Uchimura Kanzô was one of Japan's foremost thinkers, whose ideasinfluenced contemporary novelists, statesmen, reformers, and religiousleaders. He lived at a time of increasing modernization and rapidsocial change. Known as the originator and proponent of a particularly"Japanese" form of Christianity known as mukyôkai, Uchimurastruggled with the tensions between his love for the homeland and hislove for God. Articulate, prolific, passionate, and profound, he earneda reputation as the most consistent critic of his society and the mostknowledgeable Japanese interpreter of Christianity and its Bible. Inaddition to teaching and giving public lectures, he wrote numerousbooks and articles -- in both English and Japanese -- edited newspapersand periodicals, and founded several magazines. Through the prism ofthis exceptional man's life, John Howes charts, in this tour deforce, what it meant to live during the introduction of Christianity toJapan.
