Word: nonchurch
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Your April 23 piece on Mukyokai (the "nonchurch" movement) was the more interesting because it is a stepchild of New England influence which owes much to Amherst College. Recently I have discovered that Kanzo Uchimura, the founder of Mukyokai, was sent to Amherst on the introduction and strong urging of Joseph Hardy Nee-sima (1843-1890), the first Japanese graduate of a Western institution of higher learning (Amherst 1870), after he had escaped from "closed" Japan six years previously. Neesima came back to found Doshisha University where there have been Amherst men on the faculty ever since except...
This was a typical Sunday meeting of Mukyokai, the "nonchurch" Christian movement that has become one of the most important forces in Japanese religion today. Its Japanese founder, Kanzo Uchimura, died only in 1930; today Mukyokai has between 50,000 and 100,000 adherents (there are no membership figures), a large proportion of the estimated 500,000 Christians in Japan. Mukyokai (meaning no church) claims that it is a return to the primitive Christianity of the Gospels. It has no clergy, no liturgy, no sacraments, no buildings, seems to have special appeal for intellectuals and students. Says Tadao Yanaihara, himself...
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