Some thoughts on “Christian Mysticism” by Imaoka Shin’ichirō (1881-1988)

I remained convinced that the Japanese Yuniterian (sic) and advocate of free-religion, Imaoka Shin’ichirō (1881-1988) is key, not only to the survival, but also to any possible future flourishing of some form of modern Unitarian/related expression of free-religion (jiyū shūkyō). Imaoka-sensei is the only modern Unitarian (or Unitarian adjacent) figure who offers this venerable, liberal religious tradition an integral spirituality that successfully brings together the liberal Christian, mystical elements of historic Unitarian thinking (primarily in sixteenth-century Poland and early twentieth-century Czechoslovakia), Emersonian free-religion and transcendentalism, and the insights of liberal Buddhism, Shintō and Confucianism that have increasingly come to intrigue and inspire European and North American liberal religionists.

As I was reflecting again on this feeling this morning, I went back to have another look at an early essay by Imaoka-sensei entitled “Christian Mysticism” (published October 1908 in “Pioneers” [開拓者]). He wrote this whilst he was the pastor at the Hyogo Kumi-ai (Congregational Church), and in it, he defined mysticism as follows:

The content of mysticism [神秘主義の内容] is nothing but the consciousness that the self [我] and the absolute [絶対] are one [一なり]. To elaborate, mysticism [神秘主義] is the matter of discovering the indwelling of the living God [活ける神の内在] in one’s own deep heart [我が衷心] and in the natural world [自然界], and uniting with it [之に合一する事]. 

After then going on to survey the history of mysticism from its Greek beginnings, into the European medieval period, thence to the mysticism of the Cambridge Platonists in the seventeenth-century and on to the contemporary Japanese Christian mystic, Tsunashima Ryōsen (1873-1907) (who had a profound influence on Imaoka-sensei’s own religious outlook), he concludes his essay with the following words. When we read his later free-religious essays (which you can do HERE) in the light of his definition of Christian mysticism and this conclusion, we can, I think, easily see how Christian mysticism comes to play a central role in the development of the kind of free-religion he, and I, are trying to encourage . . . 

To conclude [my essay on Mysticism], I should like to say something about the relation between mysticism [神秘主義] and the Christian churches of present-day Japan [現代日本の基督教教会]. It is some four hundred years since Christianity [基督教] came to this country, and in that time many believers have appeared. Recently, all over Japan, there have appeared many [new] spiritual seekers [求道者]. The churches even received an Imperial grant from the Ministry of the Imperial Household [宮内省] in the Taishō era [大正賜金], and international congresses have been held. Yet has Christianity really become the very life of the Japanese people?

Is this recent upsurge of seekers [求道者] the fruit of various church laws and institutions, or is it the expression of a conscious inner demand within the Japanese people themselves? Which is it? If we look more deeply, the reality is that seekers arise, but in the end merely set foot in the churches and leave it at that. In fact, both wider society and the seekers [求道者] themselves are, in many respects, ahead of the churches. For that very reason, the contemporary Christian churches must decisively abandon their self-satisfied exclusiveness. When it comes to rescuing the strong elements within the Japanese people that have been formed and nurtured over long ages by Buddhism [仏教], is not the Christianity of today’s churches far too shallow and childish? On this point, we cannot help but urge many missionaries to confront these difficulties. Faced with the form of Christianity [基督教] preached by most missionaries today, we cannot help but feel a profound dissatisfaction. We must recognise that there is a Christianity outside and beyond the Christianity of the missionaries [宣教師の基督教以外及び以上の基督教]. And moreover, since Christianity [基督教] itself is life [生命], it is something that ought to grow and develop, and is by no means something that should be bound by old-fashioned mythological theories [古風な神話説] and the like. If that is so, what are we to do? My aim in introducing and advocating mystical Christianity [神秘的基督教] has been to offer one clue towards answering that question. From now on I earnestly wish to champion Christian mysticism [基督教神秘主義].

Japan, in fact, already possesses a natural aptitude for the kind of mysticism [神秘主義] I am speaking of. Buddhism [仏教]—above all the Zen schools [禅宗]—has much in common with this mysticism [神秘主義]. Some people object that mysticism [神秘主義] is unacceptable because it is pantheistic [汎神論的]; yet that, I would say, is precisely its strength. To save the Japanese people, who have been cultivated by the pantheistic practices [汎神修養] of Buddhism, we must help them become consciously aware of, and gather into themselves, that very thing called pantheism [汎神論]. In other words, we must bring to light the pantheistic aspect [汎神論的方面] of Christianity [基督教]. People who find pantheism [汎神論] detestable are like those who asked Christ [基督] why the Kingdom of Heaven had not yet appeared—shallow-minded individuals, unaware that the ruler of the Kingdom is right before their eyes and that the Kingdom exists within their own hearts. Moreover, as I have already remarked, the mysticism [神秘主義] that flourished in Alexandria and Syria in the third and fourth centuries is by no means alien to the Japanese people; it is their own self [自己] from thousands of years ago. I am personally convinced that only if Japanese Christianity [日本基督教] develops in such a direction in the future will it truly be able to save the Japanese people.