What Makes a Prophet: The Case for Uchimura Kanzō

“Japanese Christianity had its origins in the upheavals of the Restoration, when samurai lost their former status in society. It was samurai who became converts, in fact, samurai from domains that had not joined in the Meiji Restoration.”Footnote ¹ So writes University of California, Berkeley, History Professor Irwin Scheiner in a statement that links the coming of Christianity to Japan in the nineteenth century to the foundational changes that were occurring at the time. This delineation of those who were most likely to become Christians there during this period marks key issues that will occupy center stage in University of British Columbia Professor Emeritus John Howes's comprehensive examination of an integral figure in the development of Christianity in Japan. In his Japan's Modern Prophet, Dr. Howes uses three significant turning points in the life of an influential Japanese Christian to construct an in-depth analysis of how this individual came to a commitment to Christianity, lived his resulting faith, and affected the lives of those around him through his adherence to that faith. However, from the book's opening pages, the reader immediately becomes aware that Howes's presentation of Uchimura is much more than the story of a lone figure's simple pilgrimage toward a set of beliefs whose origins were far beyond the shores of his native land. Rather, through embracing what he describes as “Uchimura's spiritual odyssey as a teacher and writer” (1), Professor Howes has produced a multifaceted study that explores the influences on and the ramifications of an individual whose lifetime spanned one of the most dynamic periods of cross-cultural interaction in Japanese history. By employing methodologies ranging from literary analysis of Uchimura's voluminous writings to insightful discussions concerning the psychological forces affecting Uchimura's actions in a given situation, Howes paints an offering that perceptively portrays a man of conscience, independence, and passion, one who, in substantial ways, was a product of the times in which he lived. Within this consideration of Uchimura's context, we find the threads that form the crux of the book's central theme: that Uchimura transcended the crosscurrents of cultural and national identity resulting from his acceptance of a non-native religion to the level of one who could speak as a representative of his subsequent faith with equal criticalness to the dichotomous sources of his makeup. In short, Uchimura Kanzō became prophet to both Japan and the source of his adopted Christianity, the Western world.

Any evaluation of the foundational argumentation of Professor Howes's work must start with a consideration of Howes's presentation of the book's principal character, Uchimura himself. Here, we encounter an individual born into a samurai family on March 26, 1861. His birth coming seven years before the fall of the Tokugawa bakufu, Uchimura grew to adulthood during the Meiji Restoration, a season of monumental changes within Japan. As a product of Confucian-based and English-based education in Japan, as well as extended study in the United States, he became what Howes describes as “equipped … for a position of national leadership and cut . . . off from much of what his fellow Japanese held dear” (26). Indeed, Uchimura's was a life of significant transformations that reflected the unorthodox nature of both his training and his religiosity: from samurai's son to Christian, from an idealistic supporter of America and Americans to an advocate of Japanese rejection of American conduct toward Japan, from a believer in Japan's self-described mission to China in 1894 to a pacifist. Through his career as a respected teacher, prolific writer, and social critic, Uchimura would become a vivid embodiment of the conflicts encountered by those Japanese desiring to assert their cultural identity while practicing Christianity. Indeed, as Howes develops carefully throughout his work, Uchimura “wanted modern Japan to act according to his ideals of a benevolent nation. When its leaders failed to perform as he thought Christian rulers should, he berated them. When Christian missionaries failed to accord him what he considered due respect for his achievements as a Christian leader, he berated them” (3).

This ability of Uchimura to communicate with such authenticity his commitment to his beliefs that he openly courted isolation from his recipients runs throughout a career that Professor Howes chooses to portray as containing three crucial turning points. The first of these occurs after the winter of 1891, when Uchimura's hesitation to accord a picture of the Meiji emperor proper respect during a ceremonial reading stirs up a firestorm that cuts a swath destroying Uchimura's job, second wife, and much of his personal standing within those who considered themselves patriotic Japanese. Uchimura, however, would recover and, in the process, concluded that “the Meiji government could not act as an instrument of God's will” (12). The second revolved around Uchimura's resignation from his editor's position at the Yorozu Chōhō, a leading newspaper, in 1903. This decision was prompted by Uchimura's embrace of pacifism at a time when Japan was girding for war with Russia. With even the newspaper itself indicating its support of the Japanese government's course of action, Uchimura stepped off the stage of national acclaim he had built through his writings of the previous decade. Now, he was free to concentrate on a magazine he had established three years earlier for the purpose of instructing Japan about the foundation from which he derived his beliefs through building a readership grounded in biblical teaching. The resulting journal, Seisho no Kenkyū, remained in publication until Uchimura's death in 1930, playing an integral role in establishing the collection of followers with whom he would be associated for the remainder of his career. While subsequently engaged in writing and teaching for a much more intimate audience than the national arena he had reached in the years between his first and second turning points, a series of profoundly influential occurrences culminating with the devastation and disillusionment wrought by the First World War convinced Uchimura that the most effective way to convey what would now become his message—that the current world situation made clear the need to prepare for Christ's imminent return—as widely yet as quickly as possible was to broaden significantly the scope of his audience. To that end, in the winter of 1918 Uchimura, in conjunction with two other evangelists, launched his Second Coming Movement, a public campaign resembling a religious revival that saw him speaking to large audiences across Japan until the following spring. This radical shift in his methodology, which represents Uchimura's third turning point, set in motion changes to the number and makeup of those with whom he interacted on a regular basis that, in turn, proved monumental in affecting the agenda of the final decade of Uchimura's work.

His organization established, Professor Howes engages the whole of Uchimura's life. Far from encountering merely an informational biography, however, the reader is immediately introduced to the author's message: that this extraordinary writer and thinker is most certainly a prophet, one whose impact extends beyond his borders and his lifetime. Howes's words eloquently set the stage:

Such an unequivocal articulation of Uchimura's place among Japanese invites immediate curiosity. Is such a vision of Uchimura warranted? Certainly, Howes's painstakingly persuasive presentation leaves the reader by book's end with great admiration for Uchimura's accomplishments. However, the subtle but inescapable argumentation that runs throughout the book in support of this theme suggests Howes's awareness of the vast range of considered opinions concerning Uchimura's impact. One Uchimura biographer, Aoyama Gakuin Professor Emeritus Ohara Shin, uses the word “polyhedron”Footnote ² to encapsulate what he describes as the multifaceted nature of Uchimura that must be taken into account when determining his legacy. Two other biographers, Tatsuo ArimaFootnote ³ and Kimitada Miwa, are far less charitable. Arima sees in Uchimura the opportunity to “understand the nature of the intellectual anxiety the Japanese experienced as they began to adapt to the changing realities of life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.”Footnote ⁴ Miwa points to “a certain eloquence”Footnote ⁵ contained within Uchimura's commentaries on conditions within Japan. However, in their comparisons of Uchimura to some of his more notable contemporaries, both identify Uchimura's adherence to Christianity as the reason for Uchimura's inability to grasp “the real nature of politics, either national or international.”Footnote ⁶

In contrast with Arima and Miwa is the praise ravished upon Uchimura by Professor Robert Lee: “In modern Japanese history one figure is outstanding for his personal independence and integrity, yet he remained all his life a patriot for his country . . . to many Japanese, especially in the post–Second World War period, Uchimura Kanzō (1861–1930) became the paradigmatic hero of personal independence.”Footnote ⁷ For Lee, the events for which Uchimura is well known within Japanese history, his refusal to bow before the imperial portrait in 1891 and his decision to become a pacifist in 1903, stand as beacons of conscience that demonstrate principled resistance to the prevailing attitudes within and conduct of affairs by Japan during his lifetime. More recently, Hiroshi Miura comes even closer to Professor Howes's interpretation of Uchimura's importance. In his short yet engaging work, he also advances the notion of Uchimura as prophet, equating his role in Japan to that of Martin Luther in Germany, John Knox in Scotland, and John Calvin in France and Switzerland.Footnote ⁸ For Miura, Uchimura's greatest impact as a prophet is the most apparent through the actions of his followers during and after the Second World War. Yet Miura, Lee, Miwa, Arima, and Ohara all evaluate Uchimura within the context of his compatriots, as opposed to Howes's position that such a consideration limits the ability of scholars of Uchimura to assess his true worth. To his credit, Dr. Howes does acknowledge that acceptance of the idea of Uchimura as prophet is not universal, even to the point of including the objections of one such writer in his text (12). Still, the dissenting comments offered by this source hardly reflect the wide-ranging, principled discussion concerning the nature and degree of Uchimura's impact on both Japan and the world at large. One wonders if, in the midst of his carefully developed discourse supporting the appropriateness of Uchimura's prophetic stature, Howes might have more strongly emphasized that Uchimura's impact on his followers, on Japan, and on Christianity as a whole represents a defining that is ongoing and that remains widely at variance.

Laying aside the issue of Uchimura as prophet, it is essential to note the encyclopedic nature of Dr. Howes's treatment of Uchimura. His own recognition of the depth of his work notwithstanding (12),Footnote ⁹Japan's Modern Prophet undoubtedly ranks as the most exhaustive treatment of Uchimura available in English. An early offering to Uchimura scholarship, Raymond Jennings's Jesus, Japan, and Kanzō Uchimura Footnote ¹⁰ followed what became the standard premise of the time, that Uchimura's creation of mukyōkai represented Japan's first truly indigenous church. Dr. Howes himself contributed to the deepening of work on Uchimura through the completion of his 1965 dissertation, advancing the notion of Uchimura as an enigma.Footnote ¹¹ Earlier mention of the work of Kimitada Miwa and Arima Tatsuo appears above. Carlo Caldarola greatly extended the interpretation of Raymond Jennings, focusing exclusively on the “institution” of mukyōkai in his offering, Christianity: The Japanese Way. Footnote ¹² After his self-description of the completeness of his work, Howes goes on to write that Japan's Modern Prophet is a shortened version of a 1982 draft (12). Still, while other scholarship in English on Uchimura has continued to emerge, none has taken up the period from Uchimura's decision to leave the Yorozu Chōhō in 1903 until his death to the same degree as Professor Howes. Consequently, Howes's descriptions of the nature of Uchimura's followers, his coverage of the factors leading to Uchimura's involvement in the Second Coming Movement and, most important, his analysis of Uchimura's path toward disassociation from his most promising followerFootnote ¹³ with its resulting aftereffects stand as vital additions to the body of knowledge on Uchimura within English-language scholarship.

One arena that demonstrates the all-encompassing analysis to which Howes subjects Uchimura in the book is his efforts to ascertain Uchimura's psychological makeup and then to subsequently demonstrate how his determinations influenced Uchimura's life choices. A biographer engaging in psychoanalysis without adequate preparatory background should give room for pause to both reader and writer; Professor Howes, however, carries out this method of evaluation with great care and demonstrates the usefulness of such a methodology. Consider, for example, this opening evaluation of Uchimura:

Almost immediately one grasps the implications of these characteristics, that this is an individual with the potential for great strength and for debilitating—even isolating—weaknesses. As the book unfolds and more of Uchimura's life comes into view, the interaction of these traits becomes readily apparent. Howes has established a means by which the reader can understand, appreciate, react viscerally to, and even empathize with the actions Uchimura takes as he interacts with his world. Moreover, continued commentary along these lines helps prepare the reader for the psychological ramifications of the context in which Uchimura lived as an individual who had first received a traditional Confucian education at home but who then went on to be “taught by Western instructors, tutored in freshly translated Western texts, and proselytized by newly arrived missionaries.”Footnote ¹⁴ University of Washington Professor Kenneth Pyle writes that “graduates of these schools entered society with divided minds: they felt themselves torn between the familiar, comfortable values of their childhood and the new, liberating values of their later education.”Footnote ¹⁵ This certainly fits Uchimura's situation, and throughout the book Howes brings to his readers' attention examples of how Uchimura was both a product of and wrestled with his existence in these realms.

Another arena that demonstrates the diversification of Professor Howes's treatment of Uchimura is his usage of literary analysis in considering Uchimura's writings. With the latest edition of his collected works comprising a forty-volume set, Uchimura has certainly left behind a gold mine's worth of information through which one can seek to understand the man and his times. Howes contributes detailed consideration of many of Uchimura's written materials, ranging from magazine articles to diary entries, from standalone books to letters to friends, and from Bible commentaries to poetry. Indeed, concerning Uchimura's extended lecture series on many of the books of the Bible, Howes points out that Uchimura has produced the largest single collection of Bible commentaries in the Japanese language (283). Professor Howes goes on to provide the reader with excerpts of Uchimura's lectures on Job and Romans,Footnote ¹⁶ which introduce excellent material through which to gauge Uchimura's interpretation of scripture and application of biblical passages to Christian living. In doing so, however, Howes also reminds the reader of a still-existing challenge: that the vast majority of Uchimura's commentaries will remain inaccessible to the English-speaking world until they are translated from Japanese and then subjected to analysis. Through the author's consideration of Uchimura's writings the reader is directly exposed to the depth of Uchimura's angst, the hopefulness and sense of duty through which he glimpsed his and his nation's mission, the vitriolic nature of his ire, and the forcefulness of his intellect. In so copiously including sections of Uchimura's written work, Professor Howes provides us with yet another facet of Ohara Shin's polyhedron.

By now, it should be apparent that Japan's Modern Prophet represents no less than the culminating work of this hemisphere's dean of Uchimura scholars. It carries the impetus of three decades' worth of research while pointing out numerous opportunities for further consideration by new generations of researchers. Throughout, Professor Howes mentions episodes where he personally interviewed noted followers who were taught by Uchimura such as Takagi Yasaka, Yamamoto Taijirō, and Yanaihara Tadao. Clearly, the breadth of experience Howes brings to the table in writing about Uchimura is unmatched by anyone outside Japan. Yet even a work as monumental as this from so thorough an author as John Howes contains areas that warrant a cautionary note before concluding this consideration of the book.

One such concern revolves around the author's statement that this book represents “the most comprehensive research on Uchimura in any language.” There is absolutely no room for doubt of this claim where English-language treatises on Uchimura are at issue. In the Japanese arena, however, there is, perhaps, at least room for curiosity before displaying unquestioned acceptance. Here, in fact, two intertwining issues are at play. The first revolves around the date the book was actually completed. It was earlier established that a two-decade gap exists between the writing of the base manuscript and actual publication. That after twenty years no researcher of Uchimura outside Japan has matched this book's coverage of him is an unqualified testimony to the impressiveness of Howes's work. Yet one does wonder if the same situation holds true in Japan. Is it not possible that Japanese scholarship on Uchimura improved in the years between Howes's completion of his primary research and his book's publication? Howes, for example, cites Uchimura follower Masaike Megumu's book, Uchimura Kanzō den Footnote ¹⁷ [Uchimura Kanzō Biography] throughout his notes. Does not the updated version of Masaike's book that was published in 1977Footnote ¹⁸ contain an even greater depth of scholarship than does the first? The earlier cited Ohara Shin book, Hyōden Uchimura Kanzō, is a critical biography of Uchimura that covers his life up to 1900, ending with Uchimura's first publication of Seisho no Kenkyū. In 1992, Ohara completed a second book, Uchimura Kanzō no shōgai: Kindai Nippon to Kirisutokyō no kōgen o megutte [The Life of Uchimura Kanzō: Gazing at the Source of Light Illuminating Modern Japan and Christianity].Footnote ¹⁹ This book carries to completion Ohara's treatment of Uchimura's life and includes many of the issues that Howes discusses such as the Second Coming Movement, the tension between Uchimura and his followers over the need to define mukyōkai, and the separation between Uchimura and Tsukamoto. Moreover, both Masaike and Ohara raise at least one issue that has garnered nary a mention in any English language treatment of Uchimura: the possibility that Uchimura endured not one divorce but two, the second being from a woman named Tsukiyama Motoko.Footnote ²⁰ Thus, taken collectively, it seems safe to conclude that Japanese scholarship on Uchimura has at least matched the depth of Howes's work.

It is time to bring this matter to a close. John Howes has produced a book that will prove indispensable for any future study on Uchimura. The factual material presented alone is far beyond that available in any other English language work in existence today. Of even greater importance are the issues of interpretation Howes has entered into in the debate over Uchimura's legacy. This book urges us to consider the degree to which Uchimura's struggle to link his national identity to a Christianity transmitted from a culture different from his own represents the transformation Christianity undergoes as it spreads around the world—especially during an age when Christianity's most rapid growth is occurring not in the West, but in locations such as Africa and Asia. Surely, the possibility of such a connection between Uchimura's embrace of Christianity and that which is ongoing suggests a timelessness in the impact of Uchimura and renders unto the work arguing its case a respect that inspires consideration.