AHQ: Christian Japan => Longer Sengoku period required?

[TheWitheredStriker]

I won't beat around the bush: My objective here, cliché as it may be, is to attain a Christian Japan. Originally, I considered having Oda Nobunaga survive, instead of dying in the Honno-ji Incident. I remembered that he was sympathetic to Christianity, viewing it as a tool against the Buddhist monasteries, and figured that anything was better than the Tokugawa. But upon more research I think it's likely that if Christianity spread too fast, Nobunaga could've still decided to change course and clamp down on it.

So with that in mind, I looked around more, and was told that a much better way of working towards a Christian Japan is to significantly prolong the Sengoku period (OTL 1467-1615). This could be a very interesting setup, but alas, my knowledge of Japanese history is sadly sincerely limited. I can imagine that without the Tokugawa, there would be no Sakoku edict, with Japan thus not being isolated from the outside world, but that's far as I can go at the moment. I'm not immediately sure how to prolong the Sengoku period and on how to boost Christianity in Japan all at once. So I figured I could consult this forum.

The ultimate end goal is for Japan to be (more or less) Christian, yet also eventually unified. Thus, I don't intend for Sengoku to go on basically forever; only for as long as the PoD needs. Thanks to anyone in advance!

 

[raharris1973]

Good luck in your quest.

I would note, the longer Sengoku goes on, and Sakoku is avoided, the more choices of flavors of Christianity Japan could have. Catholicism was there, the firstest with the mostest, but if missionary activity and frequent trade contact and no central suppression goes on through the 1600s, Protestantism has a chance to make inroads.

 

[TheWitheredStriker]

Yeah, that makes sense to me. It's an interesting possibility!

 

[Fabius Maximus]

Christianity was strongest in the southern parts of the country, IIRC. So your best bet might be to have the area more thoroughly Christianised, then have one of the southern clans unify the country. Then they could pass laws favouring the Church, leading to a greater spread of the Christian religion, much liked happened in the Roman Empire post-Constantine.

 

[dino1x]

Main advantage Christianity had in sengoku japan was that it helped in trading with europeans so you could achieve it by making trade more important

 

[Vinization]

Hey OP, you might find this guy interesting, since he welcomed Francis Xavier and allowed a church to be built in Yamaguchi:

Ōuchi Yoshitaka - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I also made a WI thread on him, if you're interested in more info:

Sengoku WI: A better end for Ouchi Yoshitaka?

Ouchi Yoshitaka was a Japanese daimyo who led the Ouchi clan, which at its height ruled most of Chugoku and northern Kyushu, from 1528 to 1551. He spent his early reign fighting the Amago clan, but after a disastrous defeat in an attempt to conquer Izumo province in 1542 withdrew from military...

www.alternatehistory.com

 

[Alex Zetsu]

For a while I thought Catholicism dominating Japan would be impossible. Then I remembered that Rome went from their traditional religion to Christianity. The Emperor, previously justified by just being the first citizen with the Senate I nominal control, then slowly gained even more legitimacy through the Ipmerial Cult, suddenly justified his position by being blessed by God. So if Christianity reached a large enough minority in the country and a Chrisitan daimyo "won" the Sengoku like the 3 great unifiers did, then maybe it could happen and maybe Japan's Emperor goes from being descended from a god to being blessed by God.

Of course, this would take several generations. It's not like if the Otomo did what the Oda did in OTL they'd convert the whole country. In fact to maintain hold, they'd probably let the Shinto religion stay intact just to avoid an excuse for people to gang up on them. Nobunaga had that problem with many of his former allies like his brother-in-law ganging up on him. So realistically, the Sengoku period would probably have to last another 70 ish years for Catholic Japan to really be a thing, as opposed to a Japan which tolerated a large Catholic minority in Kyushu. The a diamyo will have to united the coutnry, and it would obviously have to be one of the christian ones.

Ōuchi Yoshitaka and Oda Nobunaga were not Christian converts. Both of them tolerated the Jesuits. However, this doesn't quite seem to fit the OP goal.

 

[twovultures]

Good luck in your quest.

I would note, the longer Sengoku goes on, and Sakoku is avoided, the more choices of flavors of Christianity Japan could have. Catholicism was there, the firstest with the mostest, but if missionary activity and frequent trade contact and no central suppression goes on through the 1600s, Protestantism has a chance to make inroads.

I've always thought that there is potential for a strong Orthodox community in Japan. The successful conversion of the Aleuts in Alaska shows how the Russian Orthodox church could create self-sustaining convert communities in far-flung areas. The practice of prayer for the dead could mesh nicely with Japanese traditions of ancestor-worship, especially given the statements of some orthodox thinkers that the dead could be saved from hell by the prayers of the living-certainly a comforting thought to new Christians whose recent ancestors were unbaptized pagans!

 

[Deleted member 148213]

There is no need for a putative conversion to be a quick process progressing linearly from the 1500s onward.

If Japan, or rather, the Japanese (as we don't know when a Japanese state will emerge ATL) maintain a more outward-looking role, it is very possible that Christianity could grow in prestige. It is easy to imagine an ATL Japan in 1650 with scattered areas Catholic communities mostly concentrated in Kyushu and in areas connected to external trade across the country. How would the social attitudes of peasant Catholics, mostly in the SW, whose life is still quite similar to their Buddhist/Animist neighbots differ from the proto-bourgeois and merchants in Nagasaki and elsewhere?

There are many pathways beyond the cliche Constatine re-tread. Imagine a centralizing Japanese state argely apathetic to the religion of its subjects, but structurally opposed to the landholdings of say Buddhist temples? Or how about consider the interaction between local traditions and Catholic pieities- Obon is a bit early on the calendar compared to All Souls Day, but this seems like an incredibly obvious syncretism to me. Consider how a more active Japan would influence Europe- Japan is both a producer of silver on a small scale and also perhaps a net beneficiary of trade with Europe for certain goods (tea, etc.). If Japan is really more outward looking and also has a vibrant (and growing) minority of tolerated Christians, how will Japan influence Europe? What would the interaction or a letter between a European bishop and one of their Japanese confreres be like? Would Europeans be curious about the Japanese and perhaps even be influenced by them?

I don't see "Shinto" (maybe an anachronistic concept for pre-XIX century)? as a major competitor to Catholicism in Japan. Of all of the major universalizing religions in history, perhaps there is not any single one better than Catholicism at occupying the ritual spaces of older, local "pagan" faiths, appropriating their ceremonial significance, and transfering the understanding of the practice to one suited to its own theology. Not to mention, peasants in Catholic majority countries have had fairly little compunctions against continuing almost unchanged their traditional local rituals, a fact which Protestants have always been quick to criticize.

The biggest obstacles would be the emergence of a hostile or distrustful state as in OTL which could disrupt Christian communities. Foreign tensions are another possible problem, as is the risk of a iteration of the kind of conflict over episcopal appointments that has repeatedly played out OTL in the Byzantine Empire, HRE, England, France (Gallicanism). Buddhism and Confucian ideologies are likely to be the touchstone of local opposition to Christianity, but Confucianism is likely to be quickly co-opted almost entirely (how does the Chinese rites controversy play out with Japan involved)? If the Japanese were favorable to the Jesuits and confortable with their eclectic and vigorous national church, would they have any sway with the curia and Pope on these matters? On the other hand it would also be far too easy to imagine overzealous Japanese bishops from the merchant classes disdainful of the "backwards" ideas and traditions of rural Japan, arguing strongly in favor of the suppression of ancestor rites and shooting themselves in the foot, so to speak.

I think a rapidly changing and growing Japan, with a Catholicism split with one foot in rural Kyushu and another in the merchant classes and overseas in Manila and elsewhere, a country where religious identity is in flux and often multifaceted, where Christianity has carved out a unique role for itself in the lives of communities and individuals, with an often ambivalent or at least erratic relationship to state power is a far more likely and interesting Early Modern vision of an open, Christianizing Japan than the usual Paradox game-esque "conquer & convert" TL that sometimes gets proposed here.

 

[Torbald]

I'd like to offer a contrarian opinion and wager that a shorter or less volatile Sengoku period would be much more beneficial to the spread of Christianity in Japan. The Sengoku Jidai was so violent, so chaotic, and went on for so long that those who emerged victorious in reuniting the country felt it was necessary to crack down on anything and everything that carried the faintest whiff of subversion, sedition, or foreign manipulators. Christian missionary efforts becoming enmeshed in the whirlwind of politics and intrigue during this period consequently had the unfortunate side effect of attracting serious suspicion towards them (alongside every other foreign influence and potentially destabilizing force) in the eyes of those in Japan keen on a long overdue return to centralization and domestic peace. As mentioned at length above, Christianity gradually entering a stable and less restrictive Japan through trade and diplomacy would probably have much larger and more lasting results than any alternative, and would more closely resemble OTL missionary efforts in Tonkin and Siam.

 

[Ambassador Huntsman]

I won't beat around the bush: My objective here, cliché as it may be, is to attain a Christian Japan. Originally, I considered having Oda Nobunaga survive, instead of dying in the Honno-ji Incident. I remembered that he was sympathetic to Christianity, viewing it as a tool against the Buddhist monasteries, and figured that anything was better than the Tokugawa. But upon more research I think it's likely that if Christianity spread too fast, Nobunaga could've still decided to change course and clamp down on it.

So with that in mind, I looked around more, and was told that a much better way of working towards a Christian Japan is to significantly prolong the Sengoku period (OTL 1467-1615). This could be a very interesting setup, but alas, my knowledge of Japanese history is sadly sincerely limited. I can imagine that without the Tokugawa, there would be no Sakoku edict, with Japan thus not being isolated from the outside world, but that's far as I can go at the moment. I'm not immediately sure how to prolong the Sengoku period and on how to boost Christianity in Japan all at once. So I figured I could consult this forum.

The ultimate end goal is for Japan to be (more or less) Christian, yet also eventually unified. Thus, I don't intend for Sengoku to go on basically forever; only for as long as the PoD needs. Thanks to anyone in advance!

So in 1573, Nobunaga was almost defeated. By that I mean he was in a situation where the Ashikaga shogun was pulling the strings behind an anti-Oda coalition of Ishiyama Honganji, the Azai and Asakura clans, Takeda Shingen, and minor players, and Tokugawa Ieyasu's army was annihilated at the Battle of Mikatagahara by the Takeda. Two things saved Nobunaga: the death of Shingen and Ashikaga Yoshiaki rising up pre-emptively. Take those two factors out and both the Tokugawa and Oda, as well as the OTL future Toyotomi Hideyoshi, could've died in 1573-1574. That leaves a huge political chasm no one can fill. Yoshiaki was politically ineffective and Shingen was still old and tired and could still die relatively early. In this situation, anything goes.