Japan's Modern Prophet: Uchimura Kanzō, 1861-1930 (review)

Many modern Japan survey textbooks cover the refusal of Uchimura Kanzō, out of his Christian convictions, to bow before the Meiji emperor's portrait and his subsequent dismissal from his post as an example of individual resistance to growing nationalism in the 1890s. John F. Howes's excellent biography, Japan's Modern Prophet, gives us the rest of the story and is required reading for anyone interested in modern Japanese intellectual history, missionary activity, and comparative Christianity.

Protestant missionaries and Japanese church leaders have devoted considerable resources and effort to evangelism in the last century, but with relatively minor results. With the number of Japanese Christians of all denominations hovering between one and two per cent of the population, one might naturally ask why a church leader like Uchimura Kanzō would command such thorough scholarly attention. Part of the interest stems, as Howes points out, from the influence of Christian ideals on early Meiji intellectual champions of modernization. The historian Ienaga Saburō's long court battle with the Ministry of Education, over a reference in a high school text to Uchimura's individual resistance to official authority, also contributed to Uchimura's notoriety. From a religious perspective, Uchimura offers insights to those who are sympathetic to Christian ideas but disillusioned with ecclesiastical institutions. Howes's book is a fascinating study of how Uchi-mura struggled to reconcile pride in his people and culture with the universalist tenets of his Christian faith.

The book is divided into three parts, each with its own emphasis and appeal. "Part 1: I Refuse" documents in considerable detail the psychological struggle that led Uchimura to reject a promising civil service career, embrace Christianity, and devote himself to theological studies and writing. This section adds an excellent case study to the existing literature on the bakumatsu-Meiji intellectual transition. We see Uchimura joining other promising students such as Nitobe Inazō at the Meiji government's newly established Sapporo Agricultural College. William Clark, an American hired to teach agricultural science and famous in Japan for saying, "Boys, be ambitious," profoundly influenced Uchimura and serves as an example of how Christian beliefs and modern technical knowledge were often intertwined. Dissatisfied with a career in fisheries and depressed after the end of his first marriage, Uchimura studied theology in the United States and was drawn to the Biblical prophets, who proclaimed God's truth at high personal cost to an unrepentant people, as the inspiration for the rest of his career.

"Part 2: Pact with God" addresses Uchimura's theology and interactions with his growing group of followers. Martin Luther's emphasis on individual interpretation of scripture over church tradition and priestly authority was particularly important to Uchimura's theology. Howes notes, "Luther's insight had brought the Bible alive for his fellow Germans. Uchimura used the same method to make the Bible at home in Japan" (p. 216). Consequently, Uchimura devoted much of his time to Bible study and reflection, and his published commentaries secured him a reputation as Japan's leading Biblical interpreter. In the early twentieth-century fundamentalist-modernist debate, Uchimura was mostly silent, preferring to remain focused on the individual believer's interaction with the Biblical narrative of God's redemptive work rather than getting caught up in questions of a given story's scientific plausibility. The importance Uchimura attached to individual Bible study was also the key to his opinions of church institutions and foreign missionary societies. He sharply criticized Japanese pastors who were more interested in church growth and expediency than the spiritual health of individual church members. Although there were certainly exceptions, he found most foreign missionaries inexcusably ignorant of Japanese language, culture, and common social decencies. For Christianity to spread in Japan, Uchimura believed that a more self-reliant "Japanese Christianity" that grew from Japanese people interpreting the Bible for themselves was a crucial first step.

In "Part 3: I am Not...