Authority and Obedience

Despite famously small numbers, Christians have had a distinctive presence in modern Japan, particularly for their witness on behalf of democracy and religious freedom. A translation of Keni to Fukuj: Kindai Nihon ni okeru Rma-sho Jsan-sho (2003), Authority and Obedience is a personal pre-history of the postwar generation of Japanese Christian intellectuals deeply committed to democracy. Using Japanese Christians commentary on Pauls injunction in Romans 13: 1-7, the counsel to let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, Miyata offers an intellectual history of how Japanese Christians understood the emperor-focused modern state from the time of the first Protestant missionaries in the mid-nineteenth century through the climax and demise of fascism during the Pacific War. Stressing verse 5s admonition to conscience as the reason for obedience, Miyata provides a clear and political perspective grounded in his lifelong engagement with German political thought and theology, particularly that of Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as he calls for a conscientious citizenry in his modern society. Showing both Christians complicity with the state and the empire including the formation of a unified church, the Nihon Kirisuto Kydan and their attitude toward Christians in Asia, and the complexity of the critical voices of Christians like Uchimura Kanz, Kashiwagi Gien, Nanbara Shigeru, and many others less well known Miyatas work aims not at exposing cultural particularity but at showing how the modern Japanese Christian experience can give meaning to a theology and a political theory of how to live within the freedom of religious belief.