WI: US tries to convert the Japanese to Christianity during the occupation

In October 1945, Douglas MacArthur publicly urged Protestant leaders in the US to send over a "thousand missionaries" to Japan to convert the locals to Christianity. The Joint Chiefs of Staff apparently gave their approval to this, and there was discussion about trying to get Emperor Hirohito to convert to Christianity as an example to his people. What if this had actually been carried out?
 
In October 1945, Douglas MacArthur publicly urged Protestant leaders in the US to send over a "thousand missionaries" to Japan to convert the locals to Christianity. The Joint Chiefs of Staff apparently gave their approval to this, and there was discussion about trying to get Emperor Hirohito to convert to Christianity as an example to his people. What if this had actually been carried out?

Actually, thousands of missionaries did flood into Japan but they had little long-term success. https://www.christiancentury.org/ar...-japanese-spiritual-vacuum-after-world-war-ii

There was some talk of Hirohito converting, but I suspect the Japanese might interpret that cynically as an attempt to avoid getting tried as a war criminal...
 
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All this does is give good reason for political alliance between the socialists, anti-western-imperialists, and religious communities.

And being the head of Japanese ethno-religion, the Emperor just might be galvinzed into becoming more politically active on the religious scene to respond to calls to (rather justifiably) defend the faith and culture from colonization.

America can’t be any less hypocritical when it talks about not being an imperialist colonizer, which Soviet and other communist propaganda jumps on.
 
They might have better luck pushing Buddhism as the dominant religion. The imperial regime used Shinto as its official religion, so if they wanted to phase it out, using something that’s already there would work better than dropping a foreign religion on them.
 
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