Christianity introduced to Japan

As promised, I've been reading Moffett's History of Christianity in Asia. In particular, I started with Japan. Looking into the history of a culture clarifies its present.

Francis Xavier (a fascinating figure I should like to write more about) was the first to enter Japan as a missionary in the 1500's. Yeah, over 500 years ago. Before the founding of the Lost Colony of Roanoke in the New World, a Jesuit priest was contemplating missions strategies for Japan. After his experience in India, where focusing on lower classes resulted in only local effectiveness, Xavier decided to start at the other end. In Japan, he chose to approach the ruling class, the feudal lords, the daimyo.

Personally, I would say that given Japanese culture and its attitude to authority, he couldn't have had a better approach. Japan is a very top-down, group-focused culture. If you convert the leaders, others will follow. (I'm not sure that would be as effective an approach in American culture, where we tend to be suspicious of leaders and pride ourselves on "independent" thinking.)

The mission had success. In fact, as Moffett points out, there were a higher percentage of Christians in Japan in 1600 than in 2000. But he also points out, rightly, "how little the Christian century [1500's] affected the subsequent history of Japan." (pg. 68)

It is indeed astonishing to know that a country which, for its own reasons, welcomed Christianity, was later able to stamp it out, and still remains a mysteriously closed door. I would suggest it has much to do with the nature of Japanese culture and missionaries' inability to understand and speak into the Japanese context. On the other hand, I would also suggest that when Japan does finally hear the gospel, it will be a powerful and sudden conversion.

So, Xavier departed in 1552, after just 3 yrs in the field. Think about how short 3 yrs is to introduce Christianity to even a single person and give them the knowledge and faith to face a lifetime of following Christ without a mature Christian community! Now realize he did that for an entire people. Of course, Jesus did the same for all of humanity in the same 3 years... so I supposed standards are relative. Anyway, in just 30 years (to 1581), th numbers grew from 800 to 100,000. All of that, by the way, was long before the first successful colonies in America.

So, that's where I'll leave the history of Japanese Christianity for the moment. Introduced, spreading like wildfire, but... something went wrong.