Ideology and Utopianism in Wartime Japan: An Essay on the Subversiveness of Christian Eschatology

From the 1930s Christian churches in Japan were under considerable pressure to participate in the rituals of civil religion (State Shinto) and support Japanese military expansionism. Most official representatives of the Roman Catholic Church and the established Protestant churches gradually accommod...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Japanese journal of religious studies
Main Author: Mullins, Mark R. 1954- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Nanzan Institute [1994]
In: Japanese journal of religious studies
Further subjects:B Sectarian violence
B Holiness
B Churches
B Criminal arrests
B Shintoism
B Christianity
B Police
B Pastors
B Eschatology
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Summary:From the 1930s Christian churches in Japan were under considerable pressure to participate in the rituals of civil religion (State Shinto) and support Japanese military expansionism. Most official representatives of the Roman Catholic Church and the established Protestant churches gradually accommodated themselves to the nationalistic environment and developed theologies of legitimation. Under the same difficult circumstances, a number of sectarian Christians refused to cooperate or collaborate with the government. Many were arrested and spent two to three years in prison. Several died as a result of this persecution. Drawing on the Special Police (Tokkhō) reports, this study explores why the government came to regard these pious Christians as religious deviants. This episode illustrates how eschatological faith can become radically subversive under certain sociopolitical conditions.
Contains:Enthalten in: Japanese journal of religious studies