The Status Of A Surviving Nobunaga's Religion

There have been a number of "What If?"s surrounding the possibility of Nobunaga surviving the Incident at Honnou-ji, but it's been my personal experience that most of them seem to focus on the possibility of early Japanese westernization, or early Japanese expansionism into the Pacific and onto the mainland, or other such more mundane topics. But, recently, I've become a lot more curious about the religious aspects surrounding a surviving Nobunaga.

To say that Nobunaga was a secular man would be an understatement. He mostly paid lipservice to the Shinto-Buddhist religious establishment to keep his people and his vassals happy, but willfully defied religious convention and taboo if there was sufficient enough of reason for it. In that sense, then, I doubt that a surviving Nobunaga would have been a "genuine" convert to Catholicism (heavy quotes there), but OTL Nobunaga did have a lot of sympathy for Jesuits and, of course, a love of all things western. In OTL, though, after Nobunaga's death, western religion was quickly suppressed by the efforts of Toyotomi and the Tokugawa shoguns.

So. Let's say that Nobunaga survives Akechi's attack on Honnou-ji, and proceeds to finish his conquest of Japan, which will necessarily include the heavily Christianized (by 1582) island of Kyushu. If Nobunaga allows the Jesuits and domestic Japanese converts to do as they will, could we see a fully Christianized Japan within a century or so? Would Nobunaga, the secular pragmatist and lover of all things Western, convert to Catholicism just for the sake of appeasing the mass of new Kirishitans, and to foster good relations with Europeans in Japan?

What do you all think?
 
The problem with mass conversion to Christianity, especially Catholicism, is that the legitimacy of the Japanese state rests on the emperor being the direct descendant of the Japanese deity Amateras, while christian people owe their loyalty to the Pope as their god's representative on Earth.

So on the one hand the elites claim divine right to rule from one God which on the other hand an increasing number of people are beginning to reject in favor of a foreign one...

Possibility one (OTL): The elite stamp down hard on christianization, suppressing it until the people are back to being loyal worshipers of the Emperor

Possibility two: Enough elites decide to use the support of the converts to overthrow the old order, a conflict breaks out and either Christianity gains ground or gets suppressed.

If Christianity avoids getting crushed, there are further branches;

A: There is a compromise where Christianity is syncretised with native Japanese beliefs and legitimacy. The Emperor must replace the position of the Pope in the minds of all Japanese people, as local rulers (regardless of religion) will not allow themselves to be beholden to a foreign power structure.

B: The Imperial dynastic system is destroyed, and a new governing legitimacy must be found.
 

PhilippeO

Banned
I think its unlikely Christianity will succeed in converting Japan. Shinto and Buddhism is to deep to be extinguished without deliberate persecution. Christianity (and its syncretic Japanese offshoot) would likely become minority religion with 5-20% population but large influence.
 

Maoistic

Banned
People exaggerate Japanese religions far too much. I mean, for God's sake, Japan's culture right now looks more Christian than national. Just look at weddings and the celebration of Christmas as well as the belief in a single Kami. Even pop culture makes just as many references to native religions as Christianity (Neon Genesis Evangelion for instance). Want another example? South Korea, with a similar religious culture as Japan, looks more Christian today. It even has the biggest Protestant (or at least Pentecostal) congregational church in the world. Had Nobunaga succeeded and decided to swarm Japan with Christian clerics and persecute native religions, they would have been replaced as the leading religions and minoritised, or heck, only surviving through syncretism.
 
Why wouldn’t a Christian Japan derive legitimacy for the Emperor through faith? An extreme scenario might even see a pious Emperor travel to Rome to be coronated in a direct reference to the HRE?

I’m not sure how plausible that is, but it’d make a great writing scenario...
 
I think its unlikely Christianity will succeed in converting Japan. Shinto and Buddhism is to deep to be extinguished without deliberate persecution. Christianity (and its syncretic Japanese offshoot) would likely become minority religion with 5-20% population but large influence.

In that sense, do you think that Christianity would just merge with the extant Shinto-Buddhist folk religion? Maybe form some sort of creole Catholicism as tends to be present in Latin America? Buddhism has always proven to be amenable to co-existence with other religions, and Shintoism at least showed a willingness to adopt Buddhist influences into itself, and Christianity has always been willing to shape itself into the form most suited for wherever it attempts to spread, so it's certainly an interesting thought.

Why wouldn’t a Christian Japan derive legitimacy for the Emperor through faith? An extreme scenario might even see a pious Emperor travel to Rome to be coronated in a direct reference to the HRE?

I’m not sure how plausible that is, but it’d make a great writing scenario...

"As the Emperors of Rome were and are the defenders of Christendom in the West, so too do we here declare today that the Emperors of Japan - the Rome of the East - are so the defenders of Christendom in Asia."

Could be pretty cool. :p

People exaggerate Japanese religions far too much. I mean, for God's sake, Japan's culture right now looks more Christian than national. Just look at weddings and the celebration of Christmas as well as the belief in a single Kami. Even pop culture makes just as many references to native religions as Christianity (Neon Genesis Evangelion for instance). Want another example? South Korea, with a similar religious culture as Japan, looks more Christian today. It even has the biggest Protestant (or at least Pentecostal) congregational church in the world. Had Nobunaga succeeded and decided to swarm Japan with Christian clerics and persecute native religions, they would have been replaced as the leading religions and minoritised, or heck, only surviving through syncretism.

When you say that Japan's culture "looks" more Christian than national, you're correct; it looks Christian to people who were born and raised in a culture rooted in Christianity, but it is not in fact Christian. Young Japanese people copy Western styles and cultural events because most things Western are perceived of as "cool" by young people in Japan. Some modern Japanese weddings may use traditional Christian wedding garments or take place in buildings that resemble churches, but there's often no swearing oaths before God, or anything of the sort. The Japanese celebrate Christmas with great big trees and lots of presents and the sort, but only a relatively small amount of people living in Japan are even aware of the religious origins of the holiday that they celebrate. Cross necklaces in Japan are worn entirely for fashion purposes without any recognition of the spiritual significance there-in. As for Neon Genesis Evangelion, Hideaki Anno has repeatedly stated in interviews that the Christian religious imagery he used in the series was just to make it seem "cool", without any deeper meaning to it. You don't really think that Anno is a die-hard Christian, do you? I'm not quite sure what you mean about "belief in a single Kami", because if you go to any Shinto shrine or temple today and ask the priests about the kami, they'll still express a very animistic, panentheistic view of there being a myriad of kami existing in all things. The first shrine visit of the year on New Year's Eve/New Year's Day is still attended by a significant portion of the population every day, and shrine visits by laity are common when they wish to pray for success in school or work, or for a safe pregnancy, or all those sorts of things.

As for the Yoido church in Korea, it doesn't constitute even 1% of the total South Korean population, so I'm not quite certain why you think a Pentecostal church of 400,000 people in a country of 51,000,000 is worth bringing up.

I'm not really sure if you were intending to contribute to the discussion here or if you were just intending to show-off your (flawed) knowledge of modern East Asian culture. Regardless, even if all of the things that you said were true, I'm not sure if modern OTL Japanese trends should be applied to the course of 16th century Japanese religion.
 
Why wouldn’t a Christian Japan derive legitimacy for the Emperor through faith?

Because the Tenno of Japan is more a High Priest than an actual Emperor? They seem akin to the late Merovingians in actual power, with the Shoguns being akin to the Mayors of the Palace.

In that sense, do you think that Christianity would just merge with the extant Shinto-Buddhist folk religion? Maybe form some sort of creole Catholicism as tends to be present in Latin America? Buddhism has always proven to be amenable to co-existence with other religions, and Shintoism at least showed a willingness to adopt Buddhist influences into itself, and Christianity has always been willing to shape itself into the form most suited for wherever it attempts to spread, so it's certainly an interesting thought.

There certainly is the possibility. The Chinese rites controversy dealt with that. Unfortunately for East Asian Christianity, the Dominicans won that argument IOTL.
 
That said, I don't think Nobunaga would really go through with converting to Christianity. He doesn't really seem like the type. He'll allow it, and he'll use it to get more information about the outside world, keeping connections outside of the Dutchmen, but I don't think he'd actively promote it, considering it might be as destabilizing as the Ikko-ikki.
 
The problem with mass conversion to Christianity, especially Catholicism, is that the legitimacy of the Japanese state rests on the emperor being the direct descendant of the Japanese deity Amateras
Isn't that one of those things that only began to matter - or matter again after not mattering since long before the Sengoku period - with the Meiji restoration?
There was a reason Westerners described/translated the Mikado as "Japanese Pope" and thought the Shogun was the emperor well into the nineteenth century.

From what I recall of the Sengoku period nobody seemed to care much about who the Emperor was or what he got up to except for OK-ing who
was to be the next shogun.

Even pop culture makes just as many references to native religions as Christianity (Neon Genesis Evangelion for instance).
Although it does tend to get it spectacularly wrong. Or just use symbols, images and phrases because it sounds cool and is from the Mysterious and Exotic West.

Shintoism at least showed a willingness to adopt Buddhist influences into itself
I was under the impression that Shinto wasn't organised/unified enough to adopt anything until, again, after the Meiji-restoration.
As in someone being in position to tell each and every Shinto shrine and priest what they were doing wrong, and by then it was kind of too late
to reject Buddhist influences.
 
Isn't that one of those things that only began to matter - or matter again after not mattering since long before the Sengoku period - with the Meiji restoration?
There was a reason Westerners described/translated the Mikado as "Japanese Pope" and thought the Shogun was the emperor well into the nineteenth century.

From what I recall of the Sengoku period nobody seemed to care much about who the Emperor was or what he got up to except for OK-ing who
was to be the next shogun.

I was under the impression that Shinto wasn't organised/unified enough to adopt anything until, again, after the Meiji-restoration.
As in someone being in position to tell each and every Shinto shrine and priest what they were doing wrong, and by then it was kind of too late
to reject Buddhist influences.

Politically, nobody cared who the Emperor was or what he got up to except for OK-ing who was to be the next shogun. On a cultural and societal level, though, he was still highly revered by the common citizenry, who viewed him as Amaterasu's representative on earth, who was divinely appointed to guide and care for the Japanese people in the mundane life. Or, at least, that's my own personal experience with the matter. Either way, I would say that if the shoguns and/or the daimyo attempted to abolish the Imperial throne, you would have a popular uprising on your hands, unless you managed to suppress basic-level Japanese ideas regarding the origin and role of the Emperor in the minds of the commonfolk.

Perhaps "adopted" was the wrong term to use; as you say, Shinto doesn't have anything akin to the Pope or the Patriarch or the Caliph or any other central authority or central council or whatever that handles issues of religious doctrine and laws and all those sorts of things. I would still say, though, that on a collective, albeit simultaneously independent level, Shinto shrines and temples by the late 16th century seemed to generally agree on how Buddhism syncretized with their animistic folk religion. In relation to the topic, then, if Christianity came in less as an overwhelming wave that completely stamped out traditional Japanese religion and more as a flowing stream that wove itself into the existing Shinto-Buddhist religious culture, I think that within a century or two, Shinto shrines and temples would once more be able to collectively but independently agree upon how Christianity fits into their pre-existing beliefs. Amaterasu as being an aspect of YHWH, the Emperor being some sort of mundane or lesser brother of Jesus Christ, the myriad kami being angels, etc.
 
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