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{{notice|This article was listed for ] on 2004-10-19. The result of ] was '''keep'''.}}
==Facts==
{{copied|to=History of Roman Catholicism in Japan|from=Kirishitan|diff=http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=History_of_Roman_Catholicism_in_Japan&oldid=333931582}}
I am not anti Japanese and this article is not about being Anti-Japanese. It is based on Fact. It is very famous in Japan especially in Nagasaki. Please remove the deletion vote. Thanks
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== This article is not written from a neutral point of view ==
''This article was listed on ] on 10/19/2004. The result after voting was to keep—see ].''


Especially the military activity section. This long section hardly gives any information about military activity of Japanese converts.
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Rather speculates about Spanish or Portuguese invasion of China. This invasion never occurred(and therefore should not be mentioned in military activity section). Also claims preparation for a Christian rebellion against Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Does anybody has anything to back up this website? ] 13:43, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
which also never occurred(this section is supposed to be about military activity, not intentions).
Not to forget that the author is trying to prove his opinion that Christian daimyo is not less severe than a non-Christian daimyo by mentioning a massacre of Koreans by Japanese who had at least one daimyo(who happens to be Christian) in their rank.
How come destruction of Buddhist temples(this is the first time a read about Christian minority destroying shrines of a majority religion in potentionaly hostile country) is mentioned in this section. It is not a military activity.


Also the "propagation strategy" section claims that number of Christians under Christian daimyo "drastically" increased.
I have corrected numbers and some misunderstandings. Mino-odori is punishment against refusing tax-payment, not for christian-huntings. The number, 1 million catholics/ all were killed is not recognized by historians. About half million catholics lived and about 4000 were killed is the well-accepted estimation. By the way, VfD about the page is over, but why so many people could vote to keep the page without checking the data. 'Japanese population was less than 1 million' '30% of the Japanese were catholics' '! million Catholics were killed'. There is no supporting reference. Is there a trend to create many 'Holocausts' to accuse some countries? I can easily create 'Australian-Holocaust', 'Tibetan-Holocaust', 'Eastern Turkistan holocaust', etc. It seems 'endless smear war'. ] 03:38, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
What does mean "drastically" in this context? Where the commoners drastically forced to accept Christianity? Or was the growth peaceful
but just so high that it could be described "drastic" using slang language.


Early policy towards Catholicism section : "By 1579, at the height of missionary activity, there were '''only''' about 130,000 converts." I think that this is quite a large number regarding that there was no state support of Christianity or state forced conversions.
:Well, voting to keep the page isn't the same as saying "I think the data on the page is correct", it's just saying "It's clear that this event happened in some form, we should keep the page so that the incorrect data can be corrected." I was able to do enough research to verify that there was ''some'' incident which is referred to by at least some reputable sources as the "Kirisutan Holocaust" or "Kirishtan Holocaust". Unfortunately, I do not have the skills or resources to research and find where the current description of the incident is incorrect, so I wasn't able to correct the data. -- ] 05:05, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)


St.Francis Xavier as a slave trader - seems ridiculous. I never heard about Jesuits slave trading in Japan. I would like to see the source. Maybe some kind of nationalist propaganda book from Taishō or Shōwa eras.
:Population: According to Ikegami Eiko in The Taming Of The Samurai, "Miyamoto Matarô estimates that the population of Japan may have started from 12 million in 1600..." In addition, "Prior to the close of the Warring States period, ... Kyôto was the only large city in Japan with a population in excess of 100,000 at one point; 100 major castle cities were not yet in existence before the late-sixteenth century." In particular, the city of Edo "... claimed a polulation of only a few thousand citizens in 1590 when Tokugawa Ieyasu first became the lord of the region."
Kirisutan Holocaust started this time. I'm assuming this is where the source came from.
::At least, your argument about population in Japan is true. Population in Japan is esetimated, 13 millions in 1600 >> 32millions in 1720. So, It would be reasonable to describe 12 millions in this text. The problem is about Christian population in Japan. In Japan, 0.4-0.7 million is the most accepted number of the population. 1 million is the number said only by christians in Japan. So the christian population rate would be 3-6%, not 10% using the number of population '12 millions'. ] 00:46, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)


There is no mention about insane violence towards Christians. The martyrs(including native Japanese) do not have a single section in this article.
::Disputed statistics are unfortunately part of many subjects. The best way to handle them is usually to include ''both'' sets of statistics, to state who believes that which set of statistics is correct and what reason they give for believing those are correct, and then the most authoritative citations for the actual figures. For instance, check out how it's handled in ], a subject where one side argues that the correct figure is 40,000-60,000 annually -- and the other side argues that the correct figure is zero. -- ] 18:36, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)


The Japanese government responsible for persecution of Christians is being excused while Christians are blamed for the tragedy and evil which followed the ban on Christianity. I read about forced dechristianization and persecution of Christians in Japan from secular sources but never read about forced christianization in Japan, China or anywhere in the Far East.
Disputed? Does anyone (other than the website itself) support it? If not, we don't need that link. We are not supposed to put an anchor at ] to a site that claims Shinto was originated in Judaism, I think. --] 17:17, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)


This article is totally written from anti-Christian point of view. Worst NPOV violation I ever met on wikipedia. This article is trying to excuse the Christian holocaust in Japan.
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First, I note that in the Religions of Japan page there is a section on Christians and their persecution. My feeling is that this article should be renamed "Persecution of Christians in Japan" or somesuch and integrated better with what already exists on the Religions of Japan page.


] (]) 10:32, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Second, I asked a Japanese history specialist what he thought of this article. He responded by sending me a load of information on Christians in Japan during that period. I don't have the time to turn it into something, so I'm just pasting it here wholesale in case anybody wants to work on it sometime. ] 18:00, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)


:Yeah, right. The number of people who were executed was relatively low, and the converts were given plenty of chances to recant (the missionaries to withdraw from the country). The importance of the "persecution" is played up in Eurocentric, anti-Japanese sources. The authorities were very slow to actually enforce their edicts. There were plenty of government-forced conversions, although few by the national central government (Nobunaga, through his pro-foreign policies, may have caused some) - they were instead brought about by individual daimyou who converted and forced Christianity on their subjects. This probably accounted for the vast majority of the conversions. If you want a source, try ''Japan: A Short Cultural History'' by Sansom, which is "still the best introduction to Japanese history" (''Times Literary Supplement'') and "remains to this day the standard work in the field" (''World Affairs Quarterly''). ''Japan - An Attempt at Interpretation'' (Hearn) takes the same view, and, although I would not consider it a particularly reliable source on history, is more highly regarded in Japan and elsewhere than most others. Clearly the "secular" sources you read were written by Christians with their own agenda, even if they were not in the direct employ of the Church. I rather think that thanks to anti-Japanese literature this is one of the worst NPOV-violations on Misplaced Pages in the opposite way. ] (]) 22:30, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
The Portuguese Jesuits were the first to bring Christianity to Japan, Frances Xavier being notable amongst them. Their first contacts and primary region of converts were in the south-western provinces of Kyushu. A Jesuit named Father Gaspar Vilela made contact with Shogun Ashikaga Yoshiteru (last of the Ashikaga shoguns) and obtained license to move about freely despite a large number of protests from various Buddhists. Now, the Buddhists were the favorite of the Emperor of Japan (not the shogun who held actual power) and when Ashikaga Yoshiteru and his family were murdered the Emperor issued an edict expelling all of the missionaries. The history of Christianity in Japan seems to follow a cycle of getting permission, having a good go, getting kicked out, getting permission again. This edict was virtually impossible to enforce however as the Emperor had no real power with which to enforce the edicts. The Jesuits also had the protection of many of the very powerful Daimyo of Kyushu.


Don't be silly. I never said that the secular sources I read were written by Christians. Claiming that every literature that does not excuse religious holocaust in Japan is anti-Japanese is paranoiac.
This period of Japanese history is pretty tumultuous as it sees the ending of the Ashikaga Shogunate in the late 1400’s, early 1500’s and the rise of the Tokugawa Shogunate in the opening years of 1600. In the interim there was a whole lot of fighting.


] (]) 22:04, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Oda Nobunaga was one of three great figures to come out of this period and begin the reunification of Japan (Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu being the others) Oda was at first quite open to the Christians. George Samson suggests this is due to the intervention of the brother of one of the western Christian Daimyo. It was also probably because of Oda’s long standing feud with the Buddhists of the country. At this time there were a large number of very militaristic Buddhist communities which were making his life very difficult. The primary centre of this was at Mt. Hiyeizan in north central Japan. A very large part of both Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s efforts of reunify Japan was the breaking of the power of these groups of Buddhists. In the end they killed many many thousands of the monks to do it. Ironically both Oda and Toyotomi considered themselves Buddhists and Toyotomi in particular funded the building of a number of temples and statues of the Buddha. (guilt?) At any rate, Oda probably saw the Christians as an excellent tool to use against the Buddhists, or at least a powerful economic ally with the Portuguese trade that went hand in hand with the missionaries.


:My personal feelings regarding this article is that it could do with alot of cleaning. The statement about Christian daimyos involved in massacres in Korea comes across as an almost adolescent "See! Christians are no better!". Really what should be said there is that the daimyos converted to christianity for practical and economic reasons and not usually out of any heartfelt change of faith or heart, hence their religion did not influence their behavior drastically.. or something. I think the article is just badly written and needs to be fixed up. ] (]) 15:08, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
Now, the Visitor-General Valignano (a Jesuit official who roamed around) estimated in 1582 (the year Oda Nobunaga was murdered) that there were around 150,000 christians. You can probably take his numbers with a grain of salt, but there were over 200 registered churches scattered throughout the country. The rapid spread of Christianity in Japan is not really a big surprise. The life of the peasant sucked some serious ass. Really. They didn’t have a very good time of it, especially in this period when banditry was endemic and wars were being fought on their land every couple of years. Also, the religious beliefs of the day were quite varied and generally did not exclude the adoption of yet another God. The faith probably existed (like it did in much of Europe for centuries) hand in hand with preexisting folk religions and beliefs.
::I have finally removed the incredible allegation of Jesuits trading Christian Japanese virgins for gunpowder! It's been in the article months despite being unknown to normal histories and being based on a single extremely unreliable source. The action of removing the ludicrous 500,000 figure was insufficient, since by removing an obviously ridiculous figure that change almost makes the allegation more credible and less easily disproven. This allegation comes under the WP guidance that an exceptional allegation requires an exceptional source. This does not exist. The allegation would seem more of an internal Japanese propaganda "justification" for the subsequent repression and massacre of Christians. ]] 01:30, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
:::Stumbled upon this after having my own run-in with that 500,000 statistic on different articles. Read in ] for more info. For what it's worth I do seem to recall that this statistic had been added by the same person to different articles. I had a lot of fun trying to track down this claim :/ basically it seems like someone copy-pasted it from a blog citation of a sensationalist book and it spread from that. ] (]) 16:56, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
:::: It is possible that 500,000 slaves are dealt during 50 years.
At that time, it is history recording that Japan slave is dealt all over the world <small><span class="autosigned">—Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) 02:38, 7 November 2009 (UTC)</span></small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
:We need more than one person that says this happened, and it needs to be a first-hand quotation. Do you have other sources you can provide? I'd love to find more information. I got into this issue because I saw this claim somewhere else on Misplaced Pages and I was fascinated by it, since I've read plenty of history about Japan and had never heard this idea about 500,000 women before. I searched everywhere and could not find anything talking about Japanese women being exported to Europe at all, let alone in such large numbers. That is why I decided to remove it, because it seems unreliable to me - I can't find a single person anywhere that says this is true other than one single author. If you can find a reputable first-hand source that states that 500,000 women were traded as slaves in exchange for gunpowder, please let us know - I'd love to put it on here, if it is true of course :)
:I see you have replied on your talk page. I'll go read your reply now :) ] (]) 03:19, 7 November 2009 (UTC)


The warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi succeded Oda in power after some political wrangling. At first, Hideyoshi acted favorably towards the Jesuit missionaries, entertaining them and even helping them build a church near Osaka castle in 1583. Several important posts in Hideyoshi’s government were filled by Christians. (this is the guy that the book and movie Shogun are based on by the way) However, this took a very drastic turn in 1587. After an interview with a Jesuit official named Coelho he suddenly issued an edict expelling all foreign missionaries form Japan within 20 days. He accused the Christians of engaging in the same types of meddling activities as the Buddhist monks of earlier years. He also listed a host of other ills, some trumped up, others probably more or less true. Nobody really knows the exact reason that he issued the edict, especially at this time though there is a fair amount of conjecture. This marks the first time that the Christian missionaries went underground. After the edict, most of the missionaries retreated to areas where they were welcome (such as the official foreign port of Nagasaki which they more or less ran) and continued their works. At this point (1587) it is supposed there were around 300,000 christians, mostly in the western provinces. The edict wasn’t really enforced all that much, except for some sporadic crackdowns. The most notorious of these was at Nagasaki where 26 people (7 franciscans and 19 Japanese followers) were tortured, mutilated and then crucified. (on a side note, the Japanese had been big fans of crucifixion long before they heard about Christianity)


*Khh. I'll sort this.
Moving along, Hideyoshi dies in the late 1500’s and Tokugawa Ieyasu takes over after a brief civil war. At first he is lenient with the Christians (protestants as well by this point with the arrival of the Dutch), but in 1614 decides to rid Japan of all foreigners and their foreign religion. He destroys all of the churches in Edo (Tokyo) and exiles a number of high ranking officials who were known to be either Christians or supporters of Christians. A number of commoners were killed in these crackdowns, though as far as I can tell the numbers were not very large at all. There are reports of entire villages of Christians continuing on after this point with their beliefs, though they were careful to be discreet about it. It is supposed that provincial lords (daimyo) would sometimes be aware of this, but so long as they caused no trouble they were generally left alone. Problems did arise between Buddhists and Christians however. In one incident, an old Christian man attacked and desecrated a Buddhist shrine in his village. As a result a number of people were executed and the rest made to ‘trample the cross’ to prove their innocence.
] (]) 19:57, 12 February 2009 (UTC)


==Kirishitan crucifix==
So to sum up, as far as I can tell the persecution of Christians was based far more on political circumstances than any real problem with the religions tenets. There was certainly a great deal of tension between the Buddhist leaders and the missionaries and this led to a number of persecutions after the various edicts were passed. The total numbers of those killed as a result of these persecutions is impossible to say but is probably not that high (relatively speaking), certainly not on the level that whoever wrote that article is claiming. Importantly I am not including those killed as part of the various rebellions in the western provinces which were led by Christian daimyo. If you add those in you would be looking at a couple of hundred thousand probably. But that was more a military situation than religious persecution so I don’t think it’s really fair. And of course I could be totally wrong in all of this. Maybe there were massive crackdowns that never made it into the public records and are only known about through folklore. I don’t know, but it’s unlikely.
]
A Japanese Kirishitan crucifix, 17th century. Feel free to insert it in the article. Photographed at the ]. ] (]) 15:10, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
:{{Done}} <span style="color:orange">'''PHG '''<sup>]</sup></span> 07:08, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
{{-}}
==Japanese Kannon/Virgin Mary==
]
Here is an image of the Virgin Mary disguised as Kannon (Guan Yin) from 17th century Japan. Feel free to insert it in the article. Cheers ] (]) 09:04, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
:{{Done}} <span style="color:orange">'''PHG '''<sup>]</sup></span> 07:08, 13 September 2009 (UTC)


==How to resolve NPOV, reference concerns==
:That's excellent; it also sheds some light about where the very large figures for the number of Christians came from. -- ] 20:15, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)


Hey, anyone still here? I got to poking through the article, and I was curious where some of the text came from, so I dug through the edit history. It seems a lot of the unsourced material was added , in two edits, with not a single source to support them. Furthermore, this was done '''five years ago'''. I am concerned that we have allowed unsourced claims to stand for this long... ? That's disturbing.
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I completely rewrote the article. Although the previous version was really hopeless (Kirisutan must be Kirishitan. Oda Nobunaga never became shogun. etc), I tried to respect it. I moved the list of excecuted men to ] because it looks too specific. --] 17:17, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)


Basically, there are two things hurting this article. One, most of the sections, while containing what would be useful information, do not have any sources at all. Two, there are concerns about POV, whether or not this article is slanted against Christians throughout Japan's history. If the article were sourced, it would be easier to evaluate for POV, but since it's not it just makes it even harder to tell what's real and what's not, let alone whether undue emphasis is being given.
== Hmmmm, was it a good Idea to remove completely? ==


Given the length of time involved, I don't think we are likely to get any followup as far as what sources could support these claims. What should we do about this material? Would anyone know of some good sources to buttress these claims, if indeed they are factual? I fear if we go through this article with a fine-toothed comb and just delete everything uncited, we may not have any article left! So I'd like to ask anyone who might be watching this article, is there's any way we can salvage/prune this and get some sources before we break out the weed whacker? Whoever wrote this gives the impression of having spent a lot of time studying the topic; seems a waste to just delete it all, but it really does feel like ] to me. I just wish they'd thought to tell us where they got this from so we could make an informed evaluation of it. Would appreciate ideas. Thanks,
I read this article before and it was interesting. Was it necessary to remove it completely? We should have had a vote or something I think....


-- ] (]) 11:38, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
---


:I would love to contribute to this article, though I think the first step would be some carefully controlled pruning of any un-sourced claims, particularly statistical ones. By carefully controlled, I mean selecting individual sentences or paragraphs, posting/referencing them here at the talk page, and leaving them open for discussion and, more importantly, '''sources''', before amendment/deletion. If, then, the article has to be built up from a relatively skeletal form again, so be it. I speak as a greenhorn Wikipedian; any alternative plans of action are welcome.
Although this article is somewhat informative, I do take issue with the statement in the last section "In contrast, Christians attach a great importance to martyrdom probably due to the nature of Christianity." I would just like to say that, if the author wished to confine himself solely to the realm of "Fact", he might be more loath to indulge in his personal opinion of the "nature" of Christianity.
:Personally, my instinct and own knowledge of the issue does seem to suggest that the editor had an anti-Jesuit or perhaps simply anti-missionary bias. On the other hand, it's possible that some of the information is correct and useful. I'm going to try and dig out some scholarly references and will be back here with further commentary ASAP.
:Thank you everyone for your attention and assistance.


:] (]) 07:53, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
== Non-neutral language ==


== Pro-Christian NPOV==
"Although missionaries who actually worked in Japan left realistic and secular analyses, the Kirishitan history compiled by Catholics is based on a religious interpretation. They tend to ignore economic and political affairs. They set religious activities against secular affairs and even map them to good and evil. Traditionally, the "purified" church sources were used to study Kirishitan history. The situation has been improved drastically as a lot of primary sources became available to researchers.
This article does need a bit of touch up to take out some of the more opprobrious POV issues. But I'd like to put forward, for the record, that if anything it seems biased in FAVOUR of Christian interests. The most obvious example is the utterly ridiculous snipey-snit against "non-religious researchers" viz a viz martyrdom. But the article in general stresses issues, and even nomenclature, that assume a Christian reader. This may be unavoidable, as the topic at hand is likely to be rather more interesting to Christians. Indeed, far from "anti-missionary bias", several of the link "sources" are in Japanese, from decidedly non-scholarly, sketchy Christian missionary groups. Furthermore, if anything, I would hope the article examine in more depth the imperialism of the period and its use of the Christian church as an ideological vanguard in colonizing nations. (The Tokugawa's response seems rather reasonable, if heavy handed, in light of the geopolitics of the time.)


Whatever the stakeholders of this page decide, please remember that not all readers are interested in a paean to one cult's martyrs, but that wikipedia should strive for dynamic disinterest.
Non-religious researchers find it difficult to treat martyrdom as history. Instead of giving detailed accounts, they just point out the rate of martyrdoms; there were a thousand martyrs at most whereas the number of Christians at their peak is estimated at 500 thousand. In contrast, Christians attach a great importance to martyrdom probably due to the nature of Christianity."
--] (]) 12:18, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
==Merge to ]==
Apart from the POV issues, this page duplicates ], a more normal title, and the word ] is rarely used in English texts. Which is okay for Wiktionary, but not Misplaced Pages. ] (]) 11:46, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
*'''Support'''. Creating articles based on foreign words, instead of English-language concepts, is only justified when there is no English equivalent or when the foreign term has been adopted into our language as the usual name of a notable subject. Neither of those exceptions applies here. ] (]) 09:06, 8 January 2013 (UTC)


== Replete with Errors ==
I think this isn't very neutrally written. It appears to be coming from the POV that the Catholic viewpoint is wrong or very flawed (may be, but hardly NPOV). - ] 03:34, 5 October 2005 (UTC)


This article is peppered with errors. For example, St. Francis Xavier never engaged in trading; he was frantically busy with evangelizing during his short stay in Japan. Juan Fernandes was a Jesuit brother, not a priest. Captured Kirishitan were not all sent to Nagasaki for execution, and the execution-ground in Nagasaki was not Mount Unzen but the slope called Nishi-zaka, which is on Mount Kompira. Some Catholics were indeed tortured (some to death) on Mount Unzen—which is on the Shimabara Peninsula, not in the city of Nagasaki—as well, but the main execution ground for Christians in the Nagasaki region was Nishi-zaka. It is also the place to which the Twenty-Six Martyrs were marched from faraway Kyoto to meet their deaths by crucifixion. All these errors I have gleaned from just a glance at the article; I have no time at present to read it in detail.
== Hmmm could use NPOV revision. ==
] (]) 19:24, 1 April 2013 (UTC)


== removing POV tag with no active discussion per ] ==
This is a very fascinating period of history, but this article fankly stinks.


I've removed an old neutrality tag from this page that appears to have no active discussion per the instructions at ]:
The tone reads like it was written by a Japanese nationalist who is trying (and failing)to politely reply to Christian polemics. Encyclopedic it is not. Not that the 'facts' are wrong, but it suggests far too much. Just about every questionable action of the Japanese govt. is excused, while every possible nefarious plot of the devious Catholic missionaries is speculated on. As previously noted, it quite non-neutrally discounts Catholic histories. Despite what the article says, the members of the Shimbara rebellion are NOT considered martyrs, precisely for the fact that they took up arms. In any event, the revolt was over taxes, not religion. Although many of the members (not all) were Christians.
::''This template is not meant to be a permanent resident on any article. Remove this template whenever:''
::#There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved
::#It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given
::#In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant.


Since there's no evidence of ongoing discussion, I'm removing the tag for now. If discussion is continuing and I've failed to see it, however, please feel free to restore the template and continue to address the issues. Thanks to everybody working on this one! -- ] (]) 12:34, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
: I have made several edits, removing a few statements that I know to be falst and changing the tone. Of note: 1.)The references to the San Felipe incident I have removed because The words put in the Spanish Cpt's mouth by the previous author I have never heard. I understand that he threatened Japan with conquest by Spain, and it was the Japanese government who then became suspicious to the missionaries as foreign agents. If you have references that state otherwise, please provide. 2.) References to European mistreatment of Japanese in the Trans pacific Slave trade. Trust me, there was absolutely no trans pacific slave trade in the 17th century. 3.)I also removed a contradictory statement regarding the banning of Samurai from converting to Catholicism. Other minor edits to improve NPOV. I will try to work on some more of the unsourced statements.--] 16:56, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
:Well there's still a massive problem with this article. I have moved it to a more precise title ], which happens to also be justified per ] and ] but equally should help the purpose of such an article be clearer compared to other overlapping articles. And if not merge. Titling in Japanese is no solution to the overlap issue. ] (]) 08:23, 6 November 2013 (UTC)


== External links modified ==
:Re-added San Felip incident after research showed the original author had the basic story right, only going a little overboard. ;-) ] 20:10, 30 August 2006 (UTC)--] 20:10, 30 August 2006 (UTC)


Hello fellow Wikipedians,
::General readability edits and expanded the background. I removed the reference to the Portuguese king and the diocese of Funai, because in 1588 there was no king of Portugaul. The country was ruled by the Spanish Monarch from 1580 to 1640.--] 20:28, 31 August 2006 (UTC)] 20:25, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


I have just modified 2 external links on ]. Please take a moment to review ]. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit ] for additional information. I made the following changes:
== Christianity in Japan post-Meiji Restoration ==
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100111060042/http://www.horyuji.or.jp/kondo.htm to http://www.horyuji.or.jp/kondo.htm
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100111080456/http://www.horyuji.or.jp/gojyunoto.htm to http://www.horyuji.or.jp/gojyunoto.htm


When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
I came here in a so far fruitless effort to find something in Misplaced Pages on the Kyoudan, or United Church of Christ in Japan, or on the history of Christianity in Japan since Meiji in general. The treatment of Christianity at ] is woefully inadequate. This article, for all its failings, is far more informative, but it stops short of the period I was looking for. Shusaku Endo probably ought to mentioned in both articles, FWIW. --] 08:20, 2 October 2006 (UTC)


{{sourcecheck|checked=false|needhelp=}}
:Wasn't he a 20th century writer? If so, his relevance to the current article is pretty low. If we expand it up to the 20th century (and make this more of a Christianity in Japan article) then certianly. ] 20:10, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


Cheers.—] <span style="color:green;font-family:Rockwell">(])</span> 04:15, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
==Project Assessment==
I was pleasantly surprised to see the length and detail here, as well as the number of images. However, there are two major things still missing: (1) References need to be cited. (2) A list of, or section/paragraph devoted to, Christian daimyo. ] 21:04, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

==Xavier - Slave Trader?==

Despite the claimed attribution from a recent Japanese book, I am very dubious about the claims that Francis Xavier was involved in slave trading, particularly of Christian girls! I would support Minguo above, in that the tales of a trans-pacific slave trade are incredible. Particularly the idea that half a million baptized Japanese girls were traded for gunpowder. (This at a time when fewer than 200,000 baptized Christians existed in Japan. This seems to me like total nonsense! ] (]) 16:27, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

How do I cite a source by absence? At university I took an Japanese history course with a high workload, and read from many sources about Christianity in Japan. Nowhere was this nonsense saltpeter or a slave trade mentioned or even remotely suggested. How is one supposed to "prove" that these incredibly ridiculous supposed events could not possibly have happened? It would be like trying to prove that King Kong did not actually climb the WTC in 1955--good luck trying to find a source for that I am tempted to just wipe the entire section in one edit. ] (]) 17:54, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and no source at all was provided, so I've deleted the section. ] (]) 10:22, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

: Oops, there was a detailed source provided for the "50 slaves per barrel" claim, it just wasn't in the right place. So I've restored that, but snipped out the 500,000 bit which seems really hard to swallow... ] (]) 10:26, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

The Jesuit mission received an annual share of the profits of the kurofune (black ships). Only in 1613 did a new order reached Japan from Rome forbidding the participation of the missionaries in trade. There are very clear and direct references to slavery relating to Hideyoshi's decision and so if you university course did not mention it, I would ask questions why.

This is a bit of a non-sequitur but Hideyoshi was said to have been able to move an army of between 120,000 to 230,000 across to Korea around the same time and there is no suggestion that it was only Iberian ships involved in the trade but contemporary records of Japanese slaves around the Holy Roman Empire do turn up, specifically during The Japanese mission to Europe in 1582-1590. I do not know the specifics of the trade or numbers. --] (]) 17:37, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

== This article is not written from a neutral point of view ==

Especially the military activity section. This long section hardly gives any information about military activity of Japanese converts.
Rather speculates about Spanish or Portuguese invasion of China. This invasion never occurred(and therefore should not be mentioned in military activity section). Also claims preparation for a Christian rebellion against Toyotomi Hideyoshi
which also never occurred(this section is supposed to be about military activity, not intentions).
Not to forget that the author is trying to prove his opinion that Christian daimyo is not less severe than a non-Christian daimyo by mentioning a massacre of Koreans by Japanese who had at least one daimyo(who happens to be Christian) in their rank.
How come destruction of Buddhist temples(this is the first time a read about Christian minority destroying shrines of a majority religion in potentionaly hostile country) is mentioned in this section. It is not a military activity.

Also the "propagation strategy" section claims that number of Christians under Christian daimyo "drastically" increased.
What does mean "drastically" in this context? Where the commoners drastically forced to accept Christianity? Or was the growth peaceful
but just so high that it could be described "drastic" using slang language.

Early policy towards Catholicism section : "By 1579, at the height of missionary activity, there were '''only''' about 130,000 converts." I think that this is quite a large number regarding that there was no state support of Christianity or state forced conversions.

St.Francis Xavier as a slave trader - seems ridiculous. I never heard about Jesuits slave trading in Japan. I would like to see the source. Maybe some kind of nationalist propaganda book from Taishō or Shōwa eras.

There is no mention about insane violence towards Christians. The martyrs(including native Japanese) do not have a single section in this article.

The Japanese government responsible for persecution of Christians is being excused while Christians are blamed for the tragedy and evil which followed the ban on Christianity. I read about forced dechristianization and persecution of Christians in Japan from secular sources but never read about forced christianization in Japan, China or anywhere in the Far East.

This article is totally written from anti-Christian point of view. Worst NPOV violation I ever met on wikipedia. This article is trying to excuse the Christian holocaust in Japan.

] (]) 10:32, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

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This article is not written from a neutral point of view

Especially the military activity section. This long section hardly gives any information about military activity of Japanese converts. Rather speculates about Spanish or Portuguese invasion of China. This invasion never occurred(and therefore should not be mentioned in military activity section). Also claims preparation for a Christian rebellion against Toyotomi Hideyoshi which also never occurred(this section is supposed to be about military activity, not intentions). Not to forget that the author is trying to prove his opinion that Christian daimyo is not less severe than a non-Christian daimyo by mentioning a massacre of Koreans by Japanese who had at least one daimyo(who happens to be Christian) in their rank. How come destruction of Buddhist temples(this is the first time a read about Christian minority destroying shrines of a majority religion in potentionaly hostile country) is mentioned in this section. It is not a military activity.

Also the "propagation strategy" section claims that number of Christians under Christian daimyo "drastically" increased. What does mean "drastically" in this context? Where the commoners drastically forced to accept Christianity? Or was the growth peaceful but just so high that it could be described "drastic" using slang language.

Early policy towards Catholicism section : "By 1579, at the height of missionary activity, there were only about 130,000 converts." I think that this is quite a large number regarding that there was no state support of Christianity or state forced conversions.

St.Francis Xavier as a slave trader - seems ridiculous. I never heard about Jesuits slave trading in Japan. I would like to see the source. Maybe some kind of nationalist propaganda book from Taishō or Shōwa eras.

There is no mention about insane violence towards Christians. The martyrs(including native Japanese) do not have a single section in this article.

The Japanese government responsible for persecution of Christians is being excused while Christians are blamed for the tragedy and evil which followed the ban on Christianity. I read about forced dechristianization and persecution of Christians in Japan from secular sources but never read about forced christianization in Japan, China or anywhere in the Far East.

This article is totally written from anti-Christian point of view. Worst NPOV violation I ever met on wikipedia. This article is trying to excuse the Christian holocaust in Japan.

Isidoros47 (talk) 10:32, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, right. The number of people who were executed was relatively low, and the converts were given plenty of chances to recant (the missionaries to withdraw from the country). The importance of the "persecution" is played up in Eurocentric, anti-Japanese sources. The authorities were very slow to actually enforce their edicts. There were plenty of government-forced conversions, although few by the national central government (Nobunaga, through his pro-foreign policies, may have caused some) - they were instead brought about by individual daimyou who converted and forced Christianity on their subjects. This probably accounted for the vast majority of the conversions. If you want a source, try Japan: A Short Cultural History by Sansom, which is "still the best introduction to Japanese history" (Times Literary Supplement) and "remains to this day the standard work in the field" (World Affairs Quarterly). Japan - An Attempt at Interpretation (Hearn) takes the same view, and, although I would not consider it a particularly reliable source on history, is more highly regarded in Japan and elsewhere than most others. Clearly the "secular" sources you read were written by Christians with their own agenda, even if they were not in the direct employ of the Church. I rather think that thanks to anti-Japanese literature this is one of the worst NPOV-violations on Misplaced Pages in the opposite way. elvenscout742 (talk) 22:30, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Don't be silly. I never said that the secular sources I read were written by Christians. Claiming that every literature that does not excuse religious holocaust in Japan is anti-Japanese is paranoiac.

Isidoros47 (talk) 22:04, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

My personal feelings regarding this article is that it could do with alot of cleaning. The statement about Christian daimyos involved in massacres in Korea comes across as an almost adolescent "See! Christians are no better!". Really what should be said there is that the daimyos converted to christianity for practical and economic reasons and not usually out of any heartfelt change of faith or heart, hence their religion did not influence their behavior drastically.. or something. I think the article is just badly written and needs to be fixed up. Kamatsu (talk) 15:08, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
I have finally removed the incredible allegation of Jesuits trading Christian Japanese virgins for gunpowder! It's been in the article months despite being unknown to normal histories and being based on a single extremely unreliable source. The action of removing the ludicrous 500,000 figure was insufficient, since by removing an obviously ridiculous figure that change almost makes the allegation more credible and less easily disproven. This allegation comes under the WP guidance that an exceptional allegation requires an exceptional source. This does not exist. The allegation would seem more of an internal Japanese propaganda "justification" for the subsequent repression and massacre of Christians. Xandar 01:30, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Stumbled upon this after having my own run-in with that 500,000 statistic on different articles. Read in Talk:Martyrs_of_Japan for more info. For what it's worth I do seem to recall that this statistic had been added by the same person to different articles. I had a lot of fun trying to track down this claim :/ basically it seems like someone copy-pasted it from a blog citation of a sensationalist book and it spread from that. Joren (talk) 16:56, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
It is possible that 500,000 slaves are dealt during 50 years.

At that time, it is history recording that Japan slave is dealt all over the world —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ooggii (talk • contribs) 02:38, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

We need more than one person that says this happened, and it needs to be a first-hand quotation. Do you have other sources you can provide? I'd love to find more information. I got into this issue because I saw this claim somewhere else on Misplaced Pages and I was fascinated by it, since I've read plenty of history about Japan and had never heard this idea about 500,000 women before. I searched everywhere and could not find anything talking about Japanese women being exported to Europe at all, let alone in such large numbers. That is why I decided to remove it, because it seems unreliable to me - I can't find a single person anywhere that says this is true other than one single author. If you can find a reputable first-hand source that states that 500,000 women were traded as slaves in exchange for gunpowder, please let us know - I'd love to put it on here, if it is true of course :)
I see you have replied on your talk page. I'll go read your reply now :) Joren (talk) 03:19, 7 November 2009 (UTC)


  • Khh. I'll sort this.

Sioraf (talk) 19:57, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Kirishitan crucifix

A Japanese Kirishitan crucifix, 17th century.

A Japanese Kirishitan crucifix, 17th century. Feel free to insert it in the article. Photographed at the Paris Foreign Missions Society. PHG (talk) 15:10, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

 Done PHG 07:08, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Japanese Kannon/Virgin Mary

The Virgin Mary disguised as Kannon (Japan).

Here is an image of the Virgin Mary disguised as Kannon (Guan Yin) from 17th century Japan. Feel free to insert it in the article. Cheers PHG (talk) 09:04, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

 Done PHG 07:08, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

How to resolve NPOV, reference concerns

Hey, anyone still here? I got to poking through the article, and I was curious where some of the text came from, so I dug through the edit history. It seems a lot of the unsourced material was added here, in two edits, with not a single source to support them. Furthermore, this was done five years ago. I am concerned that we have allowed unsourced claims to stand for this long...  ? That's disturbing.

Basically, there are two things hurting this article. One, most of the sections, while containing what would be useful information, do not have any sources at all. Two, there are concerns about POV, whether or not this article is slanted against Christians throughout Japan's history. If the article were sourced, it would be easier to evaluate for POV, but since it's not it just makes it even harder to tell what's real and what's not, let alone whether undue emphasis is being given.

Given the length of time involved, I don't think we are likely to get any followup as far as what sources could support these claims. What should we do about this material? Would anyone know of some good sources to buttress these claims, if indeed they are factual? I fear if we go through this article with a fine-toothed comb and just delete everything uncited, we may not have any article left! So I'd like to ask anyone who might be watching this article, is there's any way we can salvage/prune this and get some sources before we break out the weed whacker? Whoever wrote this gives the impression of having spent a lot of time studying the topic; seems a waste to just delete it all, but it really does feel like original research to me. I just wish they'd thought to tell us where they got this from so we could make an informed evaluation of it. Would appreciate ideas. Thanks,

-- Joren (talk) 11:38, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I would love to contribute to this article, though I think the first step would be some carefully controlled pruning of any un-sourced claims, particularly statistical ones. By carefully controlled, I mean selecting individual sentences or paragraphs, posting/referencing them here at the talk page, and leaving them open for discussion and, more importantly, sources, before amendment/deletion. If, then, the article has to be built up from a relatively skeletal form again, so be it. I speak as a greenhorn Wikipedian; any alternative plans of action are welcome.
Personally, my instinct and own knowledge of the issue does seem to suggest that the editor had an anti-Jesuit or perhaps simply anti-missionary bias. On the other hand, it's possible that some of the information is correct and useful. I'm going to try and dig out some scholarly references and will be back here with further commentary ASAP.
Thank you everyone for your attention and assistance.
Edofmund (talk) 07:53, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Pro-Christian NPOV

This article does need a bit of touch up to take out some of the more opprobrious POV issues. But I'd like to put forward, for the record, that if anything it seems biased in FAVOUR of Christian interests. The most obvious example is the utterly ridiculous snipey-snit against "non-religious researchers" viz a viz martyrdom. But the article in general stresses issues, and even nomenclature, that assume a Christian reader. This may be unavoidable, as the topic at hand is likely to be rather more interesting to Christians. Indeed, far from "anti-missionary bias", several of the link "sources" are in Japanese, from decidedly non-scholarly, sketchy Christian missionary groups. Furthermore, if anything, I would hope the article examine in more depth the imperialism of the period and its use of the Christian church as an ideological vanguard in colonizing nations. (The Tokugawa's response seems rather reasonable, if heavy handed, in light of the geopolitics of the time.)

Whatever the stakeholders of this page decide, please remember that not all readers are interested in a paean to one cult's martyrs, but that wikipedia should strive for dynamic disinterest. --WuShufei (talk) 12:18, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Merge to History of Roman Catholicism in Japan

Apart from the POV issues, this page duplicates History of Roman Catholicism in Japan, a more normal title, and the word kirishitan is rarely used in English texts. Which is okay for Wiktionary, but not Misplaced Pages. In ictu oculi (talk) 11:46, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

  • Support. Creating articles based on foreign words, instead of English-language concepts, is only justified when there is no English equivalent or when the foreign term has been adopted into our language as the usual name of a notable subject. Neither of those exceptions applies here. Moonraker (talk) 09:06, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Replete with Errors

This article is peppered with errors. For example, St. Francis Xavier never engaged in trading; he was frantically busy with evangelizing during his short stay in Japan. Juan Fernandes was a Jesuit brother, not a priest. Captured Kirishitan were not all sent to Nagasaki for execution, and the execution-ground in Nagasaki was not Mount Unzen but the slope called Nishi-zaka, which is on Mount Kompira. Some Catholics were indeed tortured (some to death) on Mount Unzen—which is on the Shimabara Peninsula, not in the city of Nagasaki—as well, but the main execution ground for Christians in the Nagasaki region was Nishi-zaka. It is also the place to which the Twenty-Six Martyrs were marched from faraway Kyoto to meet their deaths by crucifixion. All these errors I have gleaned from just a glance at the article; I have no time at present to read it in detail. 

   Amakusaluke (talk) 19:24, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

removing POV tag with no active discussion per Template:POV

I've removed an old neutrality tag from this page that appears to have no active discussion per the instructions at Template:POV:

This template is not meant to be a permanent resident on any article. Remove this template whenever:
  1. There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved
  2. It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given
  3. In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant.

Since there's no evidence of ongoing discussion, I'm removing the tag for now. If discussion is continuing and I've failed to see it, however, please feel free to restore the template and continue to address the issues. Thanks to everybody working on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 12:34, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Well there's still a massive problem with this article. I have moved it to a more precise title Hidden Christians of Japan, which happens to also be justified per WP:EN and WP:CRITERIA but equally should help the purpose of such an article be clearer compared to other overlapping articles. And if not merge. Titling in Japanese is no solution to the overlap issue. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:23, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

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