To what extent could Japan become Catholic?

[IntellectuallyHonestRhino]

@BBadolato, which parts of Japan do you think will be some of the most Buddhist?

I feel that Shikoku in general will be a bastion of Buddhism ITTL. Alo, from Osaka to Uzen Province, that stretch, mostly along the Sea of Japan coast, should be a belt of Buddhism. Osaka makes sense as a center of Buddhism. I think Kyoto won't have that many Christians either (definitely under 10%).

 

[IntellectuallyHonestRhino]

How would Japanese Catholics celebrate Christmas? Would Jesuit colleges and Confucian academies compete just like Catholic Churches and Buddhist temples and monasteries would?

 

[IntellectuallyHonestRhino]

How would Japanese Catholics celebrate Christmas? Would Jesuit colleges and Confucian academies compete just like Catholic Churches and Buddhist temples and monasteries would?

This is something I’d really want a discussion about. In OTL, under the Tokugawa, Japan’s literacy rate grew to one of the highest. With Jesuit education pouring in across TTL Japan, could TTL’s Japan have an even higher literacy rate? That’d be crucial for industrialization. It’d probably not occur much before OTL (which was extremely early for Asian standards), but there’d be a stronger economy due to more trade and perhaps more exposure to western science? Emphasis on more.

 

[NorthTension]

@IntellectuallyHonestRhino you'll find this cool:

Christian mon

 

[water123]

I think the Europeans showed up in Japan about 200 years early if you want an extremely Christian Japan. You would need Japan to be under a powerful colonialist European nation for a significant amount of time before you have any chance of this, and that isn't happening unless the Europeans have enough gunpower to take Japan, or tear it apart.

 

[Gintoki Sakata]

@IntellectuallyHonestRhino you'll find this cool:
View attachment 497140
Christian mon

I think the mon on the upper right would be a good symbol for Japan's Catholic minority. I think the flag would be the like the Japanese flag but with with that mon in the center in red with a gold band (the yellow on the Vatican flag) on either the bottom or left side

Also, for my TL the flower-cross mon on the bottom left could probably be a symbol for my Portuguese Formosa colony to represent the Japanese living there in the north, incorporated together with a Philippine-style sun to represent Luzonians living in the southern part of the colony. After all, it kind of looks like the cross of the Order of Aviz.

Speaking about my proposals, here's what I am going to do with Japan in my Portugal TL based on the posts I made in this thread:

• Japan will have the same proportion as the OTL percentage of Christians in South Korea at around ~30% Catholic in the present day, mostly concentrated in Kyushu, Chugoku, Tohoku and Hokkaido.
• A prolonged Sengoku Jidai period with the Oda clan triumphing at the end despite the setbacks, with support from the Catholic Bloc (Otomo/Ouchi/Date) and a stronger Portuguese presence in Asia. Probably Date Masamune will convert TTL.
• With the Jesuits having Yamaguchi as their base, the Portuguese will have Nagasaki as their Macau analogue, and maybe along with a few more concessions if possible (i.e. Tanegashima, Tsushima, Goto Islands, maybe the cities of Hirado and/or Karatsu). A Japanese analogue to the Estado da Índia (Estado da Japão) could be interesting, but this would probably be very unlikely as it might gain the ire of whoever is ruling Japan at the time.
• The Ryukyu Islands will become a Portuguese colony after the Ming collapse.
• An additional 10 million more Japanese Catholics will be living in the Portuguese colony of Formosa in the present day, mostly from people who left to escape the ravages of the civil strife and persecution by the Buddhist establishment during the Sengoku period.

@IntellectuallyHonestRhino @BBadolato what do you guys think about my proposal?

 

[IntellectuallyHonestRhino]

With the Jesuits having Yamaguchi as their base, the Portuguese will have Nagasaki as their Macau analogue, and maybe along with a few more concessions if possible (i.e. Tanegashima, Tsushima, Goto Islands, maybe the cities of Hirado and/or Karatsu). A Japanese analogue to the Estado da Índia (Estado da Japão) could be interesting, but this would probably be very unlikely as it might gain the ire of whoever is ruling Japan at the time.

That would cause a breakdown in Luso-Japanese relations, and even Japanese Catholics would be bitterly resisting Portuguese rule. Better to have the Portuguese get some shipping rights in exchange for protecting Japanese coasts from pirates. Nagasaki ought to remain under Japanese rule, otherwise there'd be a hostile relationship between the Oda Bakufu and Portugal. A very strong Portugal could take Nagasaki away, but perhaps just controlling a Dejima island equivalent in Nagasaki would be better. The Japanese Catholic community would want Nagasaki under Japanese control, as it is a center of Japanese Catholicism and would be a great blow to the faith in Nihon if it were under foreign rule.


That is of course if you want friendly relations.

 

[Caravels of Portugal]

I'll add on my idea.
In the past, Catholicism was spread by syncreticism. Missionaries often equated Catholic saints with pagan deities of the targeted group for religious conversion. This allowed conversion to Catholicism to be much easier compared to forcibly converting the population through the sword.
In a Catholic Japan timeline, Japanese people would syncretisize Catholicism with Buddhism and Shintoism by syncretisizing Catholic saints with Buddhist deities and Shinto Kami.

 

[Gintoki Sakata]

What would the architecture of Japanese Catholic churches be like TTL? I could probably see a fusion between Japanese temple and Iberian baroque architectures in this one. Imagine an interesting mix between these two:

Hōryū-ji in Nara Prefecture

Ruins of St Paul's in Macau

 

[TastySpam]

Buddhism*: 63%

Catholicism: 30%

Shintoism: 7%


*A combination of various sects, including Shintō-Buddhist sects.

Strictly speaking, Shintoism is generally not considered a distinct religious category in Japan itself, since Japanese Buddhism is generally considered to incorporate most of the practices of Japanese folk religion (aka, Shinto). The concept of a distinct Shinto religion really emerged during Imperial Japan, when the government went to great pains to try to "split" it from Buddhism and describe it as a civic ethos (and Western scholars described it as a religion).

The question of whether Shinto is even a religion is controversial in Japan itself and there's a pretty tortured case law about this. Japan has separation of church and state, but a lot of Shinto festivals are government-subsidized under the rationale that they're "local traditions". One of the constitutional revision goals of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo is in fact to classify Shinto as essentially not a religion (at which point the government would fund most of the Shinto shrines in the nation). I don't think either side of this divide would actually classify Shinto as a distinct religion. Abe and friends say it's not a religion (but rather traditional cultural practices), and his opponents more or less classify these practices as just part of Japanese Buddhism.

• Japan will have the same proportion as the OTL percentage of Christians in South Korea at around ~30% Catholic in the present day, mostly concentrated in Kyushu, Chugoku, Tohoku and Hokkaido.

Also yeah, I think Christianity would at most peak at 25-30% of Japan, because that's where it's at in South Korea, and even that basically took a very unusual turn of events to make happen. However, in the vast majority of scenarios where Sengoku-era Catholicism survives in Japan, I actually don't think it hits anywhere close to 30% (my guess is 10-15%, much like pre-Communist Vietnam). The difference between Korea/Vietnam is that in Korea, Christianity was very much strongly associated with national liberation, while that doesn't quite work with Japan and Catholicism from Portugal/Spain. I think it will always have that sense of being somewhat foreign.