Christianity and the making of a modern worldview in Japan: International Thought of Tanaka Kotaro (1890-1974) (original) (raw)
2010, ジャーナル オブ グローバル メディア スタディーズ
in this paper mainly derived from Shibasaki (1999a). 2 In Japan, the number of Christian has never been over the 1% of the population. Japan is the only G8 country whose religious majority is not Christian. Majority of the people believe both Buddhism and Shinto almost indiscriminately. This syncretism stems from mixture of traditional belief towards gods traditionally in Japan and towards Budda introduced from China. Today, the number of the Protestant and Catholic are almost the same. In the prewar period the Catholic were far fewer than Protestant (the ratio was about 1:2). 3 Nonchuch Movement maintained that they don't need to depend on church as an institution of Christianity. Instead they focus on the interpretation of the Bible. Uchimura Kanzo was influenced by W. S. Clark (a teacher in Sapporo Agriculture School and influenced many students through Christianity). His friend was Nitobe Inazo, who is also famous as an Undersecretary General of the League of Nations. 4 He published over 90 books and wrote over 700 articles. 5 On his life and career, see Suzuki (1977).
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