In Japan, Buddhism was transformed into a religion that worships departed souls, follows the teachings of the ancestors, and prays for their blessings. This is "ancestor worship," pure and simple. Japanese ancestor worship emphasizes communication between the living and the dead. It is a unique religious phenomenon.
Christianity
Islam spread as far as Southeast Asia, but failed to reach Japan. However, Christianity penetrated the islands in the early sixteenth century and gathered ardent Japanese followers. The reason for the successful invasion may be that Christianity views the dead person as someone who has been called to his master in Heaven—a concept not unlike the relationship with one's ancestors in traditional Japanese religion. According to a recent survey, the number of registered Christians in Japan is a little over 970,000—less than 1 percent of the total population. But close to 1.4 million Bibles are sold every year, and about 9 million copies of partial editions of the Gospels of Mark and Luke are sold. In grand total, the number surpasses 10 million copies. In other words, one in every ten people in Japan buys a Bible every year. The medieval rulers Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi (conquerors in the Turbulent Age, before the Tokugawa period) allowed Christianity into Japan because they wanted the culture package of which the religion was part and parcel—quite a different motive from the one that pertained to Buddhism's introduction. (Buddhism was introduced into Japan in the sixth century because the rulers believed its concept of benevolence would prevent revolt from the people.) When Christianity entered Rome, it drove out all the Roman deities. When it entered Germany, it destroyed the native gods and took control of people's hearts. In the same way, when Christianity entered Japan, it inspired an anti-Buddhist movement among Christian converts. Christians in Kyushu (the large southern island of Japan) destroyed most of the ancient Buddhist statues and temples there. Eventually even Nobunaga, who was fond of novelties, recognized the danger that Christianity posed to Japan. The extreme exclusivity of the Christian religion ran counter to the Japanese eclectic spirit, which is willing to accept many different things at the same time. As a result, Christianity became the object of persecution in a way no other religion ever has been in Japan, and was completely shut out of the country through the long Tokugawa period.
Though Christianity was welcomed when it came in, as Confucianism and Buddhism had been before it, its ultimate refusal to recognize ancestor worship resulted in its rejection. When St. Francis Xavier, a Portuguese Jesuit missionary, came to Japan in 1549 to promulgate Christianity, he was extremely dismayed by the strong ancestor worship of the Japanese. The people accepted his teachings but hesitated to turn themselves to Christianity because their ancestors died in the spirit of other religions and they would not be able to face those ancestors in the afterworld if they became Christians. After World War II, Christianity swept into Korea and other areas that had been devastated by the war and as a result of active proselytizing gained many converts. But it was not able to reestablish a foothold in Japan, the most ravaged of all nations. Again, its strong exclusivity seems to have been the cause.
A brief outline of the history of Christianity in Japan is presented below.
History of Christianity in Japan
1549 St. Francis Xavier lands in Kagoshima in southwestern Japan (Aug. 15). This is the first contact between the Roman Catholic Church and Japan. Xavier reportedly decided to engage in missionary work in Japan after meeting a Japanese named Yajiro in Malacca in 1547.
1550 Xavier and Brother Fernandez travel to Kyoto, Japan's capital at the time, to try to obtain an audience with the Emperor. Their hope is not fulfilled, but some 100 Japanese turn Christian during Xavier's stay in Japan between 1550 and 1551.
1560 Father Gaspar Vilela meets Shogun Ashikaga Yoshiteru and receives an official permit to preach Christianity in Japan. Local leaders who convert to Christianity in or after 1561 include Omura Sumitada, Takayama Ukon, and Otomo Sorin.
1569 The first Christian church is opened in Nagasaki.
1585 A Japanese youth delegation is received in audience by Pope Gregory XIII in Rome. The number of Christians in Japan reportedly reaches 100,000.
1587 Shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi suddenly orders the banishment of missionaries—the beginning of more than two and a half centuries of persecution of Christians by Japanese leaders. Hideyoshi also orders the exile of Takayama Ukon, a spiritual leader of Japanese Christians.
1597 Twenty-six Christians are martyred in Nagasaki (Feb. 5).
1614 Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, Hideyoshi's successor, issues an order prohibiting Christianity in Japan and adopts the efumi system, in which people are forced to step on the cross, on pictures of Christ and the Virgin Mary, and on other Christian symbols to demonstrate to the Tokugawa Bakufu that they are not believers.
1622 Fifty-five Christians are killed in Nagasaki.
1637 Some 10,000 farmers, mostly Christians, stage the Shimabara Rebellion against the local government. The Tokugawa government puts down the rebellion a year later and strengthens its policy of isolating Japan from foreign influences.
1858 Efumi is abolished.
1865 The Oura (Christian) Church is built in Nagasaki, available to foreigners only.
1873 The government order prohibiting Christianity is abolished, 286 years after Hideyoshi banned the religion.
1885 Pope Leo XII sends a letter to Emperor Meiji through Bishop Osouf.
1889 Freedom of religion is granted by the Meiji Constitution (Feb. 11).
"Once you believe, you can find religion even in the head of a sardine" goes a colorful Japanese saying, which means that God is to be found anywhere in the hearts of people. The Japanese were polytheists from the start and have the unique spiritual ability to make almost anything an object of worship. They are culturally omnivorous, able to consume and digest all sorts of things—and with little upset to the stomach. They manage to choose what will suit their needs and absorb it ingeniously into their culture. This is the Japanese "cultural stomach" and its workings.
There is a large graveyard known as the Kamakura Cemetery near my home. It is a Buddhist-style cemetery, built by a Japanese company, but there is absolutely no religious discrimination against its "residents." A glance at the gravestones, the shapes of the graves, and the posthumous names written on the tablets kept at the graves reveals at once that Jodo-shu Buddhists, Zen-shu Buddhists, and Nichiren-shu Buddhists are buried there. One of the graves has the strikingly nonreligious shape of a rugby ball. There are even a few graves with crucifixes on them, and they stand out. This is a truly Japanese scene, with people of many different religious faiths buried together in the same area.
Flexibility is a trait that characterizes the Japanese in all their encounters with other cultures. When the Japanese take something in, they redirect or assimilate it to suit their preferences. Even Christianity seems to be treading this path in Japan. The fundamental tenet of Christianity is "God loves us"—but how long will it be before this precept receives the cultural overlay and becomes "Our ancestors love us" in Japan? Though it is still a matter of speculation, the "Japanese stomach" may well digest Christianity the way it did Buddhism.