Hidden Christians and “Religious Misunderstandings”—Japan’s Traditional Art of Renaming Reality Without Changing the Rules

The other day, I watched a television history program about Japan’s Hidden Christians.

During the Edo period, when Japan was ruled by the Tokugawa shogunate, Christianity was strictly prohibited and believers were relentlessly persecuted. One tool used for this purpose was the fumi-e: images of Christ or the Virgin Mary that suspected Christians were ordered to step on.

Incidentally, the Japanese word fumi-e is still used today as a metaphor for a test of loyalty. It is a term with a rather sinister history.

What I found most interesting in the program, however, was not the persecution itself but the way the shogunate and feudal domains dealt with Christians later on.

Officials Had a Problem When They Found Christians

The authorities initially suppressed Christianity harshly. As time passed, however, actively rooting out Christians was no longer necessarily the wisest policy.

The reason was simple. Finding them created a lot of trouble.

If Christians were discovered within a feudal domain, officials had to report them to the shogunate and conduct an investigation. The domain might also be held responsible for failing to control its population. Even imposing punishment required time and effort.

It was easier to pretend they had never been found in the first place.

This is where the useful label shūmon kokoroe chigai entered the picture. It can be roughly translated as a “misunderstanding of religious doctrine.”

In other words, instead of punishing someone as a Christian, the authorities treated the person as someone who was merely “a little mistaken about religion.”

“There are no Christians in our domain. We merely have a few farmers who are confused about religion.”

This allowed officials to reduce the punishment without openly rejecting the strict ban on Christianity.

It was a splendidly bureaucratic solution.

Pachinko and the Self-Defense Forces Follow the Same Basic Pattern

Hearing this story reminded me of a distinctly Japanese approach I have discussed many times on this blog.

Keep the rule unchanged, but alter the name and interpretation to fit reality.

Pachinko is a prime example.

Under the law, pachinko is strictly a form of amusement, and a pachinko parlor cannot pay cash directly to its customers. But through an arrangement known as the “three-shop system,” customers can exchange their prizes for cash at a separate business.

To anyone looking at it, the system closely resembles gambling, yet the law treats it as something else.

The Japan Self-Defense Forces are similar.

Article 9 of Japan’s Constitution renounces the maintenance of “war potential.” Yet Japan possesses fighter aircraft, tanks, and destroyers.

This led to the interpretation that “the minimum necessary level of force required for self-defense does not constitute the war potential prohibited by the Constitution.”

Japan has military force, but constitutionally, it is not “war potential.”

Likewise, the Hidden Christians of the Edo period practiced Christianity, but instead of being treated as Christians subject to punishment, they were classified as people with a “misunderstanding of religious doctrine.”

Of course, the legal mechanisms behind these systems differ. But the underlying idea is remarkably similar.

Never alter the principle itself. Instead, use words to reshape reality.

Japan’s System of Keeping Things Vague Has a Long History

Normally, when rules no longer match reality, the proper response is to revise the rules.

But that requires debate. It creates conflict with opponents. It also brings political responsibility.

It is much easier to leave the rules untouched and change only their interpretation.

No one has to make a major decision, and officially, the principle remains intact.

It is extremely rational—at least for people who do not want to accept responsibility.

When I hear that Edo-period officials used the expression “misunderstanding of religious doctrine” to deal with an inconvenient problem, I sense the very same thing in modern Japanese administration and politics.

Even after several centuries, we have not changed very much.

In Japan, it appears to be quicker to change what reality is called than to change the law to fit reality.

If pachinko had existed in the Edo period, it could probably have operated under the label “a misunderstanding about gambling.”