Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
DENYING THE FAITH

DENYING THE FAITH

Last updated on: February 12, 2014 at 10:24 am by Philip Jenkins

DENYING THE FAITH 2014-02-12T10:24:55-04:00 Philip Jenkins

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I posted about the deadly Japanese persecution of Christians in the thirty years or so after 1614, and how this violence effectively destroyed organized Christianity in that nation. In 2014, we are commemorating the four hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the worst of the persecution.

In describing Japanese acts against the Christians, I am not of course denying that contemporary Christians could be just as brutal in their way. Coincidentally, 1614 also marks the culmination of Spain’s expulsion of its Moriscos, former Muslims who had accepted conversion to Christianity. In Germany, meanwhile, the same year saw anti-Jewish riots. Intolerance, obviously, was the prerogative of no one faith.

Japan, though, was extremely efficient in its repression. Please note that the following account includes some gruesome descriptions, which I am reporting in detail because they are essential to understanding the story.

Although we naturally pay most attention to the spectacular acts of mass martyrdom, such violence in its own right need not be absolutely destructive. We remember the saying that “the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church.” Much more effective in the long term is systematic repression associated with intense surveillance and police work, which really does ensure that a crushed church cannot rise again. The Japanese were brilliantly successful at such policies. Much like modern-day totalitarian regimes, they ran a superbly effective mechanism of repression and thought control. They offer a terrifying model of the means by which a faith – any faith – truly can be destroyed.

Japan had a long tradition of effective magistrates and policing, far superior to anything the Inquisition had ever operated in Europe. Already by the 1630s, an extremely modern-sounding security apparatus sought out Christians by means of “letters, pictures [wanted posters], secret agents, road check points and border controls.” Governments deliberately sought out dissidence and subversion, while the reforms of the shogun Hideyoshi reforms relied for their enforcement on mutual denunciation.

In 1629, the government made it even more difficult for Christians to escape public notice when they introduced the fumie, requiring all Japanese to trample upon the crucifix or an image of Mary, an act that no Christian could do in good conscience.

In 1636, an edict laid down rules for the investigation of alleged Christians, offering two or three hundred pieces of silver for information leading to the capture of priests, bateren (that is, padres). Smaller rewards were available for lay believers.

A hundred years ago, the Catholic Encyclopedia asserted that, “There is not in the whole history of the Church a single people who can offer to the admiration of the Christian world annals as glorious, and a martyrology as lengthy, as those of the people of Japan.” But the story was more complex than a straightforward tale of brutal terror and heroic resistance. When suspects were found, authorities placed immense pressure on them to renounce their views, to recant their deviant religion, and to assert their loyalty to orthodox Japanese principles.

The deep concern with public repentance is a well-known feature of Japanese society, which became a critical element in campaigns against unpopular religions. Recantation by clergy and other leaders allowed the public to see the weakness of the minority faith, without creating heroic martyr figures. Moreover, such apostates were in an excellent position to deliver embarrassing testimony about the deviant faith, which they knew from the inside.

The need for public apostasy shaped the penalties inflicted upon Catholic clergy in Japan. Jesuits in particular were trained to expect persecution and martyrdom, and brave individuals could contemplate the threat of a speedy death, and the crown of martyrdom. Quite different was the treatment they received in the ana-tsurushi, the pit, a favored device of Nagasaki governor Takenaka Uneme:

One grotesque example was the ana-tsurushi, the torment of the pit,

The victim was hung from the cross beam of a gallows, head downward, into a pit five or six feet deep. The body was tightly bound in order to slow down the circulation of the blood. The holes were sealed off with planks about the victim’s loins. The pits were often partly filled with offal. There in those black holes many hung for as long as a week, exuding blood from mouth and nostrils, maddened by the fearful pressure on the brain, until death released them from almost unsupportable anguish.

This became the favored means of punishment in the 1630s:

In order to prevent a speedy death… by congestion, to prolong the torture and give more chance to recant – Takenaka wanted apostates rather than martyrs – often the victim’s temples were pierced. Some who had recanted under this torture later declared that neither the pain caused by burning with fire nor that of any other torture, deserved to be compared with the agony produced in this way.

Magistrates proved adept in deploying psychological tactics, exploiting the ideological assumptions of the clergy themselves, and their boast of exercising fatherly care over their flocks. Courageous priests might be able themselves to withstand appalling physical torment, but still more disturbing was the threat that their native converts might suffer death or torture, unless the clergy conceded defeat.

Official pressures often succeeded in leading Christians, Europeans and Japanese, to recant or apostasize, In so doing, they not only ceased their own resistance, but condemned the faith. Ingeniously preventing apostates from holding secret mental reservations, the authorities required signatories to confirm their words by a double set of weighty oaths invoking the threat of hell, one Christian (assuming they might still harbor Christian sentiments), the other Shinto or Buddhist.

The most notorious apostate was Cristóvão Ferreira, the Portuguese–born leader of the Jesuit mission until his arrest in 1633, when he apostasized while undergoing the pit. Like others, he confessed that the Christian religion was only a subterfuge that promoted European plans for world conquest. Presumably, he was agreeing to everything his interrogators proposed to him, and even elaborating. Assuming a Japanese name and identity, he married and worked as a translator, remaining in Nagasaki until his death in 1650. His defection offered multiple benefits for the authorities, by discrediting the European priests, and destroying their credibility among the social elites. Henceforward, Christianity would survive in the grass roots, or not at all.

Ferreira’s case also provided a powerful example for other clergy facing persecution. Even the most heroic priest sentenced to the pit must have been tempted by the prospect of signing the documents that would allow him to retire comfortably to Nagasaki. Ferreira’s apostasy was a devastating blow for a Catholic Europe that was now thoroughly used to hearing about the heroic deeds of martyred priests.

Some apostates became active enemies of their old faith. Ferreira was notorious as a skilled interrogator of Christian captives, and he wrote a polemical tract (in Japanese) against Catholic Christianity. From 1610 to 1630, the main enforcer of anti-Christian policies was Takenaka’s deputy Heizo, a defector from the Christian faith. In the 1640s, the most fanatical Christian-hunter was Inoue Masashige, another former Christian. Although he held the rank of Inspector General, scholars often translate his title quite appropriately as Inquisitor.

Such stories have attained global visibility through the novels of Japanese Catholic writer Shusaku Endo, who many regard as one of the greatest Christian writers of modern times. In books like Silence, Endo demonstrates his fascination with issues of loyalty and betrayal, and the great persecutions offered him rich resources. Silence itself focuses on a Portuguese priest drawn to Japan by the desperate need to find the truth behind Father Ferreira’s defection. (Martin Scorsese has reportedly been on the verge of making a film version of Silence for about a decade now, but hopes are running low…)

Japanese Christianity faded not because it was somehow destined to do so, but because it was throttled shortly after its birth. As one of Endo’s Jesuit characters protests, “It is not that it does not take root. It’s that the roots are torn up”.

I’m looking forward to addressing some of these issues in the graduate course on Global Christianity I am currently teaching at Baylor.

Incidentally, this story is the subject of some magnificent contemporary art, which it is hard to reproduce here. You can though see one painting in detail at the wikimedia site.

Philip Jenkins

Japan

martyrdom

persecution of Christianity

Shusaku Endo

Previous Post

February 7, 2014

DESTROYING JAPANESE CHRISTIANITY

Next Post

February 11, 2014 How to Stop Fiddling Around and Start Writing

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abolitionism Abortion Abraham Joshua Heschel Abraham Kuyper Abraham Lincoln Academia Activism Adam Renberg Advent Adventist africa African American Religion Agnes Howard Albert Camus American History American Religious History American Revolution American West Anabaptists Ancient History Andrea Turpin Andrei Tarkovsky Anglicanism Annales Ansley Lillian Quiros anti-Catholicism Antisemitism Anxious Bench apologetics Apparitions Arash Azizi Archaeology archives art Artificial Intelligence Asia Asian Americans Augustine Authors Bad Bunny Baptism Baptists Barack Obama Battle of Hastings Benjamin Franklin Bernard-Henri Levy Beth Allison Barr Beth Moore Bethany Mannon Bible Bill Cunningham Billy Graham Black Music Bob Dylan Body Boenhoffer Books Breastfeeding Bruce Springsteen C.S. Lewis Calvinism Cancel Culture Capitalism Carmelites Catholicism Cedric Robinson Cesar Chavez Charismaticism charity Charles Dickens Charles Lindbergh Che Guevara Chicago Children Chinese Christianity Chris Gehrz Christ Christian death Christian Higher Education Christian life Christian Nation Christian Nationalism Christianity Today Christmas Church life Church Practice cinema Civil Religion Civil Rights Movement Civil War civility Classics Climate Change Cold War Colonial Mexico colonialism Comer Communism community complementarianism Conference on Faith and History Congregationalism Conspiracies Conspiracy Conversion Narratives Coronavirus Costa Rica Council of Nicaea Covid-19 Creation Critical Race Theory Crusades Culture culture wars Daniel K. Williams David Barton David Swartz Death Ways death with dignity DEI democracy Democratic Party Devotion Digital Age Diplomacy discipleship diversity Donald Trump Drama Dua Lipa Early Church early modern Early modern Catholicism Easter Eastern Christianity economic exploitation Education elections Elie Wiesel Elizabeth II Elizabeth Taylor emotions Empire Engineering England enslavement Entertainment Episcopal Church Erica Ramirez eschatology Eurocentrism Evangelicalism Evangelicals Exegesis Family Feminism Film Flannery O'Connor folk music Food Foreign Policy founding fathers Franciscans Franciscus Junius fundamentalism Funerals G.K. Chesterton Gender Genocide genre geography George W. Bush George Washington George Whitefield Global Christianity Global church Grief Guadalupe Guest Post guest post gun control gun violence Gustavo Gutierrez Hamid Dabashi Harold John Ockenga Harvest Hate Hawaiian Christianity Healing health care Heather Cox Richardson Hell Heresy Hermeneutics Higher Education Hinduism Hippocratic oath Historical Fiction Historical Methodology Historical Profession Historical Profession Historical Theology Historical Thinking historiography Holidays Holocaust horror movies Human rights Humanitarian Work humanities Hummingbirds Hungary hymns Imago Dei Immigration Injustice Interviews Iran Islam Islamophobia Israel Ivan's Childhood Jacob Randolph James Bratt Janine Giordano Drake Japanese history Japanese Literature Jean Paul Sartre Jesse Miranda Jesus Jesus Christ Jimmy Carter Joan Baez Joan Didion Joanne Freeman João B. Chaves Joao Chaves Joey Cochran John Calvin John Fea John Tillotson John Turner Johnny Cash Jonathan Edwards Jonathan Tran Joseph Smith Josh Howerton Journalism Jr. Judaism Jürgen Moltmann Just War Justice Justin Brierley Karl Barth Katelyn Beaty koi ponds Kris Kristofferson Kristin Kobes Du Mez Latin American Religious History Latino Americans Lectio Divina Leisure Lent Leonard Cohen liberal arts liberalism Liberation Theology Linda Ronstadt Lisa Clark Diller Literature Lou Reed Lynchings Lynneth Miller Renberg Mainline Protestantism Malcolm Foley Marilyn Monroe Maritime history Mark Noll Marriage Martin Luther Martin Luther King Martyrdom Marxism Mary Masih Alinejad mass shootings material culture medieval Christianity Medieval Ethiopia Melissa Borja memory Mennonites Mental Health Mental Illness Methodism Mexican Americans Mexicans Mike Madrid Miles Mullin Min Jin Lee Miscarriage Missionaries Mister Rogers Mitt Romney modernity Monasticism Mormonism Motherhood Mothers of the Church Moving Music Musicals Nadya Williams Nahua Christianity Native Americans Natsume Sōseki New Contributor New England New Year New York Nico Non-Violent Protest Orthodoxy pacifism Paleo Evangelicals Palestinians Parenting Patti Smith Paul Kingsnorth Pedro Calderón de la Barca Pentecostalism Philip Jenkins Phillis Wheatley physician-assisted suicide pilgrimage Pilgrims pluralism Plutocracy Poetry Politics Pope Francis Pope Leo XIV post-modernism prayer preaching Presbyterians prosperity gospel Protest Public history Publishing Puritans purity culture Quakers race Race Massacres Racial Capitalism racial reconciliation racialization Racism Raha Bahloulipour Re-Enchantment reading Reformation Refugees religion and the university religion and war Religious Freedom Religious Nones Religious Pluralism Religious Symbols religious violence Republican Party Revival Rita Coolidge Ritual Roger Williams Roman Catholic church Royalty Russell Moore same-sex marriage Sarah Irving-Stonebraker Scandinavia Science Science and Technology Scopes trial Scriptural Interpretation secularism Selena Quintanilla seminary Seventh-Day Adventists sexual morality Sexuality Sikhs Silence slaveholders theology Slavery Slavoj Zizek social justice Social Media Southern Baptist Convention Southern Religion Spain Spiritual Autobiography Spiritual but not religious Spiritual Discipline Sports Stanley Hauerwas Suffering Summer Camps Sunday Night Odds and Ends Supernatural Supreme Court Syriac Christianity Tal Howard Taylor Swift Teaching Technology Television Thanksgiving The Beatles The Mission theater TheoBros Theology Thomas Dixon Thomas Jefferson Thomas Kidd Thomas Merton Tim Gloege Tim Walz Tom Holland Tourism tradition Tragedy Translation Transnationalism Travel Trump Ukraine Uncategorized Unitarians United Methodist Church US History Vanessa Chan Velvet Underground Verónica A. Gutiérrez Veronica Gutierrez Vikings Violence Virgin Mary Virtue Virtue ethics Visions Voting War WCTU Wendell Berry Westminster Assembly White Evangelicalism Wildfires Winnie the Pooh Witches women Women in Ministry Women's and Gender Studies Work Worship writing Yasunari Kawabata Zena Hitz

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What did Nehemiah rebuild in Jerusalem amid much opposition?

Select your answer to see how you score.

The city wall The palace The tower of Siloam The Temple