Buddhism and Christianity in Japan: From Conflict to Dialogue,

·期刊原文

Buddhism and Christianity in Japan: From Conflict to Dialogue,
1854-1899.

By Notro R. Thelle

Reviewed by Kanda, Shigeo H

Philosophy East and West
Vol. 39 , 1989.01 , pp.95-96

Copyright by University of Hawaii Press

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p.95

　Compiling a monograph which exhausts a plethora of Japanese and Western Studies　about those associated with the Buddhist-Christian dialogue of late Meiji Japan is no simple task. In this balanced study, Notto R. Thelle successfully unravels the complexities of how the bitter conflict of an earlier period became the soil from which would emerge the reluctant recognition and open dialogue of the late 1890s and the recent Japanese and Western penchant for Buddhist-Christian dialogues. Several themes are explored: patriotism and nationalism; Christian expansionism; a new religiosity transcending Buddhist-Christian differences; and the emergence of an indigenous Japanese theology.

　　Thelle shows how the West after 1854 restructured Japan's religious landscape with its public practice of Protestant Christianity and how the Buddhists hardly fared well under a regime that took cues from the Mite and National Learning Schools and was bent towards relegating Buddhism to a crumbling past as morally impoverished and too inept to have a place in the new Japan. Ironically, the Buddhists saw Christianity as more threatening to their fledgling existence than the state. Reclaiming uddhism's role as the preserver of classical Japanese values and seeking familiarity with teachings and critiques that could be used against Christians were steps in the wrong direction.

　　Apparently, Buddhism's opposition to Christianity before 1890 had little to do with the dharma, but represented a struggle for power and privilege. Idolizing the past and being entrenched in the "old" were uncreative ways of coping with a new era. Certainly the animosity towards Christians was not entirely unreasonable and periodically coincided with the arrogance of those who envisioned Christian expansionism as a legitimate right to "invade" Japan. All in all, dialogue was impossible. As an "evil force," Christianity was a threat to the nation's security. For Christians, it was superfluous to attempt a dialogue with those considered to be world-negating, superstitious, and irrelevent. As "patriots" and educators, the Protestant missionaries and Japanese Christians envisaged themselves in tune with the times.

　　The emergence of a "New Christianity" and a "New Buddhism" and the development of comparative religious studies under Kishimoto and Anesaki prefigured the 1896 dialogue which led to a transformation of Buddhism and Christianity. As former samurais trained in Confucianism, the "New Christians" sharply differentiated "nationalism" (kokka-shugi) from "nationality" (kokumin-shugi), in order to avoid idolizing the state and confusing patriotism with a nationalism that reveres the past and ignores the future. A new Protestant theology assimilating Buddhist-Confucian symbols had also developed.

　　The "New Buddhists" considered liberal Christianity equal to Shin-Ju-Butsu (Shin-to, Confucianism, and Buddhism) and necessary for critical self-reflection and transformation. It was the Unitarians who were well appreciated by the Buddhists. As rational, scientific thinkers disdaining the "old-time religion," they came "not to convert, but to confer" with the new generation of Buddhists about what would unite rather than divide the two communities. Amid storms of protests from conservatives　and an optimism generated by nationalism, the first Buddhist-Christian dialogue was

p.96

established on September 26, 1896, calling for peaceful coexistence, the beginning of mutual renewal and transformation, and the possible fusion of Buddhist and Christian truths as the basis for a new religiosity for "the Emperor and Empire."

　　The study concludes with an epilogue about those "spiritual encounters" carried over into the Buddhist-Christian dialogue of subsequent years. It discusses: (1) the inability of some Buddhist-Christian institutions to deal with spiritual upheavals and the search for religious alternatives; (2) comparative religion studies as a quest for spiritual renewal and transformation; (3) the philosophical debate on such issues as atheism and theism, transcendence and immanence, selfhood and selflessness, and the Ultimate and dharma; and (4) a liberal missionary interest which recognizes Buddhists as "fellow travelers and truth seekers."　

　　This book fills a gap in Japanese studies and will interest those involved in Buddhist-Christian dialogue, Japanese religious history and culture, comparative philosophical studies, and cross-cultural studies. Written in jargon-free prose, it is a reliable study about those involved in the ushering in of an age of religious dialogue and pluralism.