelists, and members of the imperial household who have found in Catholicism an alternative way to keep “tradition” and negotiate modernity since the late nineteenth century.

Download or read book Pilgrims and Priests written by Stefan Paas and published by SCM Press. This book was released on 2019-11-30 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does “missional” mean for small Christian communities in a deeply secular society? Leading missiologist Stefan Paas asks what missional spirituality could possibly mean for today’s local church. This fully revised new international edition will make this an important introduction to contemporary thinking on mission and the church.

Download or read book Society History and the Global Human Condition written by Zaheer Baber and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2010-12-18 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Festschrift for Irving M. Zeitlin honors a scholar whose work has influenced and continues to influence sociology, particularly classical sociological theory, sociology of religion, and historical sociology. Irving M. Zeitlin's scholarship and mentoring has also influenced and inspired a new generation of sociologists. The essays presented here address a wide range of topics that include classical sociological theory, globalization, bureaucracy, genocide, resistance, ethnic diversity, the intifada, anti-Semitism, democracy, geopolitical theory, war literature, science, and national culture. The contributions span a wide range of geographical areas that include Korea, China, India, Poland, Spain, Germany, the ex-Soviet Union, Canada, and the United States. These essays by eminent scholars located in many parts of the world affirm the incredibly broad range of expertise and learning that Irving M. Zeitlin's work has engaged with. The contributions to this volume also serve to highlight the contemporary relevance of the classical sociological tradition in making sense of the global human condition.

Download or read book Multiplying Churches in Japanese Soil written by Mehn Wm. John and published by William Carey Publishing. This book was released on 2017-10-18 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the beginning of missionary efforts in Japan in the sixteenth century, the Japanese church has experienced periods of quiet flourishing and periods of intense persecution. Arguably, however, it has never managed to take root as a truly indigenous church-despite great effort toward that aim. In Multiplying Churches in Japanese Soil, John Mehn asks the question: Why? What factors have contributed to the Japanese remaining largely unreached? Mehn examines the current state of affairs and then, with some careful analysis and case study, delves into effective models and leadership for planting churches in Japan that not only grow, but are also equipped to reproduce and multiply. Within these pages, discover mission strategy, kingdom perspective, and hope for the church in Japanese soil.

Download or read book Japanese Religion and Society written by Winston Davis and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1992-01-01 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From case studies of Japanese life, distills theories to explore how the religion, culture, and values are related to society, social change, and economic development. Draws on the methodologies of sociology, anthropology, history, and other disciplines, and on interviews and observations, as well as on published literature. Paper edition (unseen),$16.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Download or read book Annual Report of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church written by Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Board of Foreign Missions and published by . This book was released on 1904 with total page 1262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Annual Report of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America written by PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. FOREIGN MISSIONS, BOARD OF and published by . This book was released on 1903 with total page 1178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Annual Report of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America written by Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Board of Foreign Missions and published by . This book was released on 1916 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Cross in the Dark Valley written by A. Hamish Ion and published by Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 445 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this pioneer study, Ion investigates the experience of the Canadians who were part of the Protestant missionary movement in the Japanese Empire. He sheds new light on the dramatic challenges faced by foreign missionaries and Japanese Christians alike in what was the watershed period in the religious history of twentieth-century East Asia. The Cross in the Dark Valley delivers significant lessons for Christian and missionary movements in Asia, Africa, the Americas and Europe which even now have to contend with oppression from authoritarian regimes and with hostility. This new book by A. Hamish Ion, written with objectivity and scholarly competence, will be of interest to all scholars of Japanese-Canadian relations and missionary studies as well as to general historians.

Download or read book A Free Church in a Free State written by Surya Harefa and published by Langham Publishing. This book was released on 2023-06-30 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How does Christ call his people to engage the societies, cultures, and politics of the nations they call home? From prioritizing patriotism over faith to withdrawing from the public sphere entirely, the struggle to navigate the intersection of an earthly and heavenly kingdom remains an ongoing challenge for Christians around the world. Bridging cultures and time periods, Dr. Surya Harefa brings Abraham’s Kuyper’s ecclesiology to bear on questions of Japanese Christian engagement within the political sphere. Harefa offers a contextually robust exploration of evangelical Japanese approaches to ecclesiology and political involvement. Taking care to place Kuyper’s conception of the church within Kuyper’s own political and historical context, careful lines of application are drawn between Kuyper’s theological perspectives and the need for an active Japanese church engaged in all spheres of life. This book is an excellent resource for those seeking to equip Christians to engage politically as followers of Christ for the good of the church and their nations. It also provides an example of the rich and powerful insight offered by exploring Western and non-Western theologies within their diverse contexts and in conversation with each other.

Download or read book New Religions in Global Perspective written by Peter Bernard Clarke and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides a complete guide to the global impact and cultural significance of new religious movements.