When Christianity Became a Shūshi

Abstract

Cultural encounters, entanglements, and comparisons were the driving force behind the formation of a global history of religion. Such encounters require the formation of comparative concepts; for Europeans, the most important of these was 'religion'. With European expansion, and especially its forays into Asia starting in the late fifteenth century, 'religion' gradually became a general term to describe a distinct subset of human culture, with encounters between European missionaries and the Japanese people playing a decisive role in this regard. Arguably, the ultimately failed attempts of the Christian mission led to the emergence of analogous comparative concepts on the Japanese side, too. As a side effect, the encounter with Christianity brought about an individualisation and confessionalisation of Buddhism. From here, it was only a small step to the 'religionisation' of Buddhism in the nineteenth century - and, thus, to its integration into a global religious system.