Guide to the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. Japan Mission Records

The Executive Committee of Foreign Missions of the PCUS proposed beginning mission work in Japan to the General Assembly of 1885. With General Assembly approval, the Foreign Missions Committee appointed two men for service in Japan: the Rev. Randolph Bryan Grinnan and the Rev. Robert Eugenius McAlpine. They arrived in Japan on December 1, 1885 and in January 1886 set out for Kochi in southern Japan to begin the work of the PCUS Japan Mission.

In June 1887, McAlpine, recently married, moved with his wife to Nagoya in central Japan to open the second PCUS mission station. Thus the northern and southern boundaries of the PCUS Mission were set. In 1888, Mrs. Annie Randolph came to join the McAlpines in Nagoya and began a school for girls which in time would become the largest Christian girls’ school in Japan, Kinjo Gakuin University.

In the next several years, the mission field expanded through the establishment of new stations in Tokushima; Okazaki, later moved to Toyohashi; Kobe; Nagoya; Takamatsu; and the little coastal town of Susaki. Building on the initiative created during the relief effort following a terrible earthquake in Gifu in 1891, the Church of Christ in Japan (Presbyterian) built a chapel in the city of Gifu in 1892. It later turned the work over to the PCUS Mission, and in 1901 the first missionary family was located in this city. The educational program was further expanded by the establishment in Kochi in 1901 of Miss Dowd’s Industrial School, which in time would become Seiwa Girls High School.

Up to this point, the work of the PCUS Mission had been an integral part of the Church of Christ in Japan. However, in 1906 the PCUS work took on a distinct character of its own. In addition to the decision to keep its evangelistic work under its own authority, though affiliated with the Church of Christ in Japan, the Mission established a separate theological seminary. In 1907, this new seminary was opened in Kobe. In addition to Kobe Seminary, the Mission opened Christian kindergartens in relation to numerous churches.

The ensuing years found the PCUS Mission, along with other missions related to the Church of Christ in Japan (Presbyterian), working toward the independence and self-support of the Japanese Church. In 1919, the PCUS Mission opened the last of its prewar stations in Marugame. The mission-related educational institutions also moved toward greater independence. In 1917, Kinjo Girls School in Nagoya elected its first Japanese principal. In 1927, Kobe Seminary united with the Osaka Theological School of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Mission to form the Chuo (Central) Theological Seminary. During this period, a number of outstanding Japanese Christian leaders emerged from the work of the PCUS Mission,  including the Rev. Mitsuru Tomida, the first graduate of the Kobe Seminary; the Rev. Toyohiko Kagawa; and Charles Logan in Tokushima.

The Japan Mission experienced serious financial difficulties in the 1930s with the onset of the worldwide depression. However, Japanese churches compensated by assuming responsibility for much of the work previously borne by the Mission and there was a marked increase in the number of self-supporting churches. The Japanese Church even took upon itself the support of the girls school in Kochi (now taking the name Seiwa or Holy Peace) and Kinjo girls school in Nagoya.

As the strain between Japan and the United States increased, the government kept closer watch on all missionary activities. In 1939, all religious groups were placed in the hands of the Japanese Ministry of Education. In June 1941, government pressure brought about the uniting of some 41 denominations into the Nihon Kirisuto Kyodan, popularly known as the Kyodan. All aid from foreign mission agencies was cut off and missionaries were eliminated from all leadership positions in church and Christian institutions. By early 1941, the missionary staff was reduced to only six persons.

In the subsequent war years, the church would be subjected to severe oppression and persecution. The six PCUS missionaries would suffer various experiences of detention and imprisonment and eventual expulsion, and Japanese Christians found themselves regarded as believers in “the enemy religion.”

Toward the end of 1946, approval was received for the sending of a Survey Committee to take stock of conditions. Two missionaries were designated for this task: the Rev. W.A. McIlwaine and the Rev. James A. McAlpine. After several months of surveying the field, the committee recommended and the Mission Board approved that the Mission be allowed to resume work. By summer 1947, eight ministers had been enrolled as Mission evangelists, four of them of the Kyodan and four of the Reformed Church in Japan, which had withdrawn from the Kyodan in 1946 because of the lack of a creed in the Kyodan. In October 1947, the Mission property which had been confiscated by the government during the war was returned to Mission ownership.

In 1949, new missionaries began to arrive. A considerable number came from China following the Communist takeover of that nation. It gradually became possible to reopen the work in most of the centers where missionaries had been located before the war including Kobe, Nagoya, Marugame, Kochi, Takamatsu, and Tokushima. The former China missionaries found a virgin field for evangelism in the large concentration of Chinese living in the urban areas. By 1951, a Chinese Christian Center had been erected in the heart of the Chinese section of Kobe and in succeeding years Chinese churches came into being in Kobe, Osaka, Kyoto, and Nagoya.

The first big job facing missionaries in postwar Japan was relief, rehabilitation, and rebuilding of churches and institutions. When the Survey Committee returned to Japan, they found that the Reformed Church ministers had determined to start a seminary. The Reformed Seminary became the hub of the work of the Reformed Church and those missionaries who cooperated with it.

In 1951, the Mission initiated a Correspondence Bible School and in 1952 it inaugurated a radio program, “The Hour to Christ.” A monthly magazine The Christian Clarion as well as a variety of Christian literature were published, and a summer conference ground named Suzume no Yado (The Sparrows Inn) was developed for the training of Christian leaders.

The need for a specialized ministry to students in the burgeoning university area of Kobe led to the establishment of the Rokko Christian Student Center in 1955, later placed under the direction of the Kobe District of the United Church. In 1959, a Christian Center was established in Tokushima, as a memorial to Dr. Charles A. Logan, veteran PCUS missionary in Tokushima.

A higher educational institution for men had long been the vision of the PCUS Mission. In April 1950, the Program of Progress made it possible for this vision to become a reality in Shikoku Christian College and it was accredited as a senior College in 1961.

Envisioned by a PCUS minister as an American expression of regret for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japan International Christian University in Tokyo was opened in 1953 to train Christian teachers for Christian schools. Following an action by the 1955 PCUS General Assembly, the Mission became fully involved in the University. The educational institutions for girls experienced significant development including a major building program in 1958 for Kinjo Gakuin in Nagoya. The Seiwa Girls High School in Kochi also advanced with new buildings and a strong evangelistic program.

The beginning of Christian medical work was the greatest of the Mission’s postwar innovations. The Women’s Birthday Offering of 1955 made it possible to build the first unit of the Yodogawa Christian Hospital in Osaka and the hospital opened for service in March 1956. Out of the relief effort following the Ise Bay Typhoon in September 1959 there emerged the Nagoya Christian Social Service Center in the heart of the typhoon-stricken area. By 1960 the Mission had the largest missionary force in its history with 60 regular missionaries and several short-term missionaries. In addition to the prewar locations, five new centers had been occupied by PCUS missionaries: Kasugai in 1949, Zentsuji in 1950, Osaka and Ogaki in 1955, and Tajimi in 1956.

As a result of the 1962 Montreat Consultation on World Mission, and in response to recommendations from the Japanese churches themselves, the PCUS Board of World Missions took action to cooperate on a church-to-church basis with the United Church of Christ in Japan (Kyodan) and the Reformed Church of Christ in Japan. The result was the dissolution of the Japan Mission as an administrative body in 1971, though the Mission continued as a legal holding body for missionary residences and the Yodogawa Christian Hospital. A Mission Executive Committee was formed to coordinate the work of the various groups, to have responsibility for missionary maintenance, and to provide opportunities for missionary fellowship.

By the 1970s, decreased funding from the Division of International Mission led to cutbacks in missionary personnel. Also, mission-related institutions were gradually given their full independence, with withdrawal of all Mission support. In numerous instances, the institutions assumed support for missionaries serving there. The PCUS Mission’s work was merged into the work of the PC(USA) following the 1983 reunion.