Meiji Protestantism in History and Historiography

Abstract: The present study provides an analysis of two different but interrelated historical dimensions. The first dimension, the founding process of Japanese Protestantism, is analysed in its wider historical context on the basis of contemporary scholarship, particuhirly Japanese. A second dimension: the ongoing historiographical interpretation of the founding process, is analysed from the foundation period itse1f up to 1945, against its contemporary historical background. The analytical approach takes account of the forms of history writing as weil as its contents, in an overall comparative perspective applied to the Japanese and the Western material. In the çonclusion the interpretative trends which are identified through the analysis of the second, historiographical dimension, are related to trends in contemporary interpretationof the foundation period. The conclusion thus focus on the relationship between prewar and postwar interpretation of Japanese Protestant beginnings.