Bushido, the Soul of Japan

Inazo Nitobe was challenged when European friends asked him whether Japan had religious training for its youth, and challenged Japanese morality when he replied in the negative. This book, penned originally in 1899 and reissued dozens of times in many languages ever since, explained how Bushido provided the moral basis for Japanese of all social strata.

Nitobe's perspective is that of a Christian concerned for the people of his country. For example, he shows that the Bushido discipline of self-restraint explains the absence of more frequent revivals in the Christian churches of Japan. "It is truly jarring to Japanese ears to hear the most sacred words, the most secret heart experiences, thrown out to promiscuous audiences...To give in so many articulate words one's inmost thoughts and feelings - notably the religious - is taken among us as an unmistakable sign that they are neither very profound nor very sincere."

He foresaw, with the industrialization and Westernization of Japan, the ultimate replacement of Bushido with something else. He hoped that it would be supplanted by the true worship of Jesus Christ, seeing Materialism as the great competitor of Christianity. "Missionaries claim that Christianity is a new religion, whereas, to my mind, it is an 'old, old story' which if presented in intelligible words,--that is to say, if expressed in the vocabulary familiar in the moral development of a people--will find easy lodgment in their hearts, irrespective of race or nationality."

Sounds like the present day exhortations to preach the Gospel to people where they live, not where we want them to be. Enlightening book!

Review by J.David Knepper at http://www.ahavabaptist.com/reviews/reviews.htm#bushi