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University in Chiba (1996-1999). He tried to
analyze and assess the theology of Takakura
Tokutaro from the Western point of view.
In the middle of the nineteenth century,
Japan was forced to abolish her two-and-half
century-long isolation policy by the Western
powers and opened up and began to achieve
modernization. This era of Japanese history is
designated in the Japanese calendar according
to the reigns of the emperors, respectively as
Meiji 1-46 (1868-1912), Taisho 1-15 (19121926), and Showa 1-64 (1926-1989). The
present designation is Heisei according to the
reign of Heisei Emperor (1989-).
The introduction of Christianity into Japan
was first done by the Jesuit missionary Fran
cis Xavier in the middle of the 16th century.
It was accepted by several feudal lords and
developed rapidly to the significant size by
the time of the total destruction of the church
by the ban in 1638. The Protestant mission
began after the Meiji Reformation (1868)
and in Meiji 5 (1872), before abolishment
of the prohibition of Christianity the next
year by the Meiji government, the first Prot
estant church was established in Yokohama
by 11 Japanese Christians and the American
Dutch Reformed missionary James H. Ballagh.
Takakura Tokutaro, the mainfigureof the the
sis, belonged to the second generation of the
Japanese Protestant church and was the rep
resentative theologian and leader in the late
1920s and the early 1930s.
The author analyzed and evaluated exten
sively Takakura's life and theology according
to the scheme of: Part I: The Life Context
that Shaped Takakura's Thought: Takakura the
Human Being; Part II: Chapter 1: The Chris
tian Faith Conveyed to Takakura through the
Church in Meiji Japan; Part III: Chapter 2: The
Christian Faith Conveyed to Takakura through
the Western Church; Part IV: Takakura's Ar
ticulation of the Christian Faith Within His
contemporary Situation: (especially on his
major work, Fukuinteki Kirisutokyo ("Evan
gelical Christianity"); Part V: Analysis of
Takakura's Thought. I will cite here briefly the
author's observation.
In thefirsthalf of the Meiji Era (until about
1890), Japan had introduced actively Western
science and technologies and had been eager to
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