February 5

On this day in 1597, “The Twenty-Six Martyrs” were killed in Japan by the new government. This marked the beginning of the kakure kirishitan, or “hidden Christians” of the Roman Catholic church in Japan. They disguised icons of Mary as statues of Buddhist bodhisattva/goddess Guanyin, and disguised their Latin prayers as Buddhist chants. When the ban on Christianity was lifted in 1873, thirty thousand Christians came out of hiding. Some rejoined the Roman Catholic church, but others preferred their Buddhist-Christian synthesis, and became known as the hanare kirishitan, or separated Christians. 

Today is also the birthday, in 1925, of Father Andrew Greeley, a Roman Catholic priest and sociologist. He changed public discourse about religion, criticized Catholic policy against contraception, and was an advocate for the arts as an expression of religious faith.  

Reflection:

Toyohiko Kagawa was a labor activist, evangelical Christian reformer, and pacifist who lived from 1888 until 1960. He studied theology and genetics at Princeton and lived among the poor in Japan. He wrote a book called Brotherhood Economics, and believed cooperatives could be a Christian alternative to capitalism and communism. He said, 

Andrew Greeley wrote: 

Prayer: God whose hidden face we seek, we recognize how religion and culture, like primordial bacteria, swap DNA. May our constantly-evolving theology draw us closer to you and to each other, toward greater compassion and more equitable justice. Amen.