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6 Bonhoeffer’s Social Ethics and Its Influences in Japan Kazuaki Yamasaki This chapter addresses the influences of Bonhoeffer’s ethical thought in Japan and on the Japanese people from 1945 to 2010. In Japan there were only 350,000 Protestant and Catholic Christians in 1937, less than 0.5 percent of the whole population. Now there are around 960,000 Christians (0.8 percent) in the country, and not growing. So Japan was not a Christian country before 1945 or after World War II.1 The ecumenical and universal Bonhoeffer who belongs to the whole Christian church is the Bonhoeffer most of the world knows today. That said, it would seem on the face of it difficult for Bonhoeffer’s ethical thought to have an impact on a non-Christian society like Japan. Recognition of the importance of such thought would seem to depend on its relevance to Japanese society and on whether it has a solid academic foundation within that society. Both of these conditions obtain in Japan today. Bonhoeffer’s ethical thought is ultimately centered on Christ. The more we are grounded firmly in Christ, the more we will become liberated from human restrictions, as well as, paradoxically, from religious laws. The liberating process through this Christocentrism is expressed when he wrote of being “without God before God and with God,” or of “non-religious Christianity in a world come of age.” I would argue that Bonhoeffer offers significant Christian ethical thought here and now, an ethic that is valid not only for people of other faiths but also for the secular society in which most Japanese live. That is why Bonhoeffer’s name has gained resonance throughout the world after World War II, ranging from the West to Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Moreover, 1. After the defeat in the war, the number of Christians in 1947 was around 310,000, less than 0.4 percent of the population. So, Japan was a non-Christian country before and after the war, unlike Korea, our nearest neighbor. In Korea there were about 13,760,000 Christians in 2005, some 30 percent of the whole population. 47 Bonhoeffer’s influence extends ecumenically beyond Protestantism, and crosses over ideological boundaries to the former East-European socialist countries. The significance of Bonhoeffer has long been globally recognized.2 But how has a Bonhoeffer reception been possible in Japan, and what are the outlines of that reception?3 During the Asia-Pacific War of 1931–45,4 there was no person comparable to Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Japan. There was no church struggle as in the German Confessing Church, much less a plan for a coup d’état, i.e., political resistance with power and violence such as the attempt to kill Hitler on July 20, 1944 in Germany. To understand the attitude of the Japanese churches toward a figure like Bonhoeffer after the war, the peculiar position of Japanese Christians during the war must first be understood.5 Generally speaking, Japanese Christians before and during the Asia-Pacific War had a minority complex. They therefore wished not to become isolated from the Japanese majority. Besides that, during the prior war, the RussoJapanese War of 1904–1905, Christianity was considered to be the religion of the enemy, for it was imported from America and Europe. Now, during the new war with the western powers, Japanese churches and Christians wanted to prove themselves as patriotic and perfect subjects of the Emperor. Willingly or unwillingly, the leading persons of the United Church of Japan at that time cooperated with the national authorities and promoted a militaristic national policy based on the Emperor system, Tennō, in order to protect their churches and members. I classify the behavior of Christians during the wartime into five types: positivists, seclusionists, cooperationists, suffering martyrs, and passive resistors. 2. Although Bonhoeffer’s ethical thought is ecumenical and universal, it cannot be guaranteed that Bonhoeffer will ever be fully accepted by Japanese society. Even if Bonhoeffer should not be fully accepted in Japan, Bonhoeffer’s ethical thought in the non-Christian majority at least gives off a fragrance of Christ, and works as the salt of the earth and light of the world in a secular Japanese society. 3. On Bonhoeffer’s reception in Japan, cf. K. Yamasaki, “Um Gottes willen—für die Welt. Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Japan, Wahrnehmungen und Wirkungen,” in IBG Bonhoeffer-Rundbrief 82 (March 2007): 33–55. 4. The Asia-Pacific War, the so-called “15 Years...

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