kakure christian

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Mena, Diego R.

May 10, 2012

Japans Hidden Christians:

Within the history of the Christian religion, there have been myriad forms and

permutations adopted as it passed from region to region and age to age. Many of these have

been sparked by s hism or heresy, as !ith the mainline "rthodo# and $rotestant denominations.

%hese ma&or bran hes differ '!ith varying degrees of severity( on several !orldly and

theologi al issues, su h as the dates on a hur h alendar or the Catholi devotion to the )lessed

*irgin. "thers have been mu h more obs ure and parti ular, often invoking syn reti pra ti es

to re on ile ompeting beliefs. + brief survey of *oudoun pra ti e in e! "rleans, -ouisiana

or the anta Muerte movement in Me#i o City/s %epito barrio an reveal a mi#ture of both

Catholi and animisti religious traditions.

istori ally, many of these movements have been limited to ountries !here Christianity

!as a ma&or for e for oloni ation as seen in the +meri as and +fri a, this syn retism an be a

means of preserving indigenous religion and making the bitter pill of olonial onversion easier

to s!allo!. o!ever, one su h permutation took refuge in the ar hipelago of 3apan !here it

adapted to survive in a ountry that instituted a state4mandated perse ution of Christians. Most

unusually, a splinter of the Catholi Chur h originally founded by 3esuit missionaries 'and on e4

tolerated in 3apan( !ent underground in 3apanese so iety to outlast nearly three enturies of

oppression and fear. %oday, the Chur h has its ar hdio eses and its formal standing, but as

re ently as 1567 all forms of Christianity and Christian i ons !ere illegal in 3apan. 8#amining

this loaked reli of 3apanese ounter4 ulture helps to illustrate the interse tions bet!een


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orthodo#y, orthopra#y, and politi al theology !ithin the onte#t of oppression and the use of

syn retism as a means of survival.

A Brief History of Christianity in Japan

%he first $ortuguese missionaries arrived on 3apan/s south!estern oast at the ity of

9agoshima in the mid 1: th entury. %hey !ere 3esuits, un ompromising and undaunted by a

signifi ant language barrier and the urrent politi al situation of the islands. ;rom the time the

Catholi missionaries arrived until about 1:00, 3apan !as lo ked in state of ivil !ar. %he

3esuits arrived at the tail4end of the engoku, or, Warring tates period. %hey arrived to find a

ountry in the grip of !arlords and nobles vying for po!er.

%he ountry had dissolved into feuding fiefdoms around 1


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More importantly, "da obunaga !as espe ially noted for his onsiderable toleran e

to!ard the Christians !ho traded in the south. +lthough he himself never onverted, he did not

attempt to restri t the missionaries in their efforts to onvert the southern regions, though most

suspe t this !as out of a desire to a >uire more foreign goods for his house and his on>uest.

%his !as benefi ial to the missionaries, !ho had made little progress other!ise in onverting the

southern 3apanese.

+part from the aforementioned language barrier, the missionaries had trouble onverting

the 3apanese on theologi al grounds. Most of the people !ere staun hly )uddhist or hinto and

initially mistook the missionaries as foreign )uddhists prea hing a ne! path. %he 3esuits,

ho!ever, spoke out fre>uently against moral issues they sa! in the 3apanese, su h as idolatry

and homose#uality. u h proselyti ing aused many 3apanese to rebuke the 3esuits. Many

3apanese also took e# eption !ith the theologi al problems of re on iling a loving ?od !ith the

nature of evil and ho! to deal !ith the on ept of ell. %he native )uddhist monks !armed to

the 3esuits at first, thinking the foreigners !ere talking about obs ure )uddhist tea hings. %hey

too, be ame skepti al !hen they found the missionaries/ religion foreign in both language and

theology.

When su h divisions be ame lear, the missionaries turned to!ard the nobles !ith offers

of trade to help s!eeten the theologi al promise of baptism. Many southern nobles, in luding

those of the "tomo and hima u lans, onverted, eager for an opportunity to gain $ortuguese

goods su h as guns for their o!n purposes. With the indu tion of the upper lass, the ommon

folk of the region onverted more >ui kly. +t the height of their !ork, the 3esuits laimed more

than 100,000 onverts and the ity of agasaki.


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%his period of onversion !ould last until 1=52 !hen "da obunaga ommitted sui ide

during the @n ident at onno %emple, an attempt at po!er by "da obunaga/s retainer +ke hi

Mitsuhide. @n 1=56, a ne! !arlord named %oyotomi ideyoshi began to regard the Christians

to!ard the south !arily. %oyotomi, a ommoner by birth, had only re ently onsolidated po!er

in the lands formerly in turmoil and ould only look !ith horror to see ho! the Catholi s had

garrisoned the ity of agasaki. Con erned that this !ould lead to another uprising similar to

the )uddhist temples that resisted obunaga before him, %oyotomi began to take steps to!ard

e# ising the foreign threat.

%he most drasti step began in 1=A6, !hen the %!enty i# Martyrs of 3apan !ere

ru ified outside the ity of agasaki as an e#ample to their ountrymen. +mong them !as t.

$aul Miki, !hom Catholi s no! laim as the patron saint of 3apan. Conditions for 3apanese

Christians !ould only gro! !orse !hen %oyotomi ideyoshi perished in 1=A5 and his

su essor, %okuga!a @eyasu laimed po!er as hogun in the aftermath of the )attle of

ekigahara in 1:00.

Christianity in Hiding

%he ne! %okuga!a hogunate !ould be ome the last to rule 3apan, but !ould do so

from 1:07 to 15:5. @n this time, the belief, pra ti e, and i onography of Christianity !ould

be ome illegal. +ll nobility and their samurai retainers !ho onverted to Catholi ism !ere

ordered to renoun e their faith, and the Catholi lergy they kept among them !ere e#pelled

from the ountry. 3apan !as to be unified under the %okuga!a and there !as no room in the

agenda for the Catholi s, !ho !ere deemed subversive. ;a ed !ith a no!4institutionali ed

perse ution from the government seat of the ity of 8do 'modern4day %okyo(, 3apanese


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Christians !ere for ed into hiding from the %okuga!a hogunate and from Catholi Christianity

at large.

"ver the ourse of the ne#t t!o enturies, the Christian remnants, mostly from the

southern regions of the ountry, hanneled their adopted faith into a method they ould pra ti e

in se ret. in e the trappings of the religion had be ome illegal, they modified them to better

suit se ret !orship and a ounter ultural movement simultaneously. %hey adopted their o!n

i ons as !ell small signs, su h as a hidden rest in the roof tiles of a home to denote that the

family !as pra ti ing in se ret. %hey had be ome Kakure Kirishitan , 3apanese for B idden

Christian.

nder the !at hful eye of the la!, 3apanese Christianity began a radi al shift in pra ti eE

%he )ible passed into oral tradition, for fear of the te#t being onfis ated and used as eviden e.

$rayers, verses, and rites passed similarly, altered to sound like )uddhist hant or su h similar

veneration !ith no lergy to lead them, the laity took over as offi iators of the faith. @n order to

get around the la!s on i ons, the 3apanese adopted and modified )uddhist i ons of the

bodhisattva 9annon to serve as a substitute for the Madonna and Child. %he religion be ame

almost entirely personal in nature, !ith families passing do!n the faith as a sort of inheritan e to

be pra ti ed in utmost se re y. +s the de ades !ent by, the religion lost mu h of its fo us and

meaning. %he message behind the verses gre! obs ured and the landestine faith began to

in orporate aspe ts of an estor !orship into itself. With no onne tion to Rome or another

Catholi ountry, the rypto4Christianity of the 3apanese had be ome its o!n entity.

@ndeed, to an untrained eye, su h a permutation of the Christian faith !ould s ar ely

resemble Christianity at all. +fter nearly three enturies of syn reti mutation, the Catholi faith


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that arrived in 9agoshima in the mid 1=uite seen before. What it be ame flies in the fa e of both

standard Catholi orthodo#y and orthopra#y, but its adoption refle ts adheren e to basi

Christian pra ti e in spite of ulture that a tively perse uted it. %radition demanded that the faith

be kept, but the government demanded that the faith be banished from the ountry. nable to

obey both demands, 3apan/s hidden Christians hose to obey the higher of the t!o ommands

and pra ti ed a highly modified, unorthodo# variant of Catholi ism to preserve their beliefs in

se ret. %o those !ho kept their faith in the fa e of oppression, an unorthodo#, even hereti al

form of Christianity !as preferable to no Christianity at all.

When the %okuga!a hogunate !as dissolved in 15:5 during the Mei&i Restoration of

the 8mperor, Christianity in southern 3apan slo!ly gre! out of hiding. +lthough it !ould not be

until 1567 that Christianity !ould be ome legal again, pressure from the +meri an and 8uropean

ambassadors to 3apan helped to for e the la! off the books. %he reemergen e of the Kakure

Christians astounded the ne!ly returned lergy !ho found, in spite of the numerous hanges to

the religious pra ti e, a remarkably !ell4preserved splinter of Catholi ism in the ;ar 8ast that

had survived a full government4sponsored perse ution for nearly three enturies.

+s the Christians reemerged from hiding, many re&oined !ith the -atin Rite and be ame

members of the Chur h in 3apan. + small population, ho!ever, preferred to retain their syn reti

pra ti es and be ame Hanare 'separated( Christians. %hey never &oined the Chur h and

preferred to stay far to the south on islands near 9yushu, !hi h fre>uently frustrated the old

hogunate !ith its noted independen e and un!illingness to obey edi ts from the apital. )oth

Hanare and Kakure Christians are onsidered reli s of 3apan/s history there are barely any left


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at all, and the fe! that remain are unlikely to pass on !hat remains of their pra ti es given their

advan ed age and la k of support.

8thnographi ally speaking, this is one of the fe! o asions in history !here a ma&or

religion adopted native pra ti es to stay alive in a hostile ountry, as opposed to the use of a

native pra ti e using Christian i onography to stay alive during the pro ess of oloni ation. @t

also defies normal per eptions of orthodo#y and orthopra#y, preferring to sa rifi e true

authenti ity in the interest of self4preservation this is not unreasonable, as this model of

Christian pra ti e allo!s for its tradition to be kept alive, even if the faith strays from the path.

;urthermore, it is !orth mentioning !hile this !as not the first attempt from syn retism

to preserve a religion fading from memory and out of pra ti e, it is one of the fe! that !as

su essful. Whether or not the Kakure Christians intended for the *ati an to re4establish ties

!ith the 3apanese @slands, they !ere intent on leaving to their faith or 'failing that( !hat !as

left of it.

The Mandate of Edo

%he perse ution of 3apanese Christians refle ts an atypi al response to the spread of

Christianity. @nstead of taking root, Christianity never found a strong enough foothold in 3apan

to maintain permanen y and legitima y in a re4unified ountry of fiefdoms. %he three unifiers,

"da, %oyotomi, and %okuga!a, !ere !orldly men and more on erned !ith territory,

unifi ation, and politi s than religion. +ll three intended to reate one realm under heaven and

under their rule. Due to their guns, the Christians !ere a means to this end. "da did not give

mu h thought to the gun4traders to the south, but his su essors did. +s a result, the %oyotomi


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and %okuga!a instigated a poli y of oppression to better ontain !hat they sa! as a foreign

threat to their ne!ly4 onsolidated po!er, and nothing more.

%oday, it is !orth noting that something of a degree of onfusion surrounds the 3apanese

response to this period in their history. @n parti ular, this fa et is often glossed over or muddled

further in more asual dis ussions of history and religion in 3apan. %his has not stopped it from

gaining notoriety, though. %he engoku period has famously been portrayed in numerous visual

media, in luding animation, omi s, and video games. Despite its on urren y, the Christian

history of 3apan is often left out in favor of more popular aspe ts of the era, su h as the

individual !arlords themselves. Most famously, the Sengoku Basara ' Warring-States Fury (

series of video games features the 9yushu onverts as a playable fa tion set to on>uer the

islands. %o preserve the games/ more genial tone to!ard this point in 3apanese history, ho!ever,

the onverts instead follo! a ult of personality around a man named Favi 'represented in4game

by a brash, orpulent 3esuit meant as an open but slightly mo king portrayal of t. ;ran is

Favier(.

Morality aside, ho!ever, the reasons for the perse ution are evident. %he 3apanese

Christians !ere seen as ounter4produ tive to the ne! order the latter t!o unifiers had built for

themselves. %he Christians !ere dangerous, or so the hogunate argued, to the 3apanese people

at4large be ause their faith !as seen as an affront to the ne! la! of the land. %he Christians may

have been 3apanese by birth, but they !ere not 3apanese by faith. %his, oupled !ith their

!orship of a foreign ?od unheard of before in 3apan, made the leaders gro! uneasy at the

thought of having to ontrol a people they sa! as influen ed by an ever4in reasing Western

on ept.


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@n order to better ontrol the popula e through faith, a kind of ounter4theology 'more

heavily grounded in politi s than religion( !as used to restrain the remaining 3apanese

Christians. %he plan used )uddhist and hinto sites as a means of establishing national identity

through !hat !ere seen as native, proper 3apanese religions. + tual temple attendan e and

shrine !orship by the popula e !ere seen as se ondary !hat mattered !as that families ould

prove alignment and registration !ith lo al, established , religious authorities to, by e#tent, prove

that they !ere not subversive Catholi s.

%his politi al theology !as heavily ou hed in orthodo#y, as it demanded adheren e to

traditional 3apanese beliefs 'even if only superfi ially( to preserve the ne!ly4unified nation. )ut,

onfusingly, it !as instated by a government that ared little for how or what religion !as

pra ti ed !ithin its borders as mu h as it meant to e# ise the one it did not want . in e 'a(

native religion's( !as seen as the best effort to unite the people, foreign religion !as to be

outla!ed, purely for a safe and se ure so iety/s sake.

%his is su h a radi al departure from ho! a government mandates a politi al theology,

that it must be seen from a 3apanese point of vie!. $oliti al theology is often ere ted to provide

the one, true religion for the people to obey !ithin a state. Religion is the for e for unity, and for

politi al solidarity. %he %okuga!a !as only on erned !ith the one, true law for the people to

obey their religion didn/t matter as long as it !asn/t Christian, the only faith deemed antitheti al

to the la!. %he hogunate !as determined to keep the ountry together through any and all

means possible, and !as onvin ed that only a 3apanese religion ould help a omplish su h a

feat. + foreign religion !ould only lead to dis ord and disunity. + native religion ould lead to

national homogeny, !hi h the hogunate sa! as entral to the ontinued e#isten e of the state.


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Sources:

e retariat, ?eneral '2006(. G+ "*8R*@8W "; % 8 @ %"RH "; % 8 C+% "-@C

C RC @ 3+$+ , 1=

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