Free-religion: A Japanese Yuniterian (ユニテリアン) Perspective

Noticeboard of the Tokyo Kiitsu Kyōkai outside the Seisoku Academy
日本自由宗教連盟所属 (Affiliated with the Japan Free Religion Association)
東京帰一教會 (Tokyo Kiitsu Kyōkai translated here as Tokyo Unitarian Church)

What you will find below is the text of (most of) the talk I prepared for the British Chapter of the International Association for Religious Freedom (IARF) at the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches in Birmingham on Saturday, April 12th 2025.  You can find a PDF of the texts which accompany this talk at the following link:

Free-religion: A Japanese Yuniterian (ユニテリアン) Perspective

Let me begin by telling you why the title of my talk uses the unusual spelling of the the word “Yuniterian.”

I’ve used it because it’s very important for you to know that in the Japanese context the word “Unitarian” has no denominational significance at all, in Japan it is simply synonymous with the term “religious liberal.” However, for us here in Europe, the UK and the US, this is not the case as the term has many complex doctrinal, denominational associations. Given this, it’s very helpful for us to have a way of distinguishing our own European, British and American (U) Unitarian tradition and that developed by the Japanese (Y) Yuniterians. We can make this distinction, at least in writing, because, following the arrival of the first British and American (U) Unitarians in 1889/90, the Japanese simply took the English word “Unitarian” directly into their own language by transliterating it using katakana characters (ユニテリアン). However, when we transliterate the resulting Japanese word back into English, the standard way of doing this, returns to us a word spelled “Yuniterian” — ユ (yu) ニ (ni) テ (te) リ (ri) ア (a) ン (n). So, from now on, when you hear the word Yuniterian attached to the adjective “Japanese”, it is always spelt with a “Y”. Where there is any ambiguity, I’ll make it clear which spelling is being used.

And before I go on, as a general, important take-away point from my talk, please be alert to the fact that, although free-religion is, of necessity, always liberal religion, not all liberal religions are, of necessity, always free-religions.

OK. Next it’s important to consider briefly two extremely important terms used by the Japanese Yuniterians and their most important key post-Pacific War figure, Imaoka Shin’ichirō-sensei (1881-1988). Please turn to page 3 of the pamphlet, as I need to show you to a few Japanese characters.

1. Free-Religion — jiyū shūkyō 

“Free-religion” is a translation of the Japanese term jiyū shūkyō (自由宗教). Although “free-religion” is a perfectly acceptable translation, it should always be understood more expansively to mean something like, “a dynamic, creative, inquiring, free and liberative religion or spirituality.” In Imaoka-sensei’s understanding, free-religion was a universal ideal, yet not an absolute. It was a term indicating something beyond conventional belief and religion, beyond Theism, Liberalism, Unitarianism, Humanism or, indeed, any “-ism”—something that has the power to transform a person into what he called an authentic “cosmic” or “universal” human being  (宇宙人). It’s important to be aware that the kyō (教 teaching/faith) of jiyū shūkyō is the same kyō (教) of Kiitsu Kyōkai.

2. Kiitsu Kyōkai — Returning-to-One Fellowship

Kiitsu Kyōkai (帰一教会 or 帰一教會) was the name of Imaoka-sensei’s post-1948 free-religious community in Tokyo. Kiitsu (帰一) means “returning-to-one,” and kyōkai (教会) means “church” or “congregation.” In general—though not exclusively—in Japanese, kyōkai (教会) refers to a Christian church. For this reason, Kiitsu Kyōkai has often been translated as “Unitarian Church.” However, a better translation is, “Returning-to-One Fellowship.” This matters because Imaoka-sensei’s community was always more than simply a church, even a Unitarian Church. It was, instead, a free-religious gathering in which, through the practise of Seiza Meditation (Quiet Sitting), talks, free and rational inquiry, mutual discovery, learning and conversation, Imaoka-sensei hoped to create a community that would unite (kiitsu) all its members in the common cause of creating a more just, equitable, beautiful, and humane society (kyōkai) that did not make a hard and fast distinction between the sacred the secular. More than just a church or temple, Kiitsu Kyōkai was also a “school” or “institute” for the study of free-religion. In his manuscripts, and on their noticeboard outside the hall at Seisoku Academy (where he served as Principal from 1925 to 1973), Imaoka-sensei tried to indicate all of this by using an older combination of kanji (Chinese characters) for kyōkai (教會 rather than 教会), thus writing the name as 帰一教會. He chose to do this because, in Confucian contexts, which emphasised communal learning and moral/ethical cultivation, 會 (kai) was used in terms that referred to gatherings concerned with the mutual exchange of ideas rather than the passing on of fixed doctrines.

Alas, today, I simply do not have time to rehearse with you anything like the full history of the Japanese Yuniterian movement, which begins in 1889/1890 with the arrival of representatives from both the American Unitarian Association (AUA) and the British and Foreign Unitarian Association (B&FUA) and ends in 1988 following the death of Imaoka-sensei. During the first 32 years, the major player on the ground quickly ended up being the AUA which simply had access to more funds than than the B&FUA. Consequently, for the most part, the British contribution to the Japanese Yuniterian movement was limited to offering educational opportunities at Manchester, now Harris Manchester, College. Two of the most high-profile Japanese Yuniterian figures who benefited from that were Nagai Ryūtarō (1881–1944), who was a politician and cabinet minister, noted in his early political career as a champion of universal suffrage, social welfare, labour unions, women’s rights and Pan-Asianism; and Uchizaki Sakusaburō (1877-1947), also Japanese politician, who served seven terms as a member of the House of Representatives.

It’s a fascinating story, and should you wish to know more about it, you can read Michel Mohr’s 2012 book, “Buddhism, Unitarianism, and the Meiji Competition for Universality”, George M. Williams’s 2019 book, “Cosmic Sage—Imaoka Shin’ichirō: Prophet of Free Religion”, and also go to my own webpages and read there the various things I have so far translated, as well as watch two videos produced for the IARF’s Free Religion Institute, all of which contain aspects of that history in more detail.

But, today, all I am going to do is try to open a door for you, just wide and long enough, to help you get a sense of the Japanese (Y) Yuniterian perspective on free-religion. A perspective, I should say, that I think has powerful, contemporary relevance for our British (U) [and American] Unitarian movement as it continues to struggle with its own very serious problems discerning its own, present centre of religious/spiritual gravity, as well as its current and future relevance and viability. But the truth of my claim is, of course, up to you to decide after hearing this talk . . .

As we proceed, one, vital, thing you need to grasp about the consequences of their perspective on free-religion, is that the Japanese Yuniterian tradition is not to be understood as a form of Unitarianism — and here, please, please note that I am stressing the denominational/doctrinal “-ism” aspect here because, although the Japanese Yuniterian tradition is absolutely part of the global (U) Unitarian tradition, it is not, itself, a Unitarianism.

So, throughout my talk, please keep in mind that Imaoka-sensei and Japanese Yuniterians, never rejected what they had learnt from (U) Unitarianism or the wider liberal Christian tradition. In connection with this point, it’s important to know that after converting to Christianity in 1898 at the age of 16, and before he formally joined the Unitarians in 1916, Imaoka-sensei served as a Congregationalist pastor in Kobe between 1907–1910. So, to reiterate, there was no rejection of (U) Unitarianism or the liberal Christian tradition — including key Japanese liberal Christians such as Uchimura Kanzō and Tsunashima Ryōsen — it was simply that Imaoka-sensei and the Japanese Yuniterians were always seeking to find a way to interweave these (U) Unitarian and liberal Christian influences with the insights and implications of all their other influences, the chief of which were, liberal Buddhism — especially as encountered in the work of Anesaki Masaharu (with whom Imaoka-sensei went to Harvard University between 1916-1917), liberal Shinto — especially as encountered whilst assisting the American journalist and scholar J. W. T. Mason who insisted that Henri Bergson’s philosophy and Shintō were essentially the same, Confucian and Humanist scholarship, the ideas of the founder of Ittōen — Nishida Tenko-san, the form of Seiza Meditation (Quiet Sitting) inherited from Okada Torajiro, the mystical traditions of medieval Europe, as well as the mysticism of 17th-century English groups such as the Society of Friends — the Quakers, the American Transcendentalists and the Free Religious Association, especially the figures of Ralph Waldo Emerson and John Haynes Holmes at the Community Church of New York, the ideas of the Brahmo Samaj, Raja Rammohun Roy, Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, and lastly, but far from leastly, the already alluded to philosophy of Creative Evolution as articulated by the French philosopher, Henri Bergson.

In their attempt to unite (kiitsu) these many influences into a actually existing form of educated, lay-led, free-religion (Kiitsu Kyōkai), that had no founders, and which was beyond any kind of “-ism”, including Unitarianism, the Japanese Yuniterians eventually found a way to make real something that the most important historian of the European, British and American Unitarian tradition, Earl Morse Wilbur (1886-1956) saw and wrote about in his Berry Street Essay of 1920 called, “The Meaning and Lessons of Unitarian History.”

In this important essay, Wilbur gave an historically informed overview of what he thought gave the (U) Unitarian movement “its significance in religious history”, and which he thought “must still largely direct it to-day, unless indeed we are to assume for it a future development which shall make a violent break with its past.”

Although Wilbur acknowledge that, at first sight, Unitarian history might appear to teach us “the principal meaning of the movement has been a purely doctrinal one and that the goal we have aimed at has been nothing more remote than that of winning the world to acceptance of one form of doctrine rather than another,” the truth was very different. Wilbur’s extensive and thorough researches helped him to see that if Unitarian Christian doctrine was all the Unitarian movement had been about creating, then it was already a completed project. However, after carefully studying the trajectory of entire history of the movement so far, Wilbur felt sure that the “doctrinal aspect” of Unitarian churches should be seen as being only “a temporary phase” and that Unitarian doctrines were, therefore, only “a sort of by-product of a larger movement, whose central motive has been the quest for spiritual freedom.” And, with this insight he arrived at what he thought was the Unitarian movement’s beating heart, its unique way of being in the world, namely, “complete spiritual freedom.”

The Japanese Yuniterian movement, thanks to the creative interplay of their aforementioned influences, intuitively understood this from the start. However, this complete spiritual freedom was — and will always remain — capable of being played out in many different ways, with many different, local, external religious flavours, fragrances and characteristics. And shortly, I’ll be looking at the texts you have in your hands to help you glimpse how, under the guidance of Imaoka Shin’ichirō, the post-Pacific War Japanese Yuniterians played out their own understanding of this complete spiritual freedom.
 
But before we get to that, it is important to realise that the American and British Unitarians who brought the (U) Unitarian tradition to Japan in the first place, thought that this same spiritual freedom should played out differently to the way the Japanese Yuniterians came to think it should. Here’s how Wilbur expresses this particular American and British (U) Unitarian view in the very final words of his essay:

“Our vital task still remains, in common with that which falls to every other Christian church, the task of inspiring Christian characters and moulding Christian civilization, the task of making men and society truly Christian, the task of organizing the kingdom of heaven upon earth.”

From all I have said so far, I hope it is now obvious that the Japanese Yuniterians didn’t, and simply couldn’t ever, share the same vital task. To rephrase Wilbur’s concluding words, their vital task had become, not that of every other Christian church, but that of a free-religious community which sought to create free-religious characters — jiyū shūkyōjin — and to mould free-religious civilisation, the task of making men, women, and society, truly free-religious. With their great love and respect for the human Jesus, something gratefully received from the Unitarian and liberal Christian traditions, they quite naturally accepted the vital task of attempting to organise “the kingdom of heaven upon earth”, but they necessarily immediately expanded this to talk also in terms of organising on earth the “Pure Land of Buddha” and an “ideal cooperative society” that would unify the sacred and secular, as well as the human and non-human realms of nature.

Unity Hall (Yuiitsu-kan 唯壱館), Tokyo in 1894 (click to enlarge)

And now, to finish this hyper-compressed historical section of my talk, it’s important to note that it was this divergence from the AUA’s view about what the “vital task” was, alongside their general distrust of the Japanese Yuniterian’s close connections with labour unions and various other socialist, liberal and progressive political organisations, that, in 1922, finally led the AUA suddenly to withdraw all its funding and support for their Japanese Mission. Among many other regrettable things, this meant that the Japanese Yuniterian movement lost its fine building in Tokyo, Unity Hall, causing its now homeless members to disperse into wider society where they began to do important work as secular educationalists, businessmen and women, and as socialist, liberal and progressive politicians.

As most of you will know, in the years following 1922, Japan began to journey towards the Emperor Fascism of the 1930s, a move which, in turn, plays a major role in triggering the start of the Pacific War in 1941, a conflict which only finally ends in 1945 following the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Not surprisingly, during these 23 extremely dark and profoundly illiberal years, a distinct Japanese Yuniterian movement almost dies out. However, thanks to the energy and creative vision of Imaoka Shin’ichirō — who in 1925 had become principal of the important and highly influential Japanese private school, the Seisoku Academy — the Japanese Yuniterian movement was finally able to restart in Tokyo in 1948, with the foundation of the Tokyo Kiitsu Kyōkai and the Japan Free Religious Association.

In passing today, but not unimportantly given that this is an IARF meeting, under Imaoka-sensei’s guidance the Japan Free Religious Association became a member of the IARF in 1949 and Imaoka-sensei was both a personal friend and advisor to three IARF Presidents: Nikkyo Niwano (founder of Rissho Kosei Kai), Dana M. Greeley (President of the UUA) & Yukitaka Yamamoto (chief priest of Tsubaki Grand Shrine). It is also important to know that Imaoka-sensei played an important role over many years in getting the IARF’s name changed, in 1969, from the “International Association for Liberal Christianity and Religious Freedom” to the “International Association for Religious Freedom.” This was key in enabling other Japanese movements to join the IARF, namely, Rissho Kosei Kai, Konkokyo Izuo Church, Tsubaki Grand Shrine, Ittōen and Iwato Shrine. Imaoka-sensei always had a dream that, one day, the IARF would change its name again to become the “International Association for Free Religion”, the IAFR. Obviously, that has still has not happened — although, as George’s short introductory talk gently reveals, that dream is not yet over. But in all cases, very few people have ever noticed that when the name “International Association for Religious Freedom” is written in Japanese, “Kokusai Jiyū Shūkyō Renmei” (国際自由宗教連盟), it is already called the “International Association for Free Religion.”

OK. Now let’s first turn to page 13 (see PDF available at this link) and Imaoka-sensei’s “My Principles of Living (Revised)” from August 1973. We’re starting with this text because it became the custom for the members of the Tokyō Kiitsu Kyōkai to recite it together at their Sunday gatherings. As such, it can be considered the central, guiding, shared text of the post-1948 Japanese Yuniterian community and, by extension, of the Japan Free Religion Association itself. Here, in distilled form, we can most easily and quickly glimpse their basic perspective on free-religion.

TALK FREELY TO THIS, AND IF THERE IS TIME, TO SOME OF THE OTHER TEXTS . . .

 (NB: This talk was not recorded, but I have given two courses about the texts in the pamphlet as well as some other texts by Imaoka-sensei. If you want to explore them then please watch the two videos below.)

To conclude. The Tokyō Kiitsu Kyōkai did not survive the death of Imaoka-sensei in 1988, aged 106. A major reason for this was that their meeting hall in the Seisoku Academy never belonged to them outright, and once Imaoka-sensei died, the strong, direct, personal connection with the Academy was was lost, and the hall quickly reverted to school use. Also, as George Williams notes in his book “Cosmic Sage” (p.287) sadly, the beauty of art and music that Imaoka-sensei knew and experienced in Buddhism, and in Shinto in its Bergsonian key, was neglected in Kiitsu Kyōkai’s commitment to simplicity, and this is also likely to have contributed to its end. But other societal and cultural factors, such as the increasing secularisation of Japanese culture, also played a role, as, indeed, it continues to play a role everywhere.  

Because of this it would be easy to fall into thinking that Imaoka-sensei’s free-religious project was a failure. But it’s vital to understand that Tokyō Kiitsu Kyōkai was never organised by him for institutional survival, it never sought to incorporate, seek tax-exemption, or develop any religious business practices. As a strategy, this only makes sense when it is seen against the background of Imaoka-sensei’s faith and trust that the quintessence of religion never lay in institutions but in only people’s ability to grasp the great and eternal life of free and selfless creative evolution, and to see that it was something always-already available to all people everywhere in an “ad hoc” way. That is to say, it was always-already there for when it is needed — this is, of course, the meaning of the latin tag “ad hoc.”And, because Imaoka-sesnei thought free-religion was itself an expression of this great and eternal life of free and selfless creative evolution, like all other forms of life, as the writer of Ecclesiastes knew, there was a time for the Tokyō Kiitsu Kyōkai to live, and a time for it to die. Had his Tokyo Kiitsu Kyōkai been designed to take on the form of a permanent/fixed institution or religion, it would have begun to get in the way of the free-religion it always sought to promote during its 40 years of existence. This means that, for Imaoka-sensei, one of the most important tasks of free-religion is always to be open to the need to allow its current, local forms to die and so allow the infinite largeness of the great and eternal life of free and selfless creative evolution to flow freely into new and more relevant forms of free-religious community. The inescapable, but profoundly hopeful, logic of Imaoka-sensei’s perspective on free-religion is that his own local Tokyo Kiitsu Kyōkai had to die to if it were to remain true to the dynamic of free-religion. 

It seems to me that this particular, Japanese Yuniterian perspective on free-religion, urgently needs to be embraced right now as I speak you in this meeting of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, a group of churches whose old forms of life are clearly coming to an end. We, too, need to find ways to die that allow us to remain true to the dynamic, living heart of the (U) Unitarian tradition that Wilbur summed up as “complete spiritual freedom.”

Anyway, this idea is, of course, a very ancient one, and it was one that Imaoka-sensei learnt about early on during his free-Christian years thanks to his extensive “Study of the John’s Gospel” written in 1910. And, so, to help begin to bring my short talk to an appropriate end, I’d like to imagine Imaoka-sensei standing up before us today to quote some of Jesus’ words from that gospel:

“Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24 NRSV).

The grain of free-religious wheat produced over 40 years by the Tokyō Kiitsu Kyōkai did, indeed, fall to the ground and die in 1988. But in it’s local moment of death, thanks particularly to the faith and work of Imaoka-sensei’s friends and free-religious seed-sowers such as George M. Williams and Richard Boeke, the grain of wheat fell to the ground and died in the good soil of a new, if still small, group of passionate free-religionists, many of whom, like me, are now connecting with each other through the IARF’s new Free Religion Institute, and also through smaller-scale initiatives such as the Cambridge Kiitsu Kyōkai Zoom meetings for Seiza meditation and conversation about free-religion. 

And, to conclude, I’ll leave you with a paraphrase of another teaching of Jesus’ and say to all of you that: the free-religious harvest is always-already plentiful, but the laborers are still few. Therefore I pray that the great and eternal life of free and selfless creative evolution will give inspire you to become a labourer committed to bringing in the beautiful harvest of free-religion that is nothing less than complete spiritual freedom for all humankind.