The other day, I visited Karuizawa on a trip. I was walking along a mountain road toward a recently built fashionable complex called Harunire Terrace. On the way there, I saw a steep slope on my left, and on the nameplate there were the words “Highland Church, Stone Church. For some reason, I was a little curious and decided to climb up the steep slope, leaving my destination, Harunire Terrace, behind. After a few minutes, the path opened up and I saw a huge structure made up of layers of stone arches.
From the exterior, it is hard to imagine what the purpose of the building is. Looking at the bulletin board near the entrance, it read, “No visitors allowed today due to the wedding ceremony. Finally, I understood that this was a wedding hall. Still, what was this stuffy atmosphere? It is completely different from chapels in Tokyo, solemn, avant-garde, and filled with an aura of mystery. On my way home, I looked up this church on my smartphone and came to a conclusion. This church was built in honor of Kanzo Uchimura, the famous Christian leader of the Meiji era.
So this time, while the excitement of this chance encounter is still fresh in my mind, I would like to introduce this stone church and write about the interesting character Uchimura Kanzo.
What is the Church of Stone and Kanzo Uchimura Memorial Hall?
Ishi no Kyokai, Kanzo Uchimura Memorial Hall is a church and memorial hall located in Karuizawa, Kitasaku-gun, Nagano Prefecture, Japan.
The church was built to honor Kanzo Uchimura, a Christian leader of the Meiji and Taisho periods, with a chapel above ground and the Kanzo Uchimura Memorial Hall in the basement. The unique form of the overlapping arches of different stones and glass is the work of American architect Kendrick Kellogg. The stone is said to symbolize a man and the glass a woman.
Kellogg walked the area thoroughly on his own two feet, taking inspiration from the land itself and creating a unique architecture that resonates deeply with the four seasons of Karuizawa and the philosophy of Kanzo Uchimura. This building, which was born from Kanzo Uchimura’s idea that “nature as imagined by God is the place of prayer,” is called organic architecture, and was built with a thorough attention to harmony with nature, as if the building were a part of nature.
*Photo (feeling in harmony with nature)
We believe that these ideas are probably based on the “nondenominationalism” that he advocated. Now, before we delve into “nondenominationalism,” let’s take a closer look at its proponent, Kanzo Uchimura, as a person in his own right.
About Kanzo Uchimura
Kanzo Uchimura (March 23, 1861 (February 13, 1861) – March 28, 1930 (Showa 5)) was a Japanese Christian thinker, writer, evangelist, and biblical scholar. He advocated Japan’s own so-called “nakashinism” based on evangelical faith and criticism of current society. He is also the author of “Representative Japanese.
The Historical Transition of His Spirit
Kanzo Uchimura was eight years old when the Meiji Restoration took place, but as an impressionable young man, the shape of the Japanese nation had not yet been defined, and like other young men of that era, his thinking about the state of the nation was synonymous with his thinking about his own state. Uchimura’s attitude is expressed in the following aphorism, which became his epitaph:
I for Japan;
Japan for the World;
The World for Christ;
And All for God
However, the historical realities facing Uchimura often betrayed his ideals. Domestically, Uchimura was confronted with the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars under the slogans of “wealthy nation, strong military, and industrial development,” as well as the Ashio Mine Poisoning Incident, in which the government neglected the harm caused to the Japanese people. Uchimura advocated “non-war” and became involved in the “anti-poisoning movement,” as if to resist such historical trends, and he repeatedly made what might be called “prophetic” statements urging Japan to realize and fulfill its “vocation. He was involved in the “anti-poisoning movement. The story of how Kanzo Uchimura, a “son of a samurai” with strong patriotism, came to believe in Christianity, a foreign religion, is described in “How I Became a Christian” (How I Became a Christian). It is thought that Uchimura’s basic ideology was formed during the struggle to become a believer. The tense relationship between the “two Js” (Jesus and Japan), which Uchimura was to love all his life, became the driving force of his thought and faith, as the “conversion” he experienced while studying in the U.S. brought them firmly together internally, but externally they seemed to continue to be at odds.
・A Disciple: Sojiro Saito and Kenji Miyazawa
(February 20, 1877 – January 2, 1968) was a Christian from Sasama Village (now Hanamaki City), Higashi-Waga County, Iwate Prefecture.
He was one of the most faithful disciples of Kanzo Uchimura, a nondenominational Christian, and cared for him until his death. Born the son of a Zen priest at Tokoji Temple in Hanamaki City, Iwate Prefecture, Sojiro graduated from Iwate Normal School, and while a teacher, he became familiar with the Chiyasho (anti-Christian books). However, soon after teaching, he was hospitalized and came into contact with the Bible, and came to love reading “The Comfort of the Christian Believers” and “Gueanroku” by Kanzo Uchimura. He devoted his whole life to Uchimura, who was betrayed by many of his disciples in his later years and even wrote a letter titled “The Misery of Having Disciples.
In 1924, when Saito went to collect money for newspapers at the Hanamaki Agricultural School where Kenji worked, Kenji invited him in, listened to music on a gramophone, and showed him a copy of a page from what appeared to be Kenji’s poem “The Morning of the Last Supper”. He also showed them a printed copy of what appeared to be Kenji’s poem “The Morning of the Last Supper. In his prose poem “Winter Sketch,” a character named “Sojiro Kato,” who seems to be a play on the name Saito, appears. He is also said to be the model for “Ame ni mo Makezu.
To learn more about Kenji Miyazawa, click below!
Perhaps Sojiro may have discussed his beloved master with Kenji while playing Dvorak on the gramophone. Now, let’s take a deeper look at the atheism advocated by Kanzo Uchimura, a man who may have nurtured such a benevolent disciple who embodied Christianity and, in turn, influenced Kenji Miyazawa, one of the country’s leading writers of children’s stories.
What is nondenominationalism?
Non-churchism is a form of Christian faith unique to Japan advocated by Kanzo Uchimura, who claims to have inherited the spirit of Protestantism. In English, it is written as Non-church Movement. It is also called “Non-church Movement,” “Non-church Christianity,” and “Non-church-oriented Christianity” (often referred to as “Non-church” in the layperson’s mind). Because it does not recognize the need for sacraments and church systems, such as Protestant baptism and sacraments, it is usually considered to be a Christianity that is not Catholic or even Protestant.
Adherents of atheism often share the understanding that “Jesus Christ was atheist” and “Paul was atheist.” It is also said that Aconciliarism values “the cross of Christ” more than “the church. In fact, Kanzo Uchimura says that Christianity is a cruciform religion. Aconciliarism is a principle that aims to break away from ecclesiasticalism and church spirit, not a principle that denies the Christian gospel faith itself. However, since “(Christian) faith is an act of the Church as well as an act of the individual,” and since “those who are united to Christ by baptism and stand as members of the people of God” are considered Christian believers, and since it contradicts the claim that “there is no salvation outside (the body of Christ), the Church,” it is usually It is usually regarded as neither Catholic nor Protestant Christianity.
What in the world is the connection between this nondenominationalism and the aforementioned stone church? Let us excerpt a part from the introduction on the official website.
Birds flap in the air, light fills the air
This is a place of innocent vows
We meet through the trees
Basking in the soft sunlight
gently melting with the earth of Karuizawa.
A tranquil church of stone and glass
＜The church is a place of serenity and tranquility.
God’s natural creation is what makes a church.
The church is a church of nature created by God.
Inside the church, this spirit lives on.
Light and greenery fill the hall like a blessing.
Like stones, leaves, and clouds
Like stones, leaves, and clouds
Two people who are not the same as one another, take hands and begin to walk together.
In a church that stands in eternity
In the church that stands in eternity, the one and only irreplaceable time is carved.
I see, it seems somewhat familiar to the Japanese, who believe in the eight million gods and goddesses that “God is everywhere”. However, this is by no means a Shintoistic, polytheistic, or animistic view. Uchimura did not see nature as an aesthetic object, but rather as a way to praise God through nature and to reach God by communing with nature. He was also a natural scientist. He studied fisheries science at the Sapporo Agricultural College, and after graduation he worked for the Fisheries Division of the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, where he was engaged in compiling a “List of Japanese Fishes.
Shortly after his graduation from Sapporo Agricultural College, he wrote these words.
We were taught practical science, and we were made to develop the material resources of our country. We never deviated from this purpose. In Jesus of Nazareth we saw a man who, by being the son of a carpenter, was the Savior of mankind. Peter the fisherman and Paul the tent-maker were our examples. …Our goal was spiritual. Our training and our attainment were material.
In other words, he is not a one-sided worshipper of nature, but rather a sober observer of the current threat of nature and the struggle and destruction that nature itself entails. The basis for this idea of coexistence is, of course, the belief in the history of Christ’s salvation as a cosmology that has at its core the unseen relationship between nature and man.
In short, nondenominationalism is a criticism of the church as a man-made and technological human institution, and at the same time, it is an attitude of making nature itself the church by “communion” with the “infinite” of nature and with the “lost saints. The church created by God and gathered by those who believe in Christ and united by themselves is the true church, and the crystallization of such a church is the church of stone.
Conclusion
It was in 1921 that Kanzo Uchimura first stepped on the soil of Karuizawa. In fact, right in front of the stone church, there is also a Protestant church called Takahara Church.
There, Uchimura held events such as the “Art Liberal Education Seminar” with writers such as Shimazaki Toson and Kitahara Hakushu.
From then until his later years, he frequently visited this place. (Perhaps that is why his successors built the stone church here.) The atmosphere of the Art Liberal Education Course was that everyone expressed what they felt as they felt it, and everyone discussed freely and openly. I also had a glimpse of the pastor’s house in the church. There were a number of words by Kanzo Uchimura on the wall, and countless photos of couples who had been married here in the past were displayed. All of them looked happy, as if they had no worries about the future. The smiling faces were lit up by the sunlight filtering through the majestic trees of Karuizawa. The philosophy and teachings of Kanzo Uchimura flourished in this way as well.
It is quite possible that Uchimura’s spirit was inspired by his disciple Sojiro Saito and even by the idea of “true happiness” advocated by Kenji Miyazawa. It is something modest, without being intrusive. As the existence of the stone churches proves, the idea of blending with nature, respecting nature, and simply wishing for the happiness of mankind has been handed down from generation to generation.
Sources
Science in Uchimura Kanzo
Reception and Development of the View of Nature in the Eighth Chapter of the Book of Romans
http://www.ajih.jp/backnumber/pdf/43_02_06.pdf
Monotheism in Modern Shinto
https://www.cismor.jp/uploads-images/sites/2/2008/02/1e5f4dc1936300e7d0a32f4baed904b9.pdfThe Church of the Stone Official HP
Kanzo Uchimura Wikipedia
