Jolyon Baraka Thomas
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226618791
- eISBN:
- 9780226618968
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226618968.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
American interpretations of religious freedom during the Occupation were far from uniform. Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers Douglas MacArthur wanted to Christianize Japan by any means ...
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American interpretations of religious freedom during the Occupation were far from uniform. Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers Douglas MacArthur wanted to Christianize Japan by any means necessary, while Religions and Cultural Resources Division chief William Bunce aimed to promote personalized, elective understandings of religious freedom. Meanwhile, the Occupation rank and file, Japanese citizens, and Occupation translators and clerical staff harbored a wide variety of assumptions about what religious freedom was and who should benefit from it. Forced to reconcile competing interpretations of religious freedom among the occupiers while simultaneously charged with fostering “a desire for religious freedom" in the Japanese populace, members of the Occupation Religions and Cultural Resources Division set about establishing a new, universal understanding of religious freedom. They did so primarily by interfacing with existing and newly formed transdenominational and transsectarian religious organizations. In so doing, the occupiers ironically reproduced a dynamic that characterized the close, collaborative relationships between Japanese religions and the state in wartime.Less
American interpretations of religious freedom during the Occupation were far from uniform. Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers Douglas MacArthur wanted to Christianize Japan by any means necessary, while Religions and Cultural Resources Division chief William Bunce aimed to promote personalized, elective understandings of religious freedom. Meanwhile, the Occupation rank and file, Japanese citizens, and Occupation translators and clerical staff harbored a wide variety of assumptions about what religious freedom was and who should benefit from it. Forced to reconcile competing interpretations of religious freedom among the occupiers while simultaneously charged with fostering “a desire for religious freedom" in the Japanese populace, members of the Occupation Religions and Cultural Resources Division set about establishing a new, universal understanding of religious freedom. They did so primarily by interfacing with existing and newly formed transdenominational and transsectarian religious organizations. In so doing, the occupiers ironically reproduced a dynamic that characterized the close, collaborative relationships between Japanese religions and the state in wartime.
