The Japanese had no reason to trust Americans after WWII, not Christians, yet very rapidly developed a positive image of them.
I can think of lots of reasons why Japan doesn’t have many Christians. “Because they distrusted Christianity because of American atrocities in WW2” wouldn’t make the list.
You would think a culture that is as shame based as in Japan would have a natural affinity for certain strains of Christianity.
Also, Diogenes would do well to look up the rape of Nanking if he thinks the Japanese had the slightest qualms about separating civilian from military targets. The deaths were in the hundreds of thousands and the rapes in the tens of thousands… all committed one at a time by individual Japanese soldiers. The Japanese considered other races to be sub-species and treated them as such.
The US can fight as cleanly now as has ever been possible in human history because of our technology, character and discipline, yes… but mainly because we have that luxury given the balance of power. WWII was an existential war where hundreds of thousands or millions would die no matter who won and the only concern was making sure as many of those casualties as possible belonged to the enemy and that the end would come as quickly as possible. There was no opting out and there was no turning back. No one born since can really imagine such a war. The world had just freshly learned the lesson of what happens when you do not fully defeat your enemy in WWI and no one was willing to take a chance on round three.
All sides targeted civilian populations. But the Japanese started the war in the Pacific. They set the terms of the conflict with their own behavior and they have absolutely no basis on which to complain that they were treated in kind and in spades. To their credit most of them that I have talked to realize as much. In any case I doubt seriously that their choice of religion was affected by the war given they based much of their culture and economy on western ideas after the conflict. You have to admire them for shedding their insularity and excelling on a more noble battlefield. They attained a much more exalted and powerful status in the business world and in science by emulating us than opposing us and by competing with us than by fighting us. You can argue that they had to engage economically but they didn’t have to adopt so much of our culture, nor we adopt so much of theirs.
You also have to remember in the case of the Japanese that they lived under an emperor who was considered a living god. If someone comes along and defeats your god then where are you going to go next? It might take the edge off your desire for practicing a religion of any sort. I suspect this has much more to do with the lack of Christianity in Japan than some residual and misplaced anger at Christians or the US for what the Japanese ultimately and all but inarguably brought upon themselves in WWII. Certainly to whatever extent they were to use such an excuse in picking their religion they would not be justified in doing so and they should not be lauded for it. As an atheist I would think if they could accept Mickey Mouse into their hearts then they could certainly accept Christ. One had about as much influence as the other on how the war in the Pacific ended.
After early exposure to Christian missionaries from Europe, the Japanese purged Christianity from Japan, and that was the status quo until Japan was reopened to the West in the nineteenth century. Japan is not only less Christian than Korea, it’s less Christian than virtually all it’s neighbors.
The same thing is true for Korea.
Compared to who? Japan (2%) has similar rates to China (1%), Taiwan (4%), and Mongolia (2%). The only non-Korean neighbor they have significantly less than is the Philippines, but that’s hardly surprising. Even Vietnam and Hong Kong, former European colonies, are less than 10% Christian.
Korean Christianity is what needs an explanation. South Korea is the only Asian country that I can think of with a significant Christian population that is not a former European colony.
I’m not convinced that this is a distinction the Japanese would have perceived very well.
I’m quoting a co worker whose wife is Japanese (although she will tell you defiantly she is Okinawan, not Japanese): Japanese are very practical people. They go for whatever religion offers you the most benefits at that particular time.
Of course, having the largest contingency of Christians living in Hiroshima during WWII, did not help.
Vietnam has been under Communist rule for a while, though, and the Communists did their best to suppress all religions, especially Christianity. So what was the percentage of Christians in 1950, for instance?
You’re not counting Armenia and Georgia as Asian? Or Lebanon, which is about 30%.
No idea, but I don’t see why it matters, since even if it was huge I think they could fairly be lumped with the Philippines. Lumpy seemed to be suggesting that Japan is an especially non-Christian nation. It’s not.
Nope. Insert an “East and South” into Asia if you want.
They couldn’t be lumped in with the Philippines, but maybe they could be lumped in with South Korea.
And East Timor is out under the “former colony” rule?
It’s because they pray every time they eat: “Jesus Christ this kimchee is hot”!
I don’t understand. Why would they be closer to Korea than the Philippines?
Is there a reason why it shouldn’t be?
The reason I’m drawing a distinction between the Korean experience and former colonies is that Christianity in the latter countries was foreign driven. In Korea the number of Christians went from 4% to 25% in a period of 25 years as the apparent result of a voluntary, domestic movement. That strikes me a drastically different experience.
The reason a lot of young men “convert” to Christianity during their time in the army is because it means you get to go off base on Sundays and eat snacks after the service. I am not even joking. (Of course there are sincere converts among them.)
As mentioned upthread, the Japanese deified their emperor; Korea did not do the same with their ruler. Christianity appealed to the lower classes with its message that all of us were equal in the eyes of God. Korean Christians also take pride in the fact that the religion took root without too much help from European missionaries - it managed to spread despite the fact that the Chosun dynasty kept its doors closed as tightly as possible to the outside world.
it is my understanding that before dissolution of Japanese empire Christianity was more accepted in Korea (as the religion of the far away civilized Westerners) than in Japan (as the religion of Western enemies and imperialists). Further, prewar Japan had a state religion (the State Shinto) that Christianity was little compatible with, whereas in Japanese ruled Korea Buddhism was not a state religion and was also probably in the state of temporarily decline and loss of repute along with other traditional institutions. Plus, Christianity is a lot more compatible with lackadaisical Buddhism (indeed, to the point of being outwardly pretty similar in beliefs and practices) than with revivalist Shinto that teaches you to live and die for the emperor.
So by the time of Korean War a lot of Korean elite and especially elite-wannabes (i.e. the middle class folks who ended up managing the building up the country from wartime ruins) were Christians.
Conversely, in the North for the same reason Christianity was persecuted more seriously than Buddhism for the same reason, because it was seen as the religion of their enemies in the South.
I’m saying that it’s possible that the number of Christians in Vietnam prior to the Communist suppression might have been close to the number of Christians in South Korea today. But I don’t know that because I don’t have the numbers.
No. It’s just that East Timor is the only overwhelmingly Christian country, except the Philippines, in East/Southeast Asia that I can think of.
Japan massacred civilians on a far more massive scale than the US ever did-we had to get the Japanese to surrender.
In addition there were some cases of US troops accidentally killing Korean civilians in the Korean War.
Actually, it wasn’t Hiroshima; it was Nagasaki. The general neighborhood the second atomic bomb was dropped on was largely Roman Catholic and Urakami Cathedral was quite close to the hypocenter.
I understand from the reading that I have done that this was quite an issue in Nagasaki after the war, that the Catholic cathedral was destroyed and many of the city’s Catholics killed while Suwa Shrine, a large Shinto shrine, suffered only minor damage. Reportedly, many of the area Catholics abandoned the faith after this.
There were some Christians killed at Hiroshima, no question - one of the best-known witness accounts is from a group of German Jesuits (I believe in John Hersey’s ‘Hiroshima’) but that city had nowhere near the concentration of Christians that Nagasaki did.
Actually Nagasaki, surely, as the centre of Christianity in Japan? Notably Roman Catholicism.
Japan attacked more than military targets. It’s true that with respect to Americans they confined their attacks to mostly military targets, but many American civilians were imprisoned during the war by the Imperial govt. The Japanese were ever bit as brutal to the Chinese as the Nazis were to the Slavs and the Jews, they just were not fanatical in their desire to exterminate them. Casually they slaughtered millions of Chinese.
Japan does trust America, as we are still their closest military ally. They like us so much that their porn features people who look distinctly like a cross between Asians and Caucasian, with the emphasis being on Caucasian.
That’s as may be, but you if you’re firebombing a city you shouldn’t expect the populace to adopt your religion out of gratitude.