Essays on the Modern Japanese Church

Essays on the Modern Japanese Church
Author: Aizan Yamaji
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 207
Release: 2020-08-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 0472901915

Essays on the Modern Japanese Church (Gendai Nihon kyokai shiron), published in 1906, was the first Japanese-language history of Christianity in Meiji Japan. Yamaji Aizan’s firsthand account describes the reintroduction of Christianity to Japan—its development, rapid expansion, and decline—and its place in the social, political, and intellectual life of the Meiji period. Yamaji’s overall argument is that Christianity played a crucial role in shaping the growth and development of modern Japan. Yamaji was a strong opponent of the government-sponsored “emperor-system ideology,” and through his historical writing he tried to show how Japan had a tradition of tolerance and openness at a time when government-sponsored intellectuals were arguing for greater conformity and submissiveness to the state on the basis of Japanese “national character.” Essays is important not only in terms of religious history but also because it highlights broad trends in the history of Meiji Japan. Introductory chapters explore the significance of the work in terms of the life and thought of its author and its influence on subsequent interpretations of Meiji Christianity.

Yamaji Aizan and His Time

Yamaji Aizan and His Time
Author: Yushi Ito
Publisher: Global Oriental
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2007-11-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9004213341

This first in-depth study in English of one of Japan’s popular historians and a well-known journalist of the Meiji and Taish periods challenges the conventional view that Yamaji Aizan was essentially a ‘nationalist’ at heart eager to see Japan expand into Asia and a supporter of the colonization of Korea.

The Cross in the Dark Valley

The Cross in the Dark Valley
Author: A. Hamish Ion
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
Total Pages: 445
Release: 2006-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0889207593

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.

The Dilemma of Faith in Modern Japanese Literature

The Dilemma of Faith in Modern Japanese Literature
Author: Massimiliano Tomasi
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2018-04-19
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1351228048

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.

A History of Nationalism in Modern Japan

A History of Nationalism in Modern Japan
Author: Kevin Doak
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2007
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9004155988

This magisterial history of Japanese nationalism reveals nationalism to be a contested and pluralistic practice that seeks to center the people in political life. It presents a wealth of primary source material on how Japanese themselves have understood their national identity.

Canadian Missionaries, Indigenous Peoples

Canadian Missionaries, Indigenous Peoples
Author: Alvyn Austin
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2005-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0802037844

Christian missions and missionaries have had a distinctive role in Canada's cultural history. With Canadian Missionaries, Indigenous Peoples, Alvyn Austin and Jamie S. Scott have brought together new and established Canadian scholars to examine the encounters between Christian (Roman Catholic and Protestant) missionaries and the indigenous peoples with whom they worked in nineteenth- and twentieth-century domestic and overseas missions. This tightly integrated collection is divided into three sections. The first contains essays on missionaries and converts in western Canada and in the arctic. The essays in the second section investigate various facets of the Canadian missionary presence and its legacy in east Asia, India, and Africa. The third section examines the motives and methods of missionaries as important contributors to Canadian museum holdings of artefacts from Huronia, Kahnawaga, and Alaska, as well as China and the South Pacific. Broadly adopting a postcolonial perspective, Canadian Missionaries, Indigenous Peoples contributes greatly to the understanding of missionaries not only as purveyors of western religious values, but also as vehicles for cultural exchange between Native and non-Native Canadians, as well as between Canadians and the indigenous peoples of other countries.

Practical Theology and the One Body of Christ

Practical Theology and the One Body of Christ
Author: Thomas John Hastings
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2007-06-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0802817602

Amid the ongoing acceleration of cultural interaction that accompanies globalization, it is more important than ever that practical theology be freed from cultural bias and united in a common christological understanding. In Practical Theology and the One Body of Christ Thomas John Hastings draws on decades of his own cross-cultural teaching and on current transformational models to develop a "missional-ecumenical model" of practical theology. By studying in detail the life and ministry of first-generation Japanese Protestant pastor Tamura Naomi, Hastings generates a real-life example of the practicality of his original model and offers a more global, alternative perspective on the religious education movement than what is common in Western societies.

American Missionaries, Christian Oyatoi, and Japan, 1859-73

American Missionaries, Christian Oyatoi, and Japan, 1859-73
Author: Hamish Ion
Publisher: UBC Press
Total Pages: 443
Release: 2010-07-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0774858990

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.

Encyclopedia of Protestantism

Encyclopedia of Protestantism
Author: Hans J. Hillerbrand
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 4050
Release: 2004-08-02
Genre: Reference
ISBN: 1135960275

For more information including sample entries, full contents listing, and more, visit the Encyclopedia of Protestantism web site. Routledge is proud to announce the publication of a new major reference work from world-renowned scholar Hans J. Hillerbrand. The Encyclopedia of Protestantism is the definitive reference to the history and beliefs that continue to exert a profound influence on Western thought. Featuring entries written by an international team of specialists and scholars, the encyclopedia traces the course of Protestantism from its beginnings prior to 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral, to the vital and diverse international scene of the present day.

Ecumenical Ecclesiology

Ecumenical Ecclesiology
Author: Gesa Elsbeth Thiessen
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2009-11-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0567009130

A rich collection of fifteen articles by European, North American and Asian theologians, concerned with the concept, life, unity and future of the church.