Download or read book A Christian in the Land of the Gods written by Joanna Reed Shelton and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2016-01-05 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
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 Christianity Social Justice and the Japanese American Incarceration during World War II written by Anne M. Blankenship and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2016-10-07 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anne M. Blankenship's study of Christianity in the infamous camps where Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II yields insights both far-reaching and timely. While most Japanese Americans maintained their traditional identities as Buddhists, a sizeable minority identified as Christian, and a number of church leaders sought to minister to them in the camps. Blankenship shows how church leaders were forced to assess the ethics and pragmatism of fighting against or acquiescing to what they clearly perceived, even in the midst of a national crisis, as an unjust social system. These religious activists became acutely aware of the impact of government, as well as church, policies that targeted ordinary Americans of diverse ethnicities. Going through the doors of the camp churches and delving deeply into the religious experiences of the incarcerated and the faithful who aided them, Blankenship argues that the incarceration period introduced new social and legal approaches for Christians of all stripes to challenge the constitutionality of government policies on race and civil rights. She also shows how the camp experience nourished the roots of an Asian American liberation theology that sprouted in the sixties and seventies.
Download or read book A History of Christianity in Japan Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox missions written by Otis Cary and published by . This book was released on 1909 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Japan and Christianity written by John Breen and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-07-27 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much has been written of the 'success' of the early missions to Japan during the decades immediately following the arrival of the first Jesuits in 1549. The subsequent 'failure' of the faith to put down roots strong enough to survive this initial wave of enthusiasm is discussed with equal alacrity. The papers in this volume, born of a Conference marking the centenary of the Japan Society of London, represent an attempt to reassess the contact between Christianity and Japan in terms of a symbiotic relationship, a dialogue in which the impact of Japan on the imported religion is viewed alongside the more frequently cited influence of Christianity on Japanese society. Here is a dynamic cultural encounter, examined by the papers in this volume from a series of political, literary and historical perspectives.
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 The Invention of Religion in Japan written by Jason Ānanda Josephson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2012-10-03 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout its long history, Japan had no concept of what we call “religion.” There was no corresponding Japanese word, nor anything close to its meaning. But when American warships appeared off the coast of Japan in 1853 and forced the Japanese government to sign treaties demanding, among other things, freedom of religion, the country had to contend with this Western idea. In this book, Jason Ananda Josephson reveals how Japanese officials invented religion in Japan and traces the sweeping intellectual, legal, and cultural changes that followed. More than a tale of oppression or hegemony, Josephson’s account demonstrates that the process of articulating religion offered the Japanese state a valuable opportunity. In addition to carving out space for belief in Christianity and certain forms of Buddhism, Japanese officials excluded Shinto from the category. Instead, they enshrined it as a national ideology while relegating the popular practices of indigenous shamans and female mediums to the category of “superstitions”—and thus beyond the sphere of tolerance. Josephson argues that the invention of religion in Japan was a politically charged, boundary-drawing exercise that not only extensively reclassified the inherited materials of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shinto to lasting effect, but also reshaped, in subtle but significant ways, our own formulation of the concept of religion today. This ambitious and wide-ranging book contributes an important perspective to broader debates on the nature of religion, the secular, science, and superstition.
Download or read book Christianity in Early Modern Japan written by Ikuo Higashibaba and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2001-01-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides a new history of Christianity in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Japan by depicting the world of ordinary Japanese Christians. It examines their religious expressions, as well as textual expositions given to them, within the context of Japanese religious culture.
Download or read book Deus Destroyed written by George Elison and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Japan’s “Christian Century” began in 1549 with the arrival of Jesuit missionaries led by Saint Francis Xavier, and ended in 1639 when the Tokugawa regime issued the final Sakoku Edict prohibiting all traffic with Catholic lands. “Sakoku”—national isolation—would for more than two centuries be the sum total of the regime’s approach to foreign affairs. This policy was accompanied by the persecution of Christians inside Japan, a course of action for which the missionaries and their zealots were in part responsible because of their dogmatic orthodoxy. The Christians insisted that “Deus” was owed supreme loyalty, while the Tokugawa critics insisted on the prior importance of performing one’s role within the secular order, and denounced the subversive doctrine whose First Commandment seemed to permit rebellion against the state. In discussing the collision of ideas and historical processes, George Elison explores the attitudes and procedures of the missionaries, describes the entanglements in politics that contributed heavily to their doom, and shows the many levels of the Japanese response to Christianity. Central to his book are translations of four seventeenth-century, anti-Christian polemical tracts."
Download or read book Knowing Me Knowing God written by Richard Brash and published by Inter-Varsity Press. This book was released on 2021-02-18 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Bible, God gives us knowledge of himself and of ourselves, so that through these two intertwined strands we may receive what Calvin called 'true and sound wisdom'. In pursuit of this wisdom, many Christians have learned to interpret Scripture chrono-logically, following the Bible's developing story from creation, through fall, to redemption, and ultimately to restoration. But what of a complementary theo-logical approach to Scripture, one which focuses on the Bible's main 'characters' - God and human beings - and the nature of their relationship? Richard Brash presents such an approach, introducing six theological keys to Scripture which help us better to know God and ourselves in the three fundamental areas of being, knowing, and acting. At each stage, he develops the theme of the gracious condescension of the infinite, incomprehensible, and holy God in his relation to finite human beings: creating us as his image, establishing a proportion between his own knowledge and ours, and overcoming sin to take a people for himself through the love-gifts of his Son and his Spirit. If you are looking for an enlarged vision of God and a renewed understanding of your own vocation before the Lord, take up this book and be refreshed in your love for God in heart, soul, and mind.
Download or read book The Christian Century in Japan 1549 1650 written by Charles Ralph Boxer and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1967 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Understanding Japan Through the Eyes of Christian Faith written by Samuel Lee and published by . This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding Japan through the eyes of Christian Faith is a fascinating book, combining Sociology and Christian world view in a systematic manner and simple language. Samuel Lee, has skillfully examined various facets of the Japanese society and culture looking for answers of why Christianity is not widely accepted and practiced in Japan. After dealing the historical background of Christianity in Japan and describing the socio-cultural condition of the nation, the author comes up with strategies and suggestions of how Christianity should approach Japan and suggests that Christianity should be reintroduced in Japan. Understanding Japan through the eyes of Christian Faith is a sociological and spiritual handbook for missionaries, mission organizations, churches, Christian Universities/Colleges and every Christian who is interested in reaching Japan.
Download or read book Christian Converts and Social Protests in Meiji Japan written by Irwin Scheiner and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2020-06-01 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nowhere has there been a discussion of the confusion necessarily generated by the rapidity of the change or of the agony created in the lives of many whose attitudes, expectations, and even success depended on the continuance of now abolished institutions. Historians have ignored the settled conditions of most samurai and instead concentrated on the study of the minority of activist samurai leaders who, with the backing of only a few Han (feudal domains) sought to overthrow the old order and whose success in doing so has made the study of the modernization of Japan the prime concern of historians. The history of the Meiji period may have been an overall political and industrial success story, but for a fuller understanding of the conditions of that success it is also necessary to understand "what it was really like" for the members of the old elite to be estranged from the proponents of revolution and what many members did to assure their own social and psychological position in a world they had not expected. In this book the author attempts to show that the impact of the Meiji Restoration destroyed the meaningfulness of the Confucian doctrine for these declasse samurai. Through Christianity, the samurai attempted to revive their status in society by finding a doctrine that offered a meaningful path to power. But in doing so, they had to accept a new theory of social relations. Ultimately, as the convert's understanding of society became totally informed by the Christian doctrine, they accepted a transcendent authority that brought them into conflict with society about them. Therefore, to understand the development of a Christian opposition in Meiji society we must begin with the conversion experience itself. [intro]
Download or read book New Wine written by David Reid and published by Jain Publishing Company. This book was released on 1991 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A ground-breaking work, this book begins with a chronology of Japanese Socioreligious history, Japanese religions, Japanese Christians and their ancestors. It then looks into the relationship between religion and politics in contemporary Japan and the current state of Christianity in Japan. Lucidly written and generously illustrated.
Download or read book The Dilemma of Faith in Modern Japanese Literature written by Massimiliano Tomasi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-04-19 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book-length study to explore the links between Christianity and modern Japanese literature, this book analyses the process of conversion of nine canonical authors, unveiling the influence that Christianity had on their self-construction, their oeuvre and, ultimately, the trajectory of modern Japanese literature. Building significantly on previous research, which has treated the intersections of Christianity with the Japanese literary world in only a cursory fashion, this book emphasizes the need to make a clear distinction between the different roles played by Catholicism and Protestantism. In particular, it argues that most Meiji and Taishō intellectuals were exposed to an exclusively Protestant and mainly Calvinist derivation of Christianity and so it is against this worldview that the connections between the two ought to be assessed. Examining the work of authors such as Kitamura Tōkoku, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke and Nagayo Yoshirō, this book also contextualises the spread of Christianity in Japan and challenges the notion that Christian thought was in conflict with mainstream literary schools. As such, this book explains how the dualities experienced by many modern writers were in fact the manifestation of manifold developments which placed Christianity at the center, rather than at the periphery, of their process of self-construction. The Dilemma of Faith in Modern Japanese Literature will be of great interest to students and scholars of Japanese modern literature, as well as those interested in Religious Studies and Japanese Studies more generally.
Download or read book Christ s Samurai written by Jonathan Clements and published by Robinson. This book was released on 2016-04-07 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sect was said to harbour dark designs to overthrow the government. Its teachers used a dead language that was impenetrable to all but the innermost circle of believers. Its priests preached love and kindness, but helped local warlords acquire firearms. They encouraged believers to cast aside their earthly allegiances and swear loyalty to a foreign god-emperor, before seeking paradise in terrible martyrdoms. The cult was in open revolt, led, it was said, by a boy sorcerer. Farmers claiming to have the blessing of an alien god had bested trained samurai in combat and proclaimed that fires in the sky would soon bring about the end of the world. The Shogun called old soldiers out of retirement for one last battle before peace could be declared in Japan. For there to be an end to war, he said, the Christians would have to die. This is a true story.
Download or read book Holy Anime written by Patrick Drazen and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-07-31 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christianity has been in Japan for five centuries, but embraced by less than one percent of the population. It’s a complicated relationship, given the sudden appearance in Japan of Renaissance Catholicism which was utterly unlike the historic faiths of Shinto and Buddhism; Japan had to invent a word for “religion” since Japan did not share the west’s reliance on faith in a personal God. Japan’s views of this “outsider” religion resemble America’s view of the “outsider” Islamic faith. Understanding this through the book Orientalism by Edward Said, Patrick Drazen samples depictions of Christianity in the popular Japanese media of comics and cartoons. The book begins with the work of postwar comics master Tezuka Osamu, with results that range from the comic to the revisionist to the blasphemous and obscene.
