AHC: Xavier converts Japan

Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is making Francis Xavier manage to Christianise Japan, or part of Japan.

Bonus points awarded if:
- Japan becomes a Portuguese protectorate;
- Portugal manages to colonise and keep the Moluccan Islands and the city of Canton;
- Mozambique becomes a small African colony, while Cape the Good Hope is colonised (i.e. Portuguese Cape Colony).
- Portugal colonises Bahrein and/or Mombassa and Zanzibar
- Tanegashima and Nagasaki become Portuguese (like Goa and Macao: long-lasting colonisation)

Those are all options to make Portugal more of a word power into the Early Modern period. You can choose which ones fit, if any of them is possible at all. The main point remains that Francis Xavier converts Japan.

(By the way, I know Xavier was Navarrese and not Portuguese, but you could have him work for the Portuguese etc.)
 
Christianity was quite popular in Japan for a while, so butterfly away the Sakoku and you might see the country becoming majority Christian. Japan becoming a Portuguese protectorate is pretty ASB, though, since they've got no reason to do so voluntarily and logistics would preclude their being forced.
 
The thing is, Shinto beliefs are so deeply ingrained in the Japanese cultural identity to the point where worship of the Kami is not really a religion so much as it is part of simply being Japanese. If Japan does convert, I would imagine that Japanese Christianity would still retain a good deal of Shinto practices and belief in the Kami, perhaps re-envisioned as angels/demons/saints, etc.
 
You could certainly get a larger Christian minority and maybe even get a Daimyo to convert (though to what degree he'd actually believe is questionable), but getting all or a majority of Japan to do so is not particularly plausible.
 
The thing is, Shinto beliefs are so deeply ingrained in the Japanese cultural identity to the point where worship of the Kami is not really a religion so much as it is part of simply being Japanese. If Japan does convert, I would imagine that Japanese Christianity would still retain a good deal of Shinto practices and belief in the Kami, perhaps re-envisioned as angels/demons/saints, etc.

Well if Christianity was more willing to be flexible it is possible. Look at Buddhism, the dominant religion in Japan for centuries. It existed side by side with Shinto, even being able to merge a bit. So if the Church is willing to give a bit, maybe not saying anything one way or the other about Shinto (which considering the Church at the time might be the easiest thing to do) then they could gain more support, at least among the nobility and Daimyo.

Also I remember reading that Oda Nobunaga supported Christianity to weaken the Buddhist warrior monks, so maybe a longer lived Oda would make a more Christian Japan possible.

As to being a Portuguese protectorate, that's ASB. Japan wasn't a weak country like the various Indian principalities or African tribal nations or other Asian countries. It may have been in the middle of the warring states era, but if it looks like Portugal is going to send troops to Japan in force, I'd bet that you'd see a ceasefire and temporary unification to fight the invaders, even if the Daimyo go straight back to fighting each other later.
 
Well if Christianity was more willing to be flexible it is possible. Look at Buddhism, the dominant religion in Japan for centuries. It existed side by side with Shinto, even being able to merge a bit. So if the Church is willing to give a bit, maybe not saying anything one way or the other about Shinto (which considering the Church at the time might be the easiest thing to do) then they could gain more support, at least among the nobility and Daimyo.

Also I remember reading that Oda Nobunaga supported Christianity to weaken the Buddhist warrior monks, so maybe a longer lived Oda would make a more Christian Japan possible.

As to being a Portuguese protectorate, that's ASB. Japan wasn't a weak country like the various Indian principalities or African tribal nations or other Asian countries. It may have been in the middle of the warring states era, but if it looks like Portugal is going to send troops to Japan in force, I'd bet that you'd see a ceasefire and temporary unification to fight the invaders, even if the Daimyo go straight back to fighting each other later.

Yeah, if Christianity can be reconciled with the Kami, it may just be possible. The concept of the Kami (which means something more like spirit rather then god) is flexible enough that it could be worked into a Christian cosmology if needed. As I said earlier, many of the Kami could just be re-envisioned as angels or demons, while those kami with alleged human decedents, like Amaterasu, could be seen as something like saints. Alternatively, the kami could be seen as spiritual beings unique to Japan that were never mentioned in the Bible because why would God mention Japanese spirits to people living in the Middle East?

However, I cannot see Japan ever becoming strictly Catholic. Every thing Japan imports from the outside, it takes, changes and makes into its own. This is what happened to Buddhism, and it is most likely what would happen to Christianity (case in point, modern Japanese, even Japanese Christians, tend to be religiously eclectic while still maintaining a very distinctly Japanese spirituality). Considering Japan's strong cultural drive towards distinctiveness from the outside world, I could never see Japanese Christians submitting to the Pope in Rome, or any other external religious authority.

As for Japan becoming a Portuguese protectorate, that's ASB. The Daimyo set aside their differences to combat the Mongol threat, and the Japanese at this point were rapidly adapting firearms. So considering the firmly rooted samurai culture and military establishment, as well as the logistics of Portugal attempting to outright conquer Japan.... it's just not going to happen, and neither is a Japanese equivalent of Goa or Macao.

As for Portugal gaining or keeping those other colonies, that may be possible, but that has less to do with Japan and more to do with Portugal avoiding the Iberian Union and having it's colonial ambitions subordinated to those of Spain.
 
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Yeah, if Christianity can be reconciled with the Kami, it may just be possible. The concept of the Kami (which means something more like spirit rather then god) is flexible enough that it could be worked into a Christian cosmology if needed. As I said earlier, many of the Kami could just be re-envisioned as angels or demons, while those kami with alleged human decedents, like Amaterasu, could be seen as something like saints. Alternatively, the kami could be seen as spiritual beings unique to Japan that were never mentioned in the Bible because why would God mention Japanese spirits to people living in the Middle East?

The kami would simply be relegated to the same status as the household gods and ancestor spirits of European paganism, which became fairies, elves, goblins, trolls, and brownies in the folklore of Christian Europe. Pretty much every European culture has legends concerning a house spirit that cleans your house in return for periodic offering of food, not unlike some of the kami in Japanese tradition and the shen in Chinese folk religion.

The German kobold and the Scottish brownie, for example, were even gifted with a special, undisturbed room in the house or a place in the kitchen or above the hearth, not unlike a household shrine in the East Asian fashion. Belief in the kobold in German-speaking regions continued until at least the Enlightenment and as late as the Industrial Revolution in some areas. As late of the mid-17th century, rural villagers in the Scottish island of Shetland were noted to offer fresh milk and freshly-brewed beer to the house's resident brownie. There are many parallels between pre-modern European household spirits and East Asian ones - It's almost uncanny.

Meanwhile, if you travel to visit many indigenous cultures that have been converted to Christianity in modern Latin America, Oceania, and sub-Saharan Africa, you'll find that ancient beliefs in wandering ancestral ghosts and nature spirits continue to co-exist with Biblical beliefs. The Quechua-speaking highlanders of the Ecuadorian, Peruvian, and Bolivian Andes are devout Catholics who also believe that the rivers, mountains, and forests around them contain spirits and lesser deities, and they've maintained this syncretism for centuries since the Spanish conquest.
 
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