Masao Takenaka (June 9, 1925 – August 17, 2006) was a Japanese theologian who taught for over 40 years at Doshisha…
Masao Takenaka (June 9, 1925 – August 17, 2006) was a Japanese theologian who taught for over 40 years at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan, where he was a Professor of Christian Ethics and Sociology of Religion. Takenaka was born in Beijing, China in 1925, and lived in China for his first ten years; his father worked for the South Manchuria Railway. He began his studies at Kyoto University, but was drafted into the Japanese army during World War II and sent to Hokkaido. After the war, he completed a degree in business and then studied theology at Doshisha. At the Yale Divinity School in Yale University, he was greatly influenced by H. Richard Niebuhr; he earned his doctorate there in 1955. He returned to Japan, where he became a volunteer leader of the United Church of Christ in Japan, and then served a term as vicar in Kurashiki before joining the Doshisha faculty. Takenaka was a proponent of ecumenism, an opponent of the concept of the divinity of the Emperor of Japan, and (later in his life) a promoter of Christian art. He was honorary president of the Asian Christian Art Association. He also worked to fit Christian theology more closely to indigenous culture in Asia, for instance by defining God as the "rice of life" instead of as the "bread of life".
Famous Japanese People: Christianity
Christianity: 11 people
Kiyoshi Tanimoto (谷本 清, Tanimoto Kiyoshi; June 27, 1909 – September 28, 1986) was a Japanese Methodist minister famous…
Kiyoshi Tanimoto (谷本 清, Tanimoto Kiyoshi; June 27, 1909 – September 28, 1986) was a Japanese Methodist minister famous for his humanitarian work for the Hiroshima Maidens. Tanimoto was a U.S educated Methodist minister who moved to Hiroshima with his wife during the midst of World War II. He survived the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and was one of the six Hiroshima survivors whose experience of the bomb and later life are portrayed in John Hersey's book Hiroshima.
Ōtsuki Takeji (Japanese: 大槻武二; 1906–2004) was the founder of the third largest independent Japanese church, known as…
Ōtsuki Takeji (Japanese: 大槻武二; 1906–2004) was the founder of the third largest independent Japanese church, known as the Holy Ecclesia of Jesus (or Sei Iesu Kai, 聖イエス会). Ōtsuki was born in Ayabe City in 1906, and as a young man converted to Christianity while a student at Dōshisha Middle school, a private mission school in Kyoto. Ōtsuki was attracted to the faith through the evangelistic preaching of Kanamori Michinori during the daily chapel program and went on to receive baptism. Dissatisfied with Dōshisha's "liberal and socialistic" form of Christianity, Ōtsuki found his way into the Japan Holiness Church in 1930. Ōtsuki completed his theological training at the Holiness Bible Seminary in Tokyo and engaged in evangelistic work in several locations around Japan before accepting appointment as a missionary to Manchuria in 1936. It was while serving as a Holiness missionary in Manchuria that Ōtsuki had a "direct encounter with the living Christ," life-transforming experience that was to become the foundation of his independent ministry. While praying in preparation for the New Year Convention (the first Seikai 聖会 or revival meeting of the year) and asking God to send him a guiding motto, he was presented with the words of Jesus from there Sermon on the Mount, "Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God." Ōtsuki explains that his belief in God was beyond question, even though he had never seen God.
Mitsuo Fuchida (淵田 美津雄, Fuchida Mitsuo; 3 December 1902 – 30 May 1976) was a Japanese captain in the Imperial Japanese…
Mitsuo Fuchida (淵田 美津雄, Fuchida Mitsuo; 3 December 1902 – 30 May 1976) was a Japanese captain in the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service and a bomber observer in the Imperial Japanese Navy before and during World War II. He is perhaps best known for leading the first wave of air attacks on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. Working under the fleet commander, Vice Admiral Chūichi Nagumo, Fuchida was responsible for the coordination of the aerial attack. After the war ended, Fuchida became a Christian convert and evangelist, traveling in the United States and Europe to tell his story. He later settled in the U.S. (although never taking American citizenship). Some of Fuchida's wartime claims have been challenged as self-serving by historians, including his claimed advocacy for a third wave attack on Pearl Harbor.
Okamura Fuku (Japanese: 岡村ふく; June 3, 1899 – April 26, 1982), also known as Mother Helen Theresia, was a Japanese Roman…
Okamura Fuku (Japanese: 岡村ふく; June 3, 1899 – April 26, 1982), also known as Mother Helen Theresia, was a Japanese Roman Catholic nun born in the Empire of Japan. In 1944 she was the co-founder, with Fr. Vincent Totsuka Bunkyō (1892–1939, Bunkei Totsuka in some sources), of the Missionary Sisters of St. John the Evangelist, and Sakuramachi hospital. She was listed as the director in the early 1970s. Louis Massignon reported meeting her and her congregation in 1959 when he visited Sakuramachi hospital in Tokyo, and she is listed in his correspondence. In 1963, when she was mother superior, she received a national medal for her work with developmentally disabled people, and her role in founding Sakuramachi hospital with Fr. Totsuka.
Shigeru Nakajima (Japanese: 中島 重, Hepburn: Nakajima Shigeru; May 3, 1888 – May 29, 1946) was a Japanese legal scholar…
Shigeru Nakajima (Japanese: 中島 重, Hepburn: Nakajima Shigeru; May 3, 1888 – May 29, 1946) was a Japanese legal scholar, sociologist, and Christian thinker. His academic specialties were constitutional law, under the tutelage of Tatsukichi Minobe, and political sociology, with a focus on the theory of the state. He served as a professor at Doshisha University and Kwansei Gakuin University. Nakajima is known for introducing the concept of a pluralistic state into Japanese political science and sociology, and for promoting the idea of "Social Christianity" alongside Toyohiko Kagawa.
Yaeko Batchelor (バチェラー八重子; June 13, 1884 – April 29, 1962) was an Ainu waka poet and evangelist.
Nobu Jo (城ノブ, October 18, 1872 – December 20, 1959) was a Japanese Christian philanthropist, based in Kobe. She was…
Nobu Jo (城ノブ, October 18, 1872 – December 20, 1959) was a Japanese Christian philanthropist, based in Kobe. She was head of the Kobe Woman's Welfare Association, and gained international attention in the 1920s for her suicide prevention campaign of signage and personal intervention.
Paul Yachita Tsuchihashi (土橋 八千太, Tsuchihashi Yachita; 4 December 1866 – 3 March 1965) was a Japanese Roman Catholic…
Paul Yachita Tsuchihashi (土橋 八千太, Tsuchihashi Yachita; 4 December 1866 – 3 March 1965) was a Japanese Roman Catholic priest, mathematician, astronomer, Sinologist, lexicographer, academic and administrator. Father Paul is known for having developed extensive tables for converting traditional Japanese era dates into Gregorian calendar equivalents — compare, e.g., Calendrical Time Conversion Table which is derived from a formula for determining the numbered date in the Japanese month.
Fr. Domingos Chōhachi Nakamura (ドミンゴス中村長八; 22 August 1865 – 14 March 1940) was a Catholic missionary and priest from…
Fr. Domingos Chōhachi Nakamura (ドミンゴス中村長八; 22 August 1865 – 14 March 1940) was a Catholic missionary and priest from the Diocese of Nagasaki, Japan. Fr. Nakamura worked as a priest for 26 years in Japan and 17 years in Brazil, where he died in 1940 with a reputation for holiness. He is now a Servant of God.
Uchimura Kanzō (内村 鑑三; 26 March 1861 – 28 March 1930) was a Japanese author, Christian evangelist, and the founder of…
Uchimura Kanzō (内村 鑑三; 26 March 1861 – 28 March 1930) was a Japanese author, Christian evangelist, and the founder of the Nonchurch Movement (Mukyōkai) of Christianity during the Meiji and Taishō periods in Japan. He is often considered to be the most well-known Japanese pre–World War II pacifist.