Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic

by Sidney Lewis Gulick

Another point of interest is that, in consequence of official pressure, the religious character of a large number of the people seems to have undergone a radical change. The ordinary traveler in Japan would not suspect that phallicism had ever been a prominent feature of Japanese religious life. Only an inquisitive seeker can now find the slightest evidences of this once popular cult. Here we have an apparent change in the character of a people sudden and complete, induced almost wholly by external causes. It shows that the previous characteristic was not so deeply rooted in the physical or spiritual nature of the race as many would have us believe. Can we escape the conclusion that national characteristics are due much more to the circle of dominant ideas and actual practices, than to the inherent race nature?

The way in which phallicism has been suppressed during the present era raises the general question of religious liberty in Japan. In this respect, no less than in many others, a change has taken place so great as to amount to a revolution. During two hundred and fifty years Christianity was strictly forbidden on pain of extreme penalties. In 1872 the edict against Christianity was removed, free preaching was allowed, and for a time it seemed as if the whole nation would become Christian in a few decades; even non-Christians urged that Christianity be made the state religion. What an amazing volte-face! Religious liberty is now guaranteed by the constitution promulgated in 1888. There are those who assert that until Christianity invaded Japan, religious freedom was perfect; persecutions were unknown. This is a mistake. When Buddhism came to Japan, admission was first sought from the authorities, and for a time was refused. When various sects arose, persecutions were severe. We have seen how belief in Christianity was forbidden under pain of death for more than two hundred and fifty years. Under this edict, many thousand Japanese Christians and over two hundred European missionaries were put to death. Yet, on the whole, it may be said that Old Japan enjoyed no little religious freedom. Indeed, the same man might worship freely at all the shrines and temples in the land. To this day multitudes have never asked themselves whether they are Shinto or Buddhist or Confucianist. The reason for this religious eclecticism was the fractional character of the old religions; they supplemented each other. There was no collision between them in doctrine or in morals. The religious freedom was, therefore, not one of principle but of indifference. As Rome was tolerant of all religions which made no exclusive claims, but fiercely persecuted Christianity, so Japan was tolerant of the two religions that found their way into her territory because they made no claims of exclusiveness. But a religion that demanded the giving up of rivals was feared and forbidden.

New Japan, however, following Anglo-Saxon example, has definitely adopted religious freedom as a principle. First tacitly allowed after the abolition of the edict against Christianity in 1872, it was later publicly guaranteed by the constitution promulgated in 1888. Since that date there has been perfect religious liberty for the individual.

Yet this statement must be carefully guarded. If we may judge from some recent decrees of the Educational Department, it would appear that a large and powerful section of the nation is still ignorant of the real nature and significance of "religious liberty." Under the plea of maintaining secular education, the Educational Department has forbidden informal and private Christian teaching, even in private schools. An adequate statement of the present struggle for complete religious liberty would occupy many pages. We note but one important point.

In the very act of forbidding religious instruction in all schools the Educational Department is virtually establishing a brand-new religion for Japan, a religion based on the Imperial Educational Edict.[^[CF]] The essentially religious nature of the attitude taken by the government toward this Edict has become increasingly clear in late years. In the summer of 1898 one who has had special opportunities of information told me that Mr. Kinoshita, a high official in the Educational Department, suggested the ceremonial worship of the Emperor's picture and edict by all the schools, for the reason that he saw the need of cultivating the religious spirit of reverence together with the need for having religious sanctions for the moral law. He felt convinced that a national school system without any such sanctions would be helpless in teaching morality to the pupils. His suggestion was adopted by the Educational Department and has been enforced.

In this attitude toward the religious character of entirely private schools, the government is materially abridging the religious liberty of the people. It is abridging their liberty of carrying belief into action in one important respect, that, namely, of giving a Christian education. It virtually insists on the acceptance of that form of religion which apotheosizes the Emperor, and finds the sanctions for morality in his edict; it excludes from the schools every other form of religion. It should, of course, be said that this attitude is maintained not only toward Christian schools, but theoretically also toward all religious schools. It, however, operates more severely on Christian schools than upon others, because Christians are the only ones who establish high-grade schools for secular education under religious influences.

It is evident, therefore, that in the matter of religious liberty the present attitude of the government is paradoxical, granting in one breath, what, in an important respect, it denies in the next. But throughout all these changes and by means of them we see more and more clearly that even religious tolerance is a matter of the prevailing social ideas and of the dominant social order, rather than of inherent race character. By a single transformation of the social order, Japan passed from a state of perfect religious intolerance to one just the reverse, so far as individual belief was concerned.

Taking a comprehensive review of our study thus far, we see that the forms of Japanese religious life have been determined by the history, rather than by any inherent racial character of the people. Although they had a religion prior to the coming of any external influence, yet they have proved ready disciples of the religions of other lands. The religion of India, its esoteric, and especially its exoteric forms, has found wide acceptance and long-continued popularity. The higher life of the nation readily took on in later times the religious characteristics of the Chinese, predominantly ethical, it is true, and only slightly religious as to forms of worship. When Roman Catholic Christianity came to Japan in the sixteenth century, it, too, found ready acceptance. It is true that it presented a view of the nature of religion not very different from that held by Buddhism in many respects, yet in others there was a marked divergence, as for instance, in the doctrine of God, of individual sin, and of the nature and method of salvation. The Japanese have thus shown themselves ready assimilators of all these diverse systems of religious expression. Just at present a new presentation of Christianity is being made to the Japanese; some are urging upon them the acceptance of the Roman Catholic form of it; others are urging the Greek; and still others are presenting the Protestant point of view. Each of these groups of missionaries seems to be reaping good harvests. Speaking from my own experience, I may say, that many of the Japanese show as great an appreciation of the essence of the religious life, and find the ideas and ideals, doctrines and ceremonies, of Christianity as fitted to their heart's deepest needs, as do any in the most enlightened parts of Christendom. It is true that the Christian system is so opposed to the Buddhistic and Shinto, and in some respects to the Confucian, that it is an exceedingly difficult matter at the beginning to give the Buddhist or Shintoist any idea of what Christianity is. Yet the difficulty arises not from the structure of the brain, nor from the inherent race character, but solely from the diversity of hitherto prevailing systems of thought. When once the passage from the one system of thought to the other has been effected, and the significance of the Christian system and life has been appreciated,—in other words, when the Japanese Buddhist or Shintoist or Confucianist has become a Christian,—he is as truly a Christian and as faithful as is the Englishman or American.

Of course I do not mean to say that he looks at every doctrine and at every ceremony in exactly the same way as an Englishman or American. But I do say that the different point of view is due to the differing social and religious history of the past and the differing surroundings of the present, rather than to inherent racial character or brain structure. The Japanese are human beings before they are Japanese.

For these reasons have I absolute confidence in the final acceptance of Christianity by the Japanese. There is no race characteristic in true Christianity that bars the way. Furthermore, the very growth of the Japanese in recent years, intellectually and in the reorganization of the social order, points to their final acceptance of Christianity and renders it necessary. The old religious forms are not satisfying the religious needs of to-day. And if history proves anything, it proves that only the religion of Jesus can do this permanently. Religion is a matter of humanity, not of nationality. It is for this reason that the world over, religions, though of so many forms, are still so much alike. And it is because the religion of Jesus is pre-eminently the religion of humanity and has not a trace of exclusive nationality about it, that it is the true religion, and is fitted to satisfy the deepest religious wants of the most highly developed as well as the least developed man of any and every race and nation. In proportion as man develops, he grows out of his narrow surroundings, both physical and mental and even moral; he enters a larger and larger world. The religious expressions of his nature in the local provincial and even national stages of his life cannot satisfy his larger potential life. Only the religion of humanity can do this. And this is the religion of Jesus. The white light of religion, no less than that of scientific truth, has no local or national coloring. Perfect truth is universal, eternal, unchangeable. Occidental or Oriental colorations are in reality defects, discolorations.