What does it mean to be a Christian nationalist in Meiji Japan?: Religion, nationalism and the state

Abstract

The article aims to better understand Christian nationalism by investigating the cases of Uchimura Kanzō and Nitobe Inazō, two well-known Christians of Meiji Japan. In Meiji Japan, Christianity was a recently re-introduced and foreign faith which was not aligned with the Japanese way of life. However, both Uchimura and Nitobe converted to Christianity in their youth and dedicated their life to the development of Japan. The article investigates what made this possible. It pays particular attention to the relationship between politics and religion and the Meiji government’s attempts to adopt the western view of the relationship to the nascent Japanese state. It argues that the invention of state Shintō as a non-religion but an indispensable part of the Japanese polity by the Meiji government created space where Christian faith and Japanese nationalism could co-exist, the space which was increasingly squeezed as Meiji turned to Taishō and then to Shōwa.