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Editor says, what if christianity had not been outlawed in Japan? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the February 2010 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1999, Hideko Cardinal Tokugawa of Kyoto presided over a Christmas celebration of nearly one million Japanese Catholics.
Kirishitani by Eric LippsChristianity had been introduced into Japan in the sixteenth century. The shogun Oda Nobunaga (pictured), in particular, had embraced the new faith, both for the technologies its missionaries brought with them, which included firearms, and as a political tool against Buddhism. Although Nobunaga never converted to Christianity, he allowed Christians to proselytize and permitted the construction of the first Catholic church in Kyoto in 1576, on the site of the present Watanabe Cathedral.
After his death, some powerful Japanese came to view Christianity not as beneficial but as a threat to the state, and pressed for its restriction or even outright banning. Among them would be Toyotomi Hideyoshi, responsible for the Feb. 5, 1597 massacre of twenty-seven Christians at Nagasaki and a vocal proponent of laws restricting not only Christianity but all contact with the West. Support for such "seclusion laws" remained limited, however, and although some restrictions were imposed beginning in 1614, the Nobunaga Shogunate would lift them four decades later under Oda's great-grandson Toyo Nobunaga. By the end of the Nobunaga shogunate in the late nineteenth century, there would be twenty million Christians in the island nation. At the close of the twentieth, the number would have risen to forty million.
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Eric Lipps
© Eric Lipps,2007-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Religion Source: Wikipedia Labels: Japan, Catholicism, Church, Rome, Shogan. Editor says, In our history, Oda Nobunaga never attained the rank of shogun. Instead, under the Tokugawa Shogunate, Christianity was outlawed and trade with the West reduced to a trickle; Western innovations such as firearms were abandoned. Not until Commodore Perry's gunboat expedition in 1855 would Japan be reopened to the West. Today, there are an estimated one million "Kirishitani" in Japan, most following an eccentric version of the faith evolved during the centuries of suppression, when Japanese could practice Christian worship only in secret.
~ Interesting POD...
~ The question is if the Buddhism and Shinto are suppressed or if Christianity becomes just one part of the whole syncretist melange that is Japanese religion. Of course the fate of the Spanish alliance and efforts on thier part to dominate the place is also a factor.
~ I'm assuming that Christianity exists side by side with other Japanese religions, as happened in some other Asian countries.
~ One big factor working against Christianity was its prohibition on divorce, which was accepted in Japan. Get rid of that little problem, and find a work-around to allow continued ancestor veneration (see the "Rites Controversy" in contemporary Chinese Christian missionary efforts) and you might have seen something like this...
~ This was the Reformation. The Jesuits were notorious for 'modifying' doctrine when they translated. The Dominicans and Fransciscans were equally notorious in combatting this. All we are postulating is that the Jesuits win the fights in Rome and are allowed to keep making 'local accomodations' as the price of keeping the true heretics out. The mpre interesting spin-off from this is that a semi-Catholic Japan probably takes Manila and at least contemplates taking Peru.
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
