Syncretistic Americanism: Evangelical Missions and the Reconstruction of Postwar Japan

American religion has, for good or ill, been driving foreign policy in this country for over 100 years. Much of the information the United States knew about the developing powers came from missionaries. The cornerstone of the program to infuse civil Christianity into policy was most overtly expressed in the reconstruction of Japan in the postwar years.

In the plans for reconstructing Japan, Douglas MacArthur called for one thousand missionaries to instill religious values and to educate the Japanese people. In an innovative combination, the missionaries and the government formed the backbone of American efforts to remake Japan as a working ally for the United States.This paper will assess the interworking of religious mission and national ambition. It will look at several questions: What government assistance aided the work of missions’ organizations? How well did the missionaries conduct their work within this political ambition? Did their mission change? Did the work of the missionaries affect to reconstruction plans of the United States? What was the extent of American religious presence in Japan? How did the Japanese people receive and adopt the plan of religion that came as part of their reconstruction as a defeated people? As a careful construction for the democratization of Japan, it is clear that both the American goals and missions’ values changed because of this endeavor. Syncretism blurred distinctives and led to compromised versions of many particular views.