Shukyo oyobi bungei (Religion and Literature) : An Aspect of Christianity in the Late Meiji Era

This essay examines the character of a Christian magazine called Shukyo oyobi bungei (Religion and Literature), founded in 1911 by Uemura Masahisa, a leading Japanese Christian of the Meiji era. From 1890, Uemura devoted himself to organizing the Nihon Kirisuto Kyokai (the Japan Christian Church), which achieved the status of a self-supported church in 1908. In the process of its foundation, the Church strategically concentrated on the urban middle class as a target of its mission work. It therefore attracted considerable numbers of urban youth, students in particular. An investigation of the contents of Shukyo oyobi bungei reveals that almost all of its articles discuss theological, philosophical, or religious matters. Furthermore, its news columns and book reviews are dedicated to intellectual issues of that time. This publication was thus more a scholarly journal than a popular magazine. Scholars writing for Shukyo oyobi bungei insisted on the existence of phenomena leading into and/or emerging from Christian faith. Kashiwai En contributed an article about affirming faith through research on religion, and Tanaka Tatsu wrote about being led to belief in Christianity through comparing it to other religious traditions. The influence of Uemura\u27s ideas can be detected in these discussions of the relationship between academia and religion. These assertions, however, should not be ascribed solely to Uemura\u27s intentions. The influence of the magazine\u27s readership, including students, and of social movements such as Shuyo Undo (the Personal Cultivation Movement) was also considerable. The position of youth in the Church was an issue of particular importance. While movements such as Shuyo Undo tended to stress the mystical aspects of religion, Shukyo oyobi bungei insisted that research on religion based in rational investigation was crucial in acquiring faith. The rational standpoint of this magazine should be viewed in relation to the fact that serious theological studies emerged at this time within Japanese Christianity. As the study of philosophy of religion also arose in this period, it can be postulated that there was a growing need for an intellectual explanation of religion. It is therefore concluded that Shukyo oyobi bungei was essentially a scholarly journal, and was a publication that, while influenced by Uemura\u27s ideas on religion and the academy, served as a response to the intellectual and spiritual needs of the youth of this era