Christianity Made in Japan: A Study of Indigenous Movements

Chapter 5. Christianity as a Path of Self-Cultivation

68 CHAPTER FIVE Christianity as a Path of Self-Cultivation A S WE HAVE SEEN, Uchimura Kanzõ was the ³rst Japanese leader to articulate a clear alternative to transplanted Christian churches. His call for the development of an independent and indigenous expression of the faith resonated with the deep aspirations of numerous other Japanese Christians. Many shared Uchimura’s independent spirit and sympathized with his break from mission churches, but some were not entirely satis³ed with the alternative version of Christianity he created. Carlo Caldarola has referred to Uchimura’s Nonchurch movement as “Christianity the Japanese Way,” implying that it was the only authentic Japanese expression of Christianity. The successive appearance of indigenous movements over the past century, however, suggests that there are other ways to be both Japanese and Christian. This chapter considers the reinterpretation of Christianity by two other important ³gures involved in the earliest phase of indigenization: Matsumura CHRISTIANITY AS A PATH OF SELF-CULTIVATION 69 Kaiseki, who founded The Way in 1907, and Kawai Shinsui, who founded Christ Heart Church in 1927. These two groups represent important Japanese alternatives to both the mission churches and Uchimura’s Nonchurch movement . In some respects the early faith of both these founders closely resembled Uchimura’s evangelical Christianity, despite the fact that their introduction to the faith came by way of missionaries of the Presbyterian and Reformed traditions with strong ecclesiastical concerns that contrast with those of W . S. Clark, the lay educator who had a formative inµuence on the Sapporo Band that nurtured Uchimura’s early faith. In their autobiographies, Matsumura and Kawai refer to their early understanding of Christianity, a reliance on Other-Power. Eventually they came to the conclusion that this is only the beginning of the Christian life, and that authentic faith also requires the exercise of self-power. It seemed to them that Uchimura, like the Western missionaries, put too much stress on Other-Power to the neglect of self-cultivation and self-exertion. One of Kawai’s disciples went so far as to claim that the founder had “graduated” from the intellectualism of Uchimura and laid the experiential foundation for Japanese Christianity. Matsumura and Kawai also conceived of Christianity more as a “path” or “way” than as a narrowly de³ned set of doctrines. Kawai, for example, referred to his version of Christianity as the “heavenly way”; and the name that Matsumura chose for his movement, Dõkai, means literally “Association of the Way.” Despite their shared conviction of the excessively doctrinal leanings of Western Christianity, their own Japanese reinterpretations of the faith were not without distinctive creeds and the contours of a basic theology. Moreover, although Matsumura and Kawai show a similar stress on the importance of selfcultivation in the religious life, their interpretations of Christianity differ markedly. A comparison of the two founders and the movements they initiated further illustrates the complex interaction of various religious traditions that goes into the process of indigenization. The following treatment does not by any means aim to be exhaustive, but it will attempt to identify the major religious and cultural elements that have been incorporated into these distinct interpretations of the teaching and practice of Christianity. MATSUMURA KAISEKI AND THE WAY Matsumura Kaiseki (1859–1939) is relatively unknown today, but in the world of Japanese Christianity during the late-Meiji, Taishõ, and early Shõwa periods he was a leading intellectual ³gure In fact, it was not uncommon for him to be CHRISTIANITY MADE IN JAPAN 70 referred to as one of the “three muras” along with Uchimura and Uemura Masahisa.1 While the latter have been given a central place in most historical accounts, Matsumura has largely dropped out of the picture, even though he played a similarly important role in the Japanese church of his time. Matsumura was not only an important intellectual ³gure within Japanese Protestantism but also a widely respected leader in the ³eld of moral education. Like Uchimura, Matsumura was a proli³c writer and popular speaker. The bibliography of his published works runs to over ³fty pages and includes more than forty books and pamphlets devoted to religion.2 Through his lectures and writings he also had an inµuence on the founders of other new religious movements.3 In spite of Matsumura’s importance, it is not hard to understand why his name has fallen into obscurity. The movement he initially intended as...