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[German Version] (Jan 15, 1858, Tokyo – Jan 8, 1925, Tokyo) studied Western science taught by missionaries in Yokohama. The personalities and teachings of his teachers so impressed him that he was baptized in 1873. He studied at a theological seminary, was ordained in 1880, and worked until his death as pastor of the Fujimicho Church in Tokyo. He was a member of the Nippon Kirisuto Kyokai (“Church of Christ in Japan”), which stood in the Presbyterian and Reformed tradition (Presbyterians) but kept…

[German Version] (Mar 23, 1861, Tokyo – Mar 28, 1930, Tokyo). As the son of a samurai family, Uchimura grew up with an ethical orientation shaped by Confucianism and a sense of responsibility for his country. In 1877 he entered Sapporo agricultural college, where through the influence of Christian fellow students he was converted to the Christian faith and baptized. He identified Christianity with a legalistic Puritan ethics and suffered increasingly from a sense of sin. In 1884 he went to the Uni…

[German Version] Protestant missions overseas were closely related in Japan to the history of Japanese expansion and aggression in Asia. Several churches limited their mission overseas to Japanese residents. The Congregational Church in Japan, however, took the colonization of the Korean Peninsula in 1910 as an opportunity for mission among Koreans (Korea). It aimed partly to assimilate them to the Japanese nation. Antagonistic voices were ignored. The Korean Independent Movement from Mar 1, 1919,…

[German Version] (Japanese: mu, “not,” and kyōkai, “church”). The Nonchurch movement was founded by K. Uchimura, whose serious quest as a Japanese to believe in Christ brought him into conflict with American missionaries and established churches. In 1900 he began to publish a monthly magazine, Seishono kenkyū (“Biblical Studies”), and with Sunday Bible study groups encouraged evangelism and fellowship with like-minded individuals. He called these groups mukyōkai. In his view, there was a sharp distinction between the community of believers and the institutiona…

[German Version] in Kyoto, one of the oldest and the largest Christian universities in Japan. In 1875 Joh Neesima (1843–1890) founded Doshisha English School with the cooperation of the American missionaries. Doshisha educates people with a high level of academic discipline and in the spirit of liberty and autonomy deriving from Christianity, and such an education is able to be provided by a private …

[German Version] (Jul 10, 1888, Kobe – Apr 23, 1960, Tokyo). Kagawa was baptized by an American missionary in 1904. In 1909 he began his own missionary work in the slums of Kobe, where he preached the gospel to people suffering from the dehumanizing results of poverty. In 1917, after studying at Princeton University and Theological Seminary, he led workers' and peasants' movements to establish human rights, with a view to putting the redemptive love of Christ into practice. In 1923, at the time of…

[German Version] In 1941 more than 30 denominations in Japan (IV) united to form the Perfect Liberty Kyodan, the United Church of Christ in Japan. This union was motivated by the quest for unity ¶ in Christ but also by capitulation to the growing pressure of the government on religious bodies during the war years. After World War II, the Kyodan renewed itself as a democratic institution and in 1954 adopted an authoritative confession of faith (III, 6.a) consisting of the Apostles’ Creed with a foreword reflecting Protestant teach…

[German Version] I. General Facts – II. History and Culture – III. History of Religion – IV. History of Christianity – V. Orthodox Church – VI. Japanese Religions, Missiology I. General Facts The Japanese archipelago ( nippon rettō) consists of four main islands and several smaller ones with a total area of 373,534 km2. Honshū, the largest island by far (227,414 km2), is the country's geographical middle. All the political power centers of Japanese history (Nara, Kyōto, Kamakura, and Edo/Tokyo) are situated here. Owing to its proximity to the southe…