An Intellectual History of Wartime Japan (1931-1945)

by Shunsuke Tsurumi

  The nature of this common faith is revealed in the development of a Japanese folk version of the Gospel during the years in which Japan was closed to the West. After the closing of the country, many Japanese Christians went through a process of tenkō under the Tokugawa Government. Some died as martyrs, but some retired to far enclaves of the country which were not under strict observation by the central Government and carried out their Christian faith under a disguise of Buddhism, the religion enforced by the central Government. After the opening of Japan in 1854, the Catholic Church sent missionaries in the hope that the Christian faith might have been maintained among the Japanese during the 200 years of isolation from European Christianity. In 1865 they found that this had indeed been the case: On 17 March, a French priest found more than a dozen men gathered in front of the gate of the newly built Catholic church, Ōura Tenshudō, in Nagasaki. Then three women approached the priest and prayed with him. They whispered to him, ‘We are of the same faith as you.’ These were farming women from Urakami Village, now part of Nagasaki, and in this village alone there were 1,300 ‘Hidden Christians’, as they were called, and there emerged several thousand more Christians in other parts of Kyushu. These Christians, who had preserved their faith for 200 years, were again persecuted under the new Meiji Government, and many were tortured and exiled under the policy of forced tenkō. It was not until 1873 that the prohibition of Christianity was retracted by the Meiji Government and the remaining Christian prisoners finally released.

  Some Christians, however, continued to conceal their faith and kept aloof from the Catholic Church. The exact number of these hidden believers is still unknown. According to research carried out by Tahoku Kōya, during the Showa period there were 4,500 Hidden Christians on Naru Island, one of the Goto Islands of Nagasaki.40 It is interesting to examine the form in which the Gospel was passed down among these Christians. In a handwritten book called The Origins of Heaven and Earth, which records the traditions of the Goto Islands and the Kurasaki region, the story of Jesus is told as follows:

  The Emperor Yorotetsu (Herod) searched for the Holy One, burrowing into the ground and flying up to the sky, but could not find him. Then the emperor believed he must have hidden himself among the children of the people of the soil, and so ordered that all the children in the land from the age of birth to the seventh year be put to death. It was blasphemous, pitiful, beyond all comparison, and they numbered 44,444. Hearing of this, the Holy One said: Tens of thousands have lost their lives, and, as it was for me, to save their souls I will go to the forest and do penance’. But then the Father appeared and said, Tens of thousands have lost their lives, and all for you. It is not yet assured that they shall not lose the joys of heaven; therefore to save their souls you must be persecuted and give your life’. The Holy One prostrated himself and, sweating drops of blood, made five vows. Then he resolved to return to Rome, to the church of Saint Iglesia. There he would be persecuted by evil men and give his life.

  This story of a Holy One who joined the people of the earth reflects the lines of the transmitters of this Gospel. These people, originally a mixture of farmers, samurai, and townspeople, had fled to the farthest, poorest countryside, and were now all farmers who knew what it was to ‘burrow into the ground’ for a bare living. The story of Jesus is retold in this context. The number given for those killed by the order of King Herod - 44,444 - seems to be taken from the number of statues of Buddha in the Kyoto temple Sanjū-sangendō. Thus the Gospel reflects its non-European context. The people who told this story were pursued by the officials of the Tokugawa Government, and even after the Shimabara Rebellion lived in the constant fear that they might be crucified at any time. Their version of the story of Jesus is influenced by their immediate fear of death, unlike those who, after the ban on Christianity was lifted at the beginning of the Meiji period, used imported European scholarship to translate the European Bible. After the defeat in 1945, such Biblical scholarship continued, and a translation of the Bible in modern colloquial Japanese was published. The new translation was an accurate rendering of the European Bible in Japanese, based on the knowledge and linguistic skills built up in the Meiji period, and is entirely different in nature from the Gospel of the Hidden Christians of the Goto Islands, but its prose, composed by men free to practise Christianity, is dispassionate and tepid.

  It must have been in just this manner that the original transmission of the Gospel incorporated many traditions. Regardless of whether Jesus really lived and of whether the facts of his life have been handed down correctly, the story certainly reflects the lives of its transmitters in just the same way as the Gospel of the Goto Islands reflects the lives of its authors. They depicted the Jesus who lived for them, the one in whom they believed.

  Certain concepts expressed in the Goto Gospel are also significant in terms of Japanese thought in general. Both God and Jesus agree that Jesus should suffer and die because tens of thousands of children died on his account. This seems to reflect the suffering of the Hidden Christians during the 200 years of national isolation and during the war, but it also reflects the deep sense of fellowship among Japanese, which has developed from centuries of coexistence in the same island country. This feeling was promoted and universally inculcated during the Fifteen Years’ War. In this sense I believe that there is a deep psychological connection between the Gospel of the Goto Islanders and the subject of my discussion, the Fifteen Years’ War.

  During the war, Nakamura Hajime carried out a comparative study of the different modifications made to Buddhism in the process of its acceptance in Japan, India, Tibet, and China, a study later published as The Ways of Thinking of the Asian Peoples. He pointed out that Buddhism in Japan took a form distinctive from that of India, Tibet, and China. The dogma was simplified, and the emphasis transferred to personal relationships among the faithful.41 These distinguishing features were developed not in the official Buddhism which was used by the Tokugawa Government for the suppression and redirection of Christianity but in the earlier unofficial Buddhism which spread among the people and sometimes induced them to resist the unreasonable demands of the Government.

  The various sects of Buddhism include some secret sects, as does Christianity. A recent study by Aizen Tokumi of the village of Waga, in the mountainous region of Iwate Prefecture in northern Japan, has revealed the existence there of a community with just such a secret Buddhism with its own traditions and ceremonies. The sect is called Kurobotoke (literally ‘Black Buddha’). This community is bound together by communal love in a manner similar to the Oneida Community in Vermont, U.S.A., described in Havelock Ellis's Psychology of Sex. Kurobotoke originated from a Buddhist belief denounced by official Buddhism more than 200 years ago. Some of its exponents escaped to the mountain community, and were sheltered there. The spirit of mutual aid was probably a feature of the sect from the beginning, but in the mountain community it was greatly strengthened, and enabled the village to survive famine and war for 200 years, although the sect remained secret throughout the Tokugawa and Meiji eras. According to Aizen, during the many civil wars and the two major foreign wars of the Meiji period many men from the village were drafted and died in battle, leaving widows and orphans. They were taken care of by the community, and in the case of the widows the giving was reciprocal, with sexual intercourse as a socially acceptable return for such aid. Both the belief in mutual support and the lack of faith in a government which had caused them so much suffering in war were passed on from generation to generation. War was not glorified in this sect's faith: rather, it was part of their faith to consider it a calamity worse than famine.42 There was similarly a deep-rooted distrust of the political order and political authority: even after the war, ceremonies were kept secret from anyone connected with the central Government - the school administration, the military, the Government-approved temples and Buddhist organizations. In this, this Buddhist community was quite exceptional, as the Buddhism of recognized sects in the cities has regularly been
used as a basis for the praise of war and cooperation with the Government.

  Official Buddhism was used in the suppression of Christian belief in the Tokugawa and early Meiji periods. State Shinto was used to suppress communism and liberalism in the Meiji period and during the Fifteen Years’ War. The Christians who belonged to large, recognized organizations supported the Sino-Japanese War and, of their own accord, joined the Imperial Rule Assistance Movement. Smaller and socially more insignificant sects of Christianity - for example, Holiness, the Seventh Day Adventists, and the Watchtower Society - were sometimes critical of the war. The case of Watchtower deserves scrutiny in connection with the traditions of Japan.

  Watchtower, founded in the United States by Charles T. Russell (1852-1916) and continued under the leadership of Joseph Franklin Rutherford (1869-1942) and later Nathan Knole, is a movement based on the belief in the second coming of Jesus Christ, and requires an uncompromising criticism of worldly power. It is considered a duty for believers to refuse to salute national flags. On the basis of their belief followers involved themselves in the resistance to the supremacy of the state in both Germany and Japan. Many were imprisoned, and many died. Akashi Junzō (1889-1965) was sent by Watchtower in 1926 to head their Japanese branch. He was not, as stated in the Watchtower Society history printed in the United States, a Japanese-American.43 He was born in the village of Okinaga in Shiga Prefecture, a mountainous region near Lake Biwa. His father was a doctor who specialized in Chinese medicine. Akashi left middle school when he was fourteen, and began making plans to go to the United States. He made the journey in 1908, at the age of eighteen, and there he worked and educated himself, mainly by means of public libraries. From 1914 he worked as a reporter for Japanese newspapers, first in San Diego, and later in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Meanwhile he married a Japanese woman, under whose influence he joined Watchtower. When Watchtower sent Akashi to Japan as the branch chief, his wife preferred to remain in the United States and the two separated, but their three sons were later sent to Japan to live with their father. Like their father, they did not seek an education beyond primary school, but helped him in the organization of Watchtower in Japan.

  The organization was well suited to the atmosphere of Japan in 1926, five years before the Manchurian Incident and the rise of militarism. Its popularity aroused the jealousy of another great Christian leader, Uchimura Kanzō (1861-1930), whose doctrine was similar to that of the Watchtower free of any church structure, preaching the second coming of Jesus Christ, and denouncing war. Ota Yuzo's well-documented biography of Uchimura records this jealousy, which is clearly revealed in Uchimura's letters to his followers concerning Akashi as analysed by Kōsaka Kaoru.

  When Japan entered its militaristic phase in 1931, there was a drastic change of the atmosphere in the whole country. The activities of Watchtower now met with much interference from the police. Akashi Junzō’s eldest son, Akashi Mahito, was recruited by the Army but returned the rifle allotted to him, saying that he did not believe in killing. The news spread to other regions of the country, and others copied his action. This was of great concern to the Japanese military, for conscientious objection to war was rare in Japan.44 The cases of these objectors were brought to trial in military court, and on 14 June 1939 Akashi Mahito was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. Another young man, a graduate of Tokyo Institute of Technology named Muramoto Kazuo, was sentenced to two years, but refused to alter his position and was detained in prison until after the war. Seven days after the verdict, on 21 June 1939, at five o'clock in the morning, fifty policemen raided the headquarters of Watchtower, arresting twenty-six men and women. Akashi, his new wife, and the two younger sons of his previous marriage were among them, and so the entire Akashi family was imprisoned. During the years of detention while he awaited the final outcome of his trial, Akashi read whatever was allowed to him, including Buddhist scripture and Shinto literature. He came to the belief that the Bible was not the only source of the religious truth he sought. In the novel Jōdo Shin Shu which he wrote after the war, the old hero comes to believe that the essence of religion is a willingness to return to nothing. This view is found in the Lotus Sutra (the Saddharma Pundarika Sutra in Sanskrit) which states that a person who has attained Buddhahood sees the world in terms of the joy of achieving annihilation (Nirvana). This doctrine has its counterpart in the old testament concept ‘Vanity of vanities; all is vanity’, and in the joy in embracing nothingness expressed in the Shinto Kojiki.

  During his imprisonment, Akashi was never allowed to see his son, Akashi Mahito, who was detained elsewhere in a military prison, but the change in his beliefs after reading the Buddhist Sutras and the Shinto texts was communicated to his son through hearsay. Akashi Mahito's image of his father as a man who placed absolute faith in the Bible and the Bible alone was shattered. Soon after, he recanted his refusal to bear arms and wrote a tenkō confession in October 1941, stating that from his own reading in prison of the Kojiki and the Nihonshoki (the oldest historical chronicles of Japan) he had come to the conclusion that Japan's greatness arose from its national structure, unique in the whole world, with its single unbroken line of emperors who worked for all members of the nation. Therefore, he would do his best as a member of the Imperial Army, dedicate his sinful body to the Emperor and would be ready to die without regret in defence of the state. He entered the tank corps and returned to ordinary life after the war. After his confession he sought to persuade his younger brothers to join the military, using the logic of tenkō. The elder of the two was convinced, and died in the South Seas as a civilian employee of the Army. The third son persevered in his father's original faith and spent the war years under strict supervision, but lived to see the end of the war.

  In reading the old texts of Shinto and Buddhism, father and son reached different conclusions. Akashi Junzō, after hearing of his son's tenkō, appeared in court on 9 April 1942. His testimony can be read in the record of the court proceedings.

  At the moment, only four persons remain who follow me. Including myself, that makes five. It is a battle of five against one hundred million.* Whether the one hundred million will win or the word of God spoken by the five will win shall be soon demonstrated. Of that I am certain. As long as the tranquility of this belief remains with us, I have nothing more to say.

  No one heard Akashi's last manifesto, for no remaining sympathizers attended for fear of police harassment, but even at this late stage of the war the court had the justice to record it.

  Akashi does not refer in this final testimony to his reading of Shinto and Buddhist literature. His son's tenkō may have made him cautious, recognizing the use which the Government could make of his comments on Shinto and Buddhism by distorting the religious views he had reached in prison. His shrewd caution was based on a practical understanding of politics. After his death, a young follower, Muramoto Kuzuo, who had adhered to his faith and spent all the war years in prison, said of Akashi Junzō, Tn short, he was completely a man of common sense.’

  Akashi was released after the war. Of those of his followers who had been imprisoned, two, his wife and a Korean, had died. Of the three that remained, the other Korean returned to Korea, and so only Akashi and a young girl were left. Akashi married again and adopted the girl, who was afflicted with a severe illness from which her recovery was slow. Together with Muramoto Kazuo, now released from military prison, they retired to the country town of Kanuma, in Tochigi Prefecture, and lived a very simple life in a community of people who had kept to their faith throughout the war. They seldom talked about their wartime activities, and they did not involve themselves again with the Watchtower movement or set up a new Watchtower group. When the news of Akashi's release reached Watchtower in the United States, two months after Japan's defeat, its headquarters sent a telegram of congratulations and a message that they would send food and other necessities to help him and his followers. However, after reading the accounts of the activities of Watchtower in the United Sta
tes, Akashi and Muramoto wrote to the President criticizing Watch-tower's headquarters for flying the U.S. national flag and adulating the state at religious meetings. Akashi could not forget the many followers of Watchtower in Japan who had been tortured and, in some cases, had died for refusing to bow before the Imperial Palace. President Knole, the third president of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, responded by dismissing Akashi from his position as the chief of the Japanese and Korean branch, and stated, ‘I am certain that anyone who preserves the spirit of Jehovah and reads your open letter will see that in all the years since the days of Reverend Russell you have been a hypocrite.’ Akashi was erased from the official history of Watchtower and is unknown to present Watchtower activists.

  One reason why small unorthodox groups like Watchtower, Holiness, and the Seventh Day Adventists took a critical view of the war from its beginning with the invasion of China was that they appealed to the lower classes, who benefited not at all and suffered most from the war. In the early stages of the war, young men who could afford to attend college could postpone conscription, whereas those who could not were recruited at the age of twenty, and there was therefore a higher death rate among the poorer classes. Watchtower also had among its followers many Koreans, as can be inferred from the fact, mentioned above, that two of the five who survived the war were Korean.

  The larger religious organizations supported the war, with the exception of the Anglicans and a small group of intellectuals who were influenced by Uchimura. These included the economist Yanaibara Tadao and the political scientist Nanbara Shigeru, both of whom became presidents of Tokyo University after Japan's surrender.

  The Buddhist organizations, with very few exceptions, were prominent in the campaign to justify the invasion of China. One exception was the New Buddhist Youth League, led by Senoo Giro, which opposed the war.45 Senoo taught that to live according to the Buddhist law of causality, which is based on the interdependence of all things, one must liberate humanity by building a cooperative society based on the denial of the self and the abolition of private property. Opposition to the imperialistic war was a natural corollary to this. The group was based in the lower classes of the farming villages, and among other things worked for free funerals for the needy. However, Senoo was arrested and announced his tenkō during the last stage of the war.