A Disastrous Rebellion

December 17, 1637, was the beginning of a terrible time for Christianity in Japan. Even though it was 380 years ago, a rebellion of some Christians that started then had repercussions that lasted for centuries—and there’s some similarity of erroneous beliefs then to those of some Christians now.

The Christian Century in Japan

The introduction of Christianity into Japan began with the arrival of Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier on the shores of southern Kyushu (the southernmost major island) in August 1549. As a result of his remarkable influence, and that of other missionaries who came later, a sizeable number of Japanese people in southern Japan became Christians.

The number and influence of Japanese Christians in the decades following 1549 led to the designation of that period as “the Christian century in Japan.” (The British historian C.R. Boxer published a book with that title in 1951.)

By the 1630s, some estimates say that there were as many as 750,000 Christians in Japan—or about half as many as now and, of course, a much larger percentage than now.

The growth in the number of Christian believers did not last for a century, though. The disastrous rebellion of 1637-38 reduced the number of openly professed Christians to almost zero—and it also resulted in Japan being completely closed to Christianity, and to most of the Western world, for some 220 years.

The Shimabara Rebellion

A British historian's 2016 book

Shimabara is the name of a peninsula in Nagasaki Prefecture, and the historical events that began there on Dec. 17, 1637, and lasted until April 15, 1638, are usually called the Shimabara Rebellion. 

That disastrous rebellion was primarily by Christians. It was largely due not to religious motives as much as to widespread dissatisfaction with overtaxation and the suffering caused by famine conditions in the area.

Amakusa Shirō, a charismatic 16-year-old youth was chosen as the rebellion’s leader. He was considered by local Christians as “heaven’s messenger,” and miraculous powers were attributed to him.

As the shogunate troops began to gather in Shimabara in a concerted effort to put down the rebellion, the rebels holed up in Hara Castle—and the troop’s siege of the castle lasted until April, when the resistance was finally broken and destroyed.

(The ruins of Hara Castle are about 40 miles east of Nagasaki City.)

It is said that some 37,000 rebels (men, women, and children) were beheaded at the end of that disastrous rebellion.

This was in spite of the hope/belief of Amakusa and some of his followers that this was going to be a Japanese “battle of Armageddon”—the time for the intervention of God and the beginning of God’s heavenly kingdom.

Apocalyptic Fervor Then and Now

The German Peasants’ War of 1524-25 and the Münster Rebellion (also in Germany) of 1534-35 were earlier “Christian” rebellions that shared similar characteristics to the Shimabara Rebellion. There were apocalyptic overtones, or underpinnings, to each of those rebellions also.

The leaders of both of those earlier rebellions believed that violence was sanctioned by God and was necessary to establish God’s new world order. But the rebels in both Germany and Japan learned by sad experience that those who take the sword die by the sword.

Now, there are those who see DJT’s Dec. 6 recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in apocalyptic terms. For example, consider this Dec. 11 article: “Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem excites apocalyptic fervor.”

DJT’s “spiritual adviser” Paula White says that “evangelicals are ecstatic” at the decision to move Israel’s capital to Jerusalem, for that means Jesus’ Second Coming is nearer.

But might this be the beginning of another disaster similar to but far, far worse than the Shimabara Rebellion?

A Weird Experience

Yesterday, August 9, was the 72^nd anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. I remember well being in Nagasaki and at the ceremony marking the 37^th anniversary of that tragic event. That was just five days after I—and June and our two younger children—had been through a weird experience.

The Return Home to Japan

Our family’s third missionary furlough was in 1981-82. When we left Missouri to return to our home in Japan on July 17, we said goodbye to our two grown children and made the trip back to Fukuoka City with our daughter Karen (12) and son Ken (10).

Before having time to get settled back into our mission residence, we left for the annual meeting of the Japan Baptist Mission at the retreat center south of Mt. Fuji. We got back home on August 2 and were still trying to get our house back in order in the days following.

On August 4, I had a telephone call from a former student whom I knew fairly well. He had audited one of my classes at the seminary and had even been in our home for a Christmas party for students.

M.-san called because he wanted to come by for a visit. Even though we were not ready for visitors, he was rather insistent and I reluctantly agreed for him to come that evening.  

The Stabbing

When M.-san arrived, he was carrying a bag and a baseball bat. After just a few minutes, I realized that he was clearly mentally “off.” I soon told him I needed to end the visit and said I would drive him to the nearby train station so he could go home. Then I intended to contact his mother and urge her to get her son medical help.

M.-san then asked me to pray for him—as he had done the last time I had seen him. Just before we had left for the States in 1981, I happened to meet M.-san walking across the campus at Seinan Gakuin University, and he asked me to pray for him—which I did then and there.

This time, because of his mental state—and because of the baseball bat!—I prayed with my eyes open, focused on him.

After the prayer I went back to the bedroom to get some socks. When I came back, he was standing by the front door, but he didn’t have his bag or bat with him. I looked back and saw his bag in the room where we had talked. When I turned back toward him, he struck me on the chin with a long knife.

I quickly grabbed his wrist and took the knife from him—and he began to apologize repeatedly. I had felt little pain but the floor was sprinkled with blood, so I told M.-san to leave because I had to go to the emergency room. I didn’t know how badly I had been injured.

As it turned out, the knife blow, which had doubtlessly been intended for my throat, had glanced off the bottom of my chin and cut me there and on the top of my chest. A few stitches was all that was needed. June credited my beard with saving my life, as it largely concealed his target.  

The Aftermath

The next day, M.-san’s mother came to our home with a huge bouquet of flowers and apologized profusely for what her son had done. We felt so sorry for her.

Then on Aug. 7, as previously planned, we left for a short trip to Nagasaki, staying with missionary friends there. We went to the memorial ceremony on the morning of Aug. 9, mourning with the large crowd gathered in sadness because of the death and devastation caused by the atomic bombing of that city on that date in 1945.

In the meantime, M.-san had been found by the police and taken into custody. He was later incarcerated in a mental prison facility—and died there (probably at his own hand) the following year.

My experience is only one example of a huge problem: not being able to detect and to treat mental illness before weird, or truly tragic, events occur.

In Memory of Dr. Nagai

Some of you readers of this blog know Kathy Laffoon, my oldest daughter. Kathy and her family moved to Liberty in 2008 when she took a job as a gifted education teacher in the Liberty Public School. In the last few years she has been working with many of her middle school students doing National History Day (NHD) projects—and in recent years I have been a resource person or a mentor for some of those students.

This year two of Kathy’s students teamed up to do a NHD project on Dr. Takashi Nagai, who died 65 years ago on May 1, 1951.

I enjoyed meeting with those two boys a few times in connection with their project, and I was impressed to see how interested they were in learning about Nagai. They made a webpage (link to it here) in order to introduce him to other people.

Some of you may remember my mentioning Dr. Nagai in articles I posted on this blog last August. (See here and here.) He was a doctor who was teaching at the medical college in Nagasaki, Japan, at the time the atomic bomb was dropped on that city on August 9, 1945.

Nagai’s research specialty was radiology, and he had already contracted leukemia from his exposure to radiation. And then he was seriously injured by the bomb.

In spite of his illness and injuries, though, Nagai worked tirelessly to give medical assistance to many who were injured by the explosion and also to those who suffered long term health problems because of what came to be known as “radiation sickness.”

From July 1946 until his death, Nagai was confined to bed. He spent much of his time writing, and his best known and most powerful book is Bells of Nagasaki. He finished writing that book in 1946 but did not get permission from the American Occupation officials to publish it until 1949.

The English translation of Nagai’s book was published in 1994. It was done by William Johnston, an Irish-born Catholic missionary who arrived in Japan just in time to attend Nagai’s funeral in 1951.

The title of Nagai’s book refers to the bells of Urakami Cathedral, which at the time was the largest Christian church in Asia. Nagai was a member of that church, and, of course, grieved greatly at its destruction. It was very near the epicenter of the atomic explosion, and some of its remains can still be seen in the Nagasaki Peace Park.

In 1947, local Catholics built a simple two-tatami (about 36 sq. ft.) teahouse-like structure for Nagai. He named it Nyokodo (literally “As-Yourself Hall,” after Jesus’ words, “Love your neighbor as yourself”).

While bed-fast there in what he considered his hermitage, Nagai was visited many notable people, such as Helen Keller in 1948. The following year he was also visited there by Emperor Hirohito and by Cardinal Gilroy, as the emissary of Pope Pius XII.

Dr. Nagai with his children in Nyokodo

Many years ago I went with some of my Seinan Gakuin University students to visit Nyokodo, which with the addition of a library had become the Nagasaki City Nagai Takashi Memorial Museum in 1952. My visit there was before the English translation of Nagai’s book was published, and I hadn’t taken the time to read it in Japanese. Consequently, I didn’t appreciate it as much then as I would now.

If you would like to read more about Dr. Nagai, I recommend Paul Glynn’s fine book A Song for Nagasaki (1988), which Kathy’s students found to be very helpful in preparing their National History Day project.

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INTERVIEW WITH DR. NAGAI

Here is the link to a 5-minute radio interview with Dr. Nagai that was broadcast nationwide in Japan on Aug. 9, 1950. The interview is in Japanese, of course, but there is a brief English explanation worth reading. And those of you who can’t understand Japanese might still enjoy hearing his voice.

Hiroshima / Nagasaki

This week is the 70^th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many of you will see/hear mention made of this noteworthy anniversary in the public media, but please consider with me some of the facts and interpretations of those tragic events.

The first ever atomic bomb dropped in warfare was at 8:15 (local time) on the morning of August 6, 1945. Although not nearly as many people were killed that day as in the firebombing of Tokyo on March 9-10, the use of the atomic bomb ushered in a terrible new age of warfare. The firebombing of Tokyo was carried out by 279 airplanes, but in Hiroshima one bomb dropped from one airplane instantly killed from 70,000 to 80,000 people. And unlike the bombs up until this time, the atomic bombs caused “radiation sickness” that resulted in the death of more people than were killed instantly.

Just three days later, on August 9, shortly after 11:00 a.m. the second atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. About 40,000 people died there that day. The combined death toll from the two bombs, however, was considerably over 200,000 by the end of 1945.

After all these years, the debate about the use of those two atomic bombs continues. Last month I heard a talk by American historian Richard Frank at the Truman Library in Independence. Frank, author of Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire (1999), was emphatic in his insistence that both atomic bombs were completely necessary for ending the Pacific War.

By contrast, Australian historian Paul Ham concludes his book Hiroshima, Nagasaki: The Real Story of the Atomic Bombings and Their Aftermath (2011) with these words:

At the time of war, people will applaud any story their government feeds them. Americans continue to swear blind [sic] that the bombs alone ended the war; that they were America’s ‘least abhorrent’ choice. These are plainly false propositions, salves to uneasy consciences over what was actually done on 6 and 9 August 1945 when, under a summer sky without warning, hundreds of thousands of civilian men, women and children felt the sun fall on their heads (p. 510).

Takashi Nagai (1908-1951)

One of the most intriguing personal accounts of a survivor of the bombings is that left by Takashi Nagai, a medical doctor and professor at the Nagasaki Medical College near the epicenter of the atomic explosion. His first-hand account is found in The Bells of Nagasaki (Japanese, 1949; English, 1984).

Paul Glynn’s Song for Nagasaki (1989) is an excellent biography about Dr. Nagai. Reading the experiences of this devout Christian doctor gives a much different perspective of the atomic bomb from what is usually heard in this country.

Fortunately, no nuclear device has been used in military action since 1945, and for that we can be most grateful. But vigilance is required by the peoples of the world. Perhaps the most frightening realization is that both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons—and most probably Israel as well.

And a large number of nukes still remain in Russia--and in the arsenal of Pres. Putin. The Federation of American Scientists reports that Russia now has a stockpile of approximately 4,500 nuclear warheads, including nearly 1,800 strategic warheads deployed on missiles and at bomber bases. And the U.S., the only country to drop atomic bombs in warfare, has about 4,760 with 2,080 deployed.

So, as we think back to the horrors of 1945, let’s continue to cry out with people of conscience around the world, No More Hiroshimas, No More Nagasakis!

"The Bells of Nagasaki"

The Bells of Nagasaki by Takashi Nagai

I planned to finish reading this book on August 9, for the book starts on August 9, 1945--but I finished reading it today, the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Dr. Nagai gives a first-hand account of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, where he was a doctor on duty at the nearby Nagasaki University Medical School.

Dr. Nagai (1908-51) was a Christian and a member of the Urakami Catholic Church--the largest church in East Asia--that was destroyed by the bomb. One of the most striking parts of the book is his "Funeral Address for the Victims of the Atomic Bomb." In one amazing paragraph in that address Dr. Nagai asks, rhetorically,

"Is there not a profound relationship between the destruction of Nagasaki and the end of the war? Nagasaki, the only holy place in all Japan--was it not chosen as a victim, a pure lamb, to be slaughtered and burned on the altar of sacrifice to expiate the sins committed by humanity in the Second World War?" (p. 107).

Dr. Nagai completed his book in August 1946, just a year after the bombing, but it was not published until 1949. The book was translated by William Johnston, an Irish Catholic missionary to Japan, and published in English in 1984. Father Johnston (b. 1936) also wrote a very insightful introduction to the book. Several years earlier he translated Shusaku Endo's powerful book Silence, and he has also written several books on mysticism.