How Tokugawa Japan learned to fear faith
There are episodes in history whose lesson seems horribly clear: Our deepest delight is causing others to suffer, and if we can do it under color of right and goodness, so much the better.
Was the Shimabara Rebellion (1637-38) religious or economic? Christian or peasant? It was both: faithful Christians revolting against merciless suppression, famished peasants rising against merciless taxation. Which motive prevailed? Let the scholars debate it — as, four centuries later, they continue to.
Revolt erupted around Christmas 1637. For decades it had been simmering. The first European Christian missionaries came to Japan in 1549. They were welcomed — they and their message of eternal life in a better world. Their first landfall was in southern Kyushu. Japan then was a chaos of independent fiefdoms at perpetual war with one another. Domain lords known as daimyo wanted trade with Europe and guns from Europe. Missionaries conciliated were useful contacts. If conciliation meant conversion, so be it.
Advertising by Adpathway
