NON-CHURCH CHRISTIANITY IN JAPAN: WESTERN CHRISTIANITY AND JAPAN'S CULTURAL IDENTITY.

This article deals with a singular aspect of indigenization of Christianity in the world and points out to its relevance in the context of the recent developing trends in the field of sociology of religion. The problem of communication and acceptance is critical in the case of religion, which is supposed to evoke a commitment to a faith and to shape and influence the entire personality of the believer. The problem becomes even more acute when foreign missionaries act not only as agents of ideology, that is as heralds of a new message, but also as institutionalizing agents who attempt to transplant the theology, liturgy, and ecclesiastical organization in exactly the same institutional forms that developed in their native culture. This article illustrates the socio-cultural dynamics involved in the grafting process, as it appears from a peculiar case of indigenization of Christianity in Japan. After having being banned for 250 years, Christianity was reintroduced into Japan in the latter part of the nineteenth century under diplomatic pressure from the Western Powers. Some Japanese accepted it immediately hoping to find in it a workable ideological motivation for the development of renaissance out of the ruins of the feudalistic system.