The phenomenon of exploration during the 15th through the 17th centuries enabled the western world to introduce new ideas of faith and religion to areas around the globe. ... Along this road, Rodrigues discovers in himself, questions about his own faith and why this distant land was so opposed to Christianity, in this case Catholicism. ... ” During his stay in Japan, Rodrigues developed a new sense of his own faith, one that he did not expect nor want. ... The people who practiced the Christian faith were not powerful in political or financial terms. ... The structure of Japanese society was one of the walls protecting the area from conversion to the Catholic faith and one of the reasons why Christianity failed in Japan. ... Buddhism came from China, an area from which Japan borrowed many traditions, and merged with Shinto well to develop a polytheistic approach to faith. ... This “swamp” of Japan also created a new version of Christianity, not familiar to the missionaries who brought the faith. ... Hymns and prayers stated by the Japanese people included phrases normally found in the Buddhist faith. ... (45)
The Japanese were not practicing European Christianity, but practicing Christianity as they understood faith, through Buddhist and Shinto ideas of faith. ... (55)
With this silence, questions of the faith developed. ... This “swamp” did not allow the faith to plant its’ roots in the culture and tradition of Japan. But perhaps the most intriguing evidence of Christianity’s failure in Japan deals with Rodrigues’ own faith.
Rodrigues came to Japan on a mission to spread his faith to people who yearned for the new ideas. He ended up as a man who questioned his own faith and the teachings he came so far to spread. Once arriving in Japan, Rodrigues discovered the faith he had spent his entire life learning and believing in was not the same faith that was being practiced in this foreign land.
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