The Gist of Japan: The Islands, Their People, and Missions

by R. B. Peery

XIV

HINDRANCES

Many of the hindrances that oppose the progress of Christianity in Japan have already been indirectly suggested in other portions of this book. But that they may be more clearly apprehended by the friends of missions at home, and that the effect of their militating influence may be fully felt, we will endeavor in this chapter to arrange them in order and show just how they oppose our work. For the sake of clearness and logical order we will consider the subject under two divisions: 1. Hindrances in Japan common to all mission fields; 2. Hindrances peculiar to Japan.

1. There are certain things inherent in the very nature of Christianity that impede her progress. They are necessities of her being, and cannot be gotten rid of. These things may be either a part of Christianity herself, belonging to her nature, or they may be necessary results of her acceptance by non-Christian peoples. For this reason they are encountered wherever the gospel is propagated; they are common hindrances to the advance of our faith alike in China, India, Africa, and Japan.

Although not peculiar to Japan, it seems to me wise briefly to refer to these universal hindrances, because often they are not realized in their full force and power either by the people of our home churches or even by our pastors. To appreciate fully their militating influence one must go to the mission field, and there observe them actually hindering the rapid progress of evangelization. There they are seen in a new light, and are impressed upon the mind as they can hardly be otherwise. If I can succeed in causing the constituency of the churches at home to realize the number, magnitude, and power of these hindrances I will have done good service for the cause of missions.

As the first one of these universal militating influences, inherent in the very nature of missions, opposing the progress of Christianity wherever its teachings are newly propagated, I would mention its revolutionizing tendency. Christian missions are in their nature revolutionizing. The result is inevitable and unavoidable. The advance of Christianity in a heathen land necessitates the revolutionizing of many institutions that have obtained for centuries. Not only must the religious ideas undergo a revolution, but all moral ideas, and manners and customs as well. The reasons for this are very evident.

Religion is intimately connected with the life of man. It furnishes the motive power of his life, controls his actions, creates his morality, determines his manners and customs, and shapes his laws. The ethnic religions are just as intimately interwoven with the lives of their adherents as Christianity is with the lives of Christians; and Buddhism, Confucianism, and Brahmanism have shaped and determined the lives and actions of their adherents.

The connection between religion and morality is a necessary and indissoluble one. The two are united in their growth and development, and the form of morality is necessarily colored by the dominant religion. Wherever the Buddhist faith has been accepted there has sprung up a system of morality peculiar to it; so that we speak of a Buddhistic in opposition to a Christian morality. This morality is dependent upon the religion, and a change of religion must bring about a change of morality.

Christianity, having necessarily developed a morality in accord with its principles, must, as it advances, destroy the existing systems and create widely different ones. While the better element in heathen nations has more or less outgrown its religious ideas and superstitions, and can calmly contemplate a change of religion, yet its moral system has a stronger hold, and anything which antagonizes it is severely condemned. This necessary revolutionizing of moral ideas very much opposes the progress of Christianity.