How Christianity adapted to survive Buddhist Persecution in Japan

Recently the movie Silence appeared in American cinemas to little fanfare despite Martin Scorsese’s name being attached to the project. The 40 million dollar project only netted about 15 million in theaters and is set for home release on March 28, 2017. The movie is based on a historical fiction book by the same name written by Shusaku Endo.

Most Christian scholars and lay people I know didn’t even acknowledge this movie’s existence, unlike Mel Gibson’s The Passion, partly because the few trailers that made their way to advertisement did not portray the religious crisis in a way that would pique curiosity and even fewer knew about or had ready Endo’s novel to be interested in the historical connections. The real story of the Shimabara Rebellion, Hara Castle, Amakusa Shiro, and the Kukure Kirishitans (hidden Christians) can be found in books and amply online. It is one of the most underrepresented periods of Christian history and rarely finds its way into historical survey courses at seminaries and universities primarily because interest in Asian Christianity is so few and far between and Eastern religious courses connected to Japan tend to focus on Taoism, Shintoism, and Buddhism.

What is interesting about Kakure Kirishitans (the emphatic syllabic resemblance to “Christian” is part of the Japanese system of borrowed words, also known in its written style as Katakana) is represented in their art and cultural forms. Despite heavy pressure from the Society of Jesus and Catholic Portuguese missionaries in the sixteenth century to convert the native population of Nagasaki and beyond in exchange for weapons, guns, and tactical assistance during the Edo Period in Japan where warring factions fought for supremacy, the missionaries surprisingly left their Japanese converts to their own customs. Since traditional Shintoism and Buddhism were intricately woven into cultural norms, Christianity was introduced as a form of syncretism among locals and daimyo who did not distinguish religious duty and practice as something superimposed on cultural practices.

When the Takugawa shogunate outlawed Christianity in 1620 and forced many underground, the Japanese Catholics, like their Roman spiritual ancestors before them, found interesting ways to represent their faith. What I wanted to display here were a few photographs I found around the internet during this time with captions about the significance of the object in the photo.

  

Votive altars like the one pictured here were popular among Kakure Kirishitans.  The altar itself resembled the more Japanese kamidana, a small shrine dedicated to an ancestor spirit (mitama). While there are obvious Renaissance images in the shrine's belly that are undeniably European, the structure of the votive was enough to convince authorities of its Japanese utility. 

 

The netsuke was an artistically fashioned carrying pouch that was hung on the belt of a kimono or yukata. The one displayed here is of Jesus. The absence of arms and cross may have likely been intentional so not to draw too much attention in public when worn during the ban of Christianity.

This Buddhist statue has a clever placement of a Christian cross on the back of the statue (murti) hidden from the view of prying eyes.

Perhaps one of my favorite devices for hidden Christian worship was the use of native bosatsu (enlightened beings) as substitutes for Christian figures. Since Catholicism openly supported the role of figurines/statues in worshipful experiences, native Japanese saw similarities and responded accordingly. This statue of the Japanese goddess of mercy, Kannon holds a child. It is actually based on its Chinese counterpart Guanyin. However, Kakure Kirishitans honored the statue as a representation of the virgin Mary. Disguising its true intent as such behind its obvious depiction, the Japanese Christians could openly display such a statue without fear of being revealed as Christians.