Building religious spaces, erecting secular identities: Tokyo Protestant churches, 1880–1923
Abstract
In the 1870s and 1880s, as over two centuries of laws and severe persecution against Christianity came to an end, Protestantism quickly took root in Japan. By the end of the Taishō period (1912-1926), the ostensibly foreign religion had clearly acquired social and cultural legitimacy, and come to exert a considerable influence on Japanese society. Fueling this shift in reputation, essence, and influence were Tokyo's Protestant pastors and hundreds of laypersons that cooperated to crystallize and diffuse Christian socio-moral ideals, identify pressing secular issues, and work towards solving them. Several notable Japanese men and women acted on this oft-mentioned Protestant social morality around the turn of the twentieth century, earning the minority religion a disproportionately large amount of celebrity. These individuals shaped journalism, healthcare, childcare, education, women's rights, political philosophy, politics, law, and numerous other fields in Japan, and established long-recognized connections between Japanese Protestantism and social activism.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Hastings, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Religious history|History|Asian Studies
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