RELIGION IN JAPAN by Nobuta Kishimoto

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 18, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 11.

RELIGION IN JAPAN.

By Nobuta Kishimoto

The prevailing attitude of the educated classes in Japan toward any system of religion is one of indifference, if not strong antagonism. Among them the agnosticism of Spencer, the materialism of Comte, and the pessimism of Schopenhauer and Hartman are most influential. To them God is either the product of our own imagination, or, at most, is unknowable; religion is nothing but superstition; the universe is a chance work and has no end or meaning; men are nothing but lower animals in disguise. Atheism, pessimism, and agnosticism are common enemies of all religions. The people of Japan can not be satisfied with these no-God and no-religion doctrines.

Shintoism, the oldest religion of Japan, represents three things in one—totem worship, nature worship, and ancestor worship. It is an ethnological religion, and as such has no originator, no system of creeds, and no code of morals. It teaches that men are the descendants of the gods; that is, the divinity of humanity. Again, it teaches that, as the universe came from the gods, it is full of the divine essence; that is, the doctrine of the divine immanence.

Confucianism is the next oldest system in Japan. It came from China. In its native country it developed into a great system; but in Japan the case is different. Here it has never developed into a religious system. It was simply accepted as a system of social and family morals. It had and still has a stronghold among the higher and well-educated classes.

Buddhism is the third religion in Japan. It came from India through China and Korea, and now is the most popular religion in Japan. There are ten different sects which go by the name of Buddhism, but which are quite different from each other. Some are atheistic, and others are almost theistic. Some are strict, and others are liberal. Some are scholarly, and others are popular. Some are pessimistic in their principles, and teach annihilation to be the ultimate end of human existence. Others are optimistic, and teach a happy life in a future existence, if not in the present world. But all unite at least in one thing, namely, the law of cause and effect. “One reaps what he sows” is the universal teaching of Japanese Buddhism, although the application of the law may be different in different sects.

One and the same Japanese may be a Shintoist, a Confucianist, and a Buddhist. Their religion may be likened to a triangle, one angle being Shintoism, another Confucianism, the third Buddhism. Shintoism furnishes the

object of objects, Confucianism offers the rules of life, while Buddhism supplies the way of salvation.

Christianity is the last and newest religion in Japan. It is in three forms. The Roman Catholic is the strongest in membership, then comes the Protestant, and finally the Greek Catholic. There is no doubt that Christianity will become the religion of Japan. We Japanese want the Christianity of the Christ. We want the spirit of the Bible. We Japanese Christians wish to show a Christianity which knows no sectarian controversy, and no heresy hunting, but which worships God in spirit and in truth. —Nobuta Kishimoto, of Japan, at the Parliament of Religions.