Christianity during the Meiji period

During the Meiji Period, Japan opened her borders to the outside world and many things began to change. The situation of Christians also began to change. It was during this period, especially after the new religious laws of 1873, that Christianity became officially permitted in Japan.

Also during the Meiji Period, the Protestant form of Christianity was introduced to Japan. The formation of Meiji Protestantism was a part of the Meiji restoration of the late nineteenth century. Amidst the transformation and political turmoil and important decisions that policy makers were confronting, Japanese Protestantism emerged. Politically, Christianity was still considered an intruding faith, strongly related to colonizing Western nations. Thus, the authorities were careful in their dealing with Christians. Despite this, the Protestant missionaries first arrived in Japan in 1859. The missionaries, however, were restricted to a few large cities. For the Japanese, themselves, Christianity was still a banned religion.

Protestantism was organizationally transmitted to Japan through two channels. The first was through mission boards and church agencies. The first missionaries sponsored through this ‘channel’ set their feet on Japanese soil in 1859. They represented the Western missionary movements in organized form. They were not invited but intruded themselves upon Japanese soil.

Through another type of channel, however, Protestants were invited or offered employment by Japanese agencies. Reverend G.F. Verbeck, one of the first missionaries, was for a considerable period employed by the Japanese government.

He functioned in various capacities as an advisor. Several persons, arriving in the country as government-employed instructors, exerted a profound influence upon Protestant history (ibid).

The Converts

The converts during the Meiji Period can be classified into two groups, the Samurai converts and those from the farming class. The majority of the early Protestant converts were from the Samurai class.

The Samurai class was more open to Christianity since their kids attended western schools and were more in contact with the westerners than other Japanese people. Also, they had access to the Bible in the Chinese language and had already read it.

Like the Samurai, the farmers were searching for modern knowledge and a new lifestyle to meet the demands of the changing world. The converts found in Christianity a new socio-ethical concept which emphasized the equality of all humanity, created by God and redeemed by Christ. This concept was accepted as the gospel by those who had been thought of as inferior to the warrior class in the feudal age (ibid). Lastly, the converts saw Christianity as the fulfillment of Confucianism.

Many of these converts were zealous and on fire for their faith. Verbeck writes, “After a week or two the Japanese for the first time in the history of their nation, were on their knees in a Christian prayer-meeting, entreating God with great emotion, with the tears streaming down their faces, that he would give his Spirit to Japan as to the early church and to the people around the apostles... As a direct fruit of these prayer meetings, the first Christian church was organized in Yokohama on March 10th 1872” (Aasulv Lande, 1989).