Church Space and the Capital in Prewar Japan

Despite the efforts of the Tokugawa shogunate to criminalize Christianity and the Meiji government to limit its influence, Christianity had a disproportionately large impact on Japan's social, intellectual, and political development. This article explores how Christianity overcame the ideological legacies of its past and distinguished itself from other religious options in Japan. It examines the physical and social spaces cultivated by Tokyo's largest Japanese-led congregations and their broader social ties, and how their success depended on their pastors' decisions about location and relocation, their conceptualizations of the new imperial capital, and the Western-style buildings they commissioned. The article also highlights the church-based group activities that aimed to raise social awareness and improve society, and how Protestant Christianity exerted such a visible influence on modern Japanese society through the externalized ideals and networks developed at church.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 354 pages
Publication date: 31 October 2022
Publisher: University of Hawai'i Press

Despite the Tokugawa shogunate's successful efforts to criminalize Christianity and even after the Meiji government took measures to limit its influence, Christianity had a disproportionately large influence on Japan's social, intellectual, and political development. This happened despite the Tokugawa shogunate's successful efforts to criminalize Christianity and even after the Meiji government took measures to limit its influence. From journalism and literature to medicine, education, and politics, the mark of Protestant Japanese is indelible. Herein lies the conundrum that has interested scholars for decades. How did Christianity overcome the ideological legacies of its past in Japan? How did Protestantism distinguish itself from the other options in the religious landscape like Buddhism and New Religions? And how did the religious movements' social relevance and activism persist despite the governments measures to weaken the relationship between private religion and secular social life in Japan?

In Church Space and the Capital in Prewar Japan, Garrett L. Washington responds to these questions with a spatially explicit study on the influence of the Protestant church in imperial Japan. He examines the physical and social spaces that Tokyo's largest Japanese-led congregations cultivated between 1879 and 1923 and their broader social ties. These churches developed alongside, and competed with, the locational, architectural, and social spaces of Buddhism, Shinto, and New Religions. Their success depended on their pastors' decisions about location and relocation, those men's conceptualizations of the new imperial capital and aspirations for Japan, and the Western-style buildings they commissioned. Japanese pastors and laypersons grappled with Christianity's relationships to national identity, political ideology, women's rights, Japanese imperialism, and modernity.

Despite the Tokugawa shogunate's successful efforts to criminalize Christianity and even after the Meiji government took measures to limit its influence, Christianity had a disproportionately large influence on Japan's social, intellectual, and political development. This happened despite the Tokugawa shogunate's successful efforts to criminalize Christianity and even after the Meiji government took measures to limit its influence. From journalism and literature to medicine, education, and politics, the mark of Protestant Japanese is indelible. Herein lies the conundrum that has interested scholars for decades. How did Christianity overcome the ideological legacies of its past in Japan? How did Protestantism distinguish itself from the other options in the religious landscape like Buddhism and New Religions? And how did the religious movements' social relevance and activism persist despite the governments measures to weaken the relationship between private religion and secular social life in Japan?

In Church Space and the Capital in Prewar Japan, Garrett L. Washington responds to these questions with a spatially explicit study on the influence of the Protestant church in imperial Japan. He examines the physical and social spaces that Tokyo's largest Japanese-led congregations cultivated between 1879 and 1923 and their broader social ties. These churches developed alongside, and competed with, the locational, architectural, and social spaces of Buddhism, Shinto, and New Religions. Their success depended on their pastors' decisions about location and relocation, those men's conceptualizations of the new imperial capital and aspirations for Japan, and the Western-style buildings they commissioned. Japanese pastors and laypersons grappled with Christianity's relationships to national identity, political ideology, women's rights, Japanese imperialism, and modernity.

Despite the Tokugawa shogunate's successful efforts to criminalize Christianity and even after the Meiji government took measures to limit its influence, Christianity had a disproportionately large influence on Japan's social, intellectual, and political development. This happened despite the Tokugawa shogunate's successful efforts to criminalize Christianity and even after the Meiji government took measures to limit its influence. From journalism and literature to medicine, education, and politics, the mark of Protestant Japanese is indelible. Herein lies the conundrum that has interested scholars for decades. How did Christianity overcome the ideological legacies of its past in Japan? How did Protestantism distinguish itself from the other options in the religious landscape like Buddhism and New Religions? And how did the religious movements' social relevance and activism persist despite the governments measures to weaken the relationship between private religion and secular social life in Japan?

In Church Space and the Capital in Prewar Japan, Garrett L. Washington responds to these questions with a spatially explicit study on the influence of the Protestant church in imperial Japan. He examines the physical and social spaces that Tokyo's largest Japanese-led congregations cultivated between 1879 and 1923 and their broader social ties. These churches developed alongside, and competed with, the locational, architectural, and social spaces of Buddhism, Shinto, and New Religions. Their success depended on their pastors' decisions about location and relocation, those men's conceptualizations of the new imperial capital and aspirations for Japan, and the Western-style buildings they commissioned. Japanese pastors and laypersons grappled with Christianity's relationships to national identity.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780824891718