An impression of J. F. Howes's Japan's Modern Prophet.

Hiroshi, Shibuya

The theme of Howes's book is the psychological observation of Uchimura as a teacher and writer, not as an evangelist. Professor Howes says that "one sees in Uchimura's life a classic study of the psychological implications that attend commitment to the religious life" (395). Moreover, he adds, "This study introduces Uchimura's spiritual odyssey as a teacher and writer" (1). But as Uchimura commits deeply to Christianity, the author has to try to understand his religious logic. However, it is not necessarily inevitable that he follow faithfully after Uchimura's spiritual pilgrimage; the necessary understanding is enough for the grasp of the process of development of an impressive individual character in Uchimura, who was one of the representative intellectuals of modern Japan. He was indeed a modern Japanese with an intense individuality. The author succeeds in depicting its intensity.

Nevertheless, these questions might be posed: whether the orientation of the Christian Uchimura's life can be rightly grasped when the author's concern is in drawing out the spiritual pilgrimage of Uchimura not as a Christian but as an ordinary Japanese; and, as a result, whether even the grasp of Uchimura as an ordinary Japanese does not have a certain danger of losing its depth. Two instances will be cited.

Firstly, the problem of Uchimura's conversion; that is a most delicate spiritual and psychological process for him both as a Christian and as an ordinary Japanese. In March 1884, he married Take, a woman educated in the two famous mission schools for girls. In those days, it meant she had received the highest level of women's education in Japan. She and her husband began to live with his parents according to an age-old custom. Before long there occurred a sharp confrontation between Take and her mother-in-law, who was a nervous, old-fashioned woman. In the conflict, which was growing stormy, Uchimura finally stood on the side of his mother, and Take left his house. The Christian community of Early Meiji Japan in which Uchimura and Take were promising young leaders was quite young and small. Therefore, their divorce was no minor scandal for that community.

The letters between the end of 1884 and that of 1885 show Uchimura had been stirred up by a sense of sin. But what kind of sin? It seems the sin was understood in terms of Confucianism during at least the early days of his stay in America. In the Confucian ethical system, the cornerstone is filial duty. Standing on this foundation, he affirmed, "If such a Biblical expression that man should leave his parents and cling to his wife is taken literally, a great damage must fall upon humanness and the world" (36-151; New Works, vol. 36, p. 151). The author, however, questions and answers: Why did Uchimura feel so driven by sin? Christian confessional writings so take for granted this condition that readers tend to accept Uchimura's experience as but one more example of a common phenomenon. Yet depth psychology indicates the important role that consciousness of sin may play in masking more specific concerns. Little in How I Became a Christian would indicate that Uchimura had particular cause for such feelings ... In the absence of direct statement on this crisis, one must depend on scattered references, most of which appear in three Japanese works. They indicate that the sense of sin originated in the conflicting loyalties that Kanzo felt to his mother and Take. (105)

The plots of the author are sometimes not a little complicated, especially in important themes such as those of sin and mukyokai. Correctly, he does not put full credit on How I Became as an accurate autobiography, because it takes no account of the divorce problem. If you avoid this problem and write a life of Uchimura, "readers tend to accept Uchimura's experience as but one more example of a common phenomenon," as did the readers of his biographies published before the new edition of his complete works appeared. The old editions excluded some letters to his father owing to their too strong expressions of feeling against Take. The new edition restored all of them. I think the author would have done better to have used the restored letters as material. But he says, "They indicate that the sense of sin originated in the conflicting loyalties that Kanzo felt to his mother and to Take." Loyalties to his mother and to Take? Suggesting that this is the split of loyalties from which Uchimura's feelings of sin spouted? Uchimura himself, however, declared to his father at home, "I am never afraid concerning ... this point [of divorce] even if I am called before the Heavenly Father" (3-122). This audacious declaration that was erased from the old edition seems to deny the possibility of Uchimura's loyalty to Take.

I said the sin, for the young Uchimura was understood in terms of Confucianism. Namely, the sin was failure of filial duty owing to his "wandering" in America. While this interpretation is not entirely mistaken, "depth psychology" will indicate another construction. Frustrated amour-propre; it was for him a source of feeling of sin, at least between October 1884 and a certain day in the first half of 1886. Uchimura in his youthful days was called a genius and was watched as a future leader of the Japanese Christian society, so his pride grew higher than others. When this pride was turned upside down by the divorce, he sank deep to the bottom of shame. This depression was the source of the feeling of sin. Indeed, it may be a rather common human mode of life, but especially more common in Ruth Benedict's world of "shame culture." It was at Amherst College, with President J. H. Seelye's excellent pastoral advices, that Uchimura was taught to the quick that self-love is sin, and that that sin was redeemed only by Christ. And it was after this experience of conversion that he recovered from depression. For me, the most impressive words of the author concerning Uchimura's conversion are thus: "At one time, Uchimura recalled in later life, he had written of his second conversion in America but had burned the manuscript [in 1895] in dejection with the English-language remonstrance to God that 'Thou has [sic] deceived me'" (108). The author seems to negate the significance of conversion in Uchimura's life. It is one of the cruxes in his book for the readers to solve. In fact, maybe, this sort of crux would dissolve if the author, who could not be supposed to be internally indifferent to Uchimura's most precious axiom of belief, should shake off a little of his indifference and express a bit of sympathy for Uchimura.

Secondly, the other problem I would like to single out is that of "Two J's" (Jesus and Japan, the two objects of Uchimura's love); I think this one has relation to mukyokai. "In this way," the author says, "the ultimate result of faith for the patriotic Christian is responsibility for one's nation's acts. The faithful should make their convictions known. When they do, evangelism becomes an imperative of true patriotism. Faith alone is not enough" (235). The author does not employ Uchimura's phrase, "Two J's," in place of which "patriotic Christian" is used in the quotation above. Those sentences bear a radical criticism of Uchimura's "Two J's."

However, the "faith alone" principle belongs to the soteriology while "patriotic Christian" belongs to the ecclesiology. Discussing two principles, each of which belongs to different sections of doctrine on the same dimension, only invites confusion. Of course we can first of all discuss which of the two subjects belongs to more basic doctrine. To this question, Uchimura himself gives the answer in the form of an unprinted manuscript without the signature and the date. This memorandum may be a kind of testament, presumably written shortly before his death. In this paper, Uchimura says, "My Mukyokai-shugi [mukyokai-ism] was not principle for principle's sake. It was a principle for faith. I advocated it as a result of the belief that a man is not justified by the works but by the faith.... The faith in the Cross was the first principle; Mukyokaishugi was the second or the third principle.... Not for winning the churches' favor but to clean my standpoint, I will say this; I am not a believer in Mukyokai of today's fashion" (32-347).

According to Uchimura, as the visible churches are historically built organizations, they have historical and national characters; and mukyokai-type fellowship is best suitable to the Japanese religiosity. Then, in Uchimura's view, nationalism is tightly connected with ecclesiology, as mentioned above. However, here he gives priority to soteriology over ecclesiology.

The author, too, shows interest in this "testament"; interest not in comparing soteriology with ecclesiology but in Uchimura's "disassociation from mukyokaishugi." He says, "Uchimura's final act of independence, his disassociation from mukyokaishugi, seems to date from these days in January [1930]. Uchimura wrote the undated manuscript that would cause such a stir.... It would announce Uchimura's final renunciation" (377). Again I am afraid the author's view of this might invite readers' misunderstanding. Uchimura renounced not Mukyokaishugi in general, but just that of today's fashion, namely that which gave priority to ecclesiology over soteriology. It was a tragedy that he who was advocating "fashionable" mukyokai was Tsukamoto Toraji. He was Uchimura's brightest disciple, like Martin Luther's Philipp Melanchthon or John Calvin's Theodore Beza. And to tell the truth, it would not be possible to say that Tsukamoto's theory was in fashion among the mukyOkai group in about 1930. Uchimura was an ironist of Carlylean style. In his journalist days, he had been a great success owing to skillful application of this sort of irony. Therefore we must take care that we should not be carried off our feet by Uchimura's ironies. It is a point of skill on which Uchimura students are tested.

doi: 10.1017/S0009640709000092

Shibuya Hiroshi

Emeritus, Meiji-gakuin University, Tokyo