Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how missionaries with the Japanese Congregational Church working in colonial Korea deployed to satisfy two, complementary ends: demonstrate the integral role of Japanese Christians for the Japanese empire, and prove their superiority over American missionaries.

Paper long abstract:

From 1911 to 1919, the Japanese Kumiai Kyokai, or Congregational Church, devoted considerable staff and resources towards establishing and sustaining a mission in colonial Korea. The only Japanese denomination to attempt an organized mission that targeted Koreans—as opposed to Japanese settlers—in this period, the Kumiai Kyokai and its leadership attempted, through this missionary effort, to demonstrate not only the compatibility of Christianity to the Japanese empire, but also the superiority of a specifically Japanese Christianity over American Christianity. This paper examines the theological arguments, political rhetoric, and structural strategies the leaders and missionaries with the Kumiai Kyokai deployed to satisfy two, complementary ends: demonstrate the integral role of Japanese Christians for uniting Japanese and Korean subjects, and prove the irrelevance and unsuitability of American Christianity for a modern empire. Far from mimicking western missionaries, these Japanese Christians sought to assert a unique role for themselves that took into account a diverse range of theological positions and ecclesiastical structures. While this particular effort proved to be ineffective, it nonetheless illustrates the complex way that European and American thought and theology were understood and adapted in Japan, and how these ideas were further transformed in a new colonial setting.