Toyohiko Kagawa

Toyohiko Kagawa ( 賀川 豊彦 , Kagawa Toyohiko, 10 July 1888 –

23 April 1960) was a Japanese Protestant Christian pacifist, Christian
Toyohiko Kagawa
reformer, and labour activist. Kagawa wrote, spoke, and worked at
length on ways to employ Christian principles in the ordering of
society and in cooperatives. His vocation to help the poor led him to
live among them. He advocated for women's suffrage and promoted a
peaceful foreign policy.

Contents
Early life
Activism
c. 1920
Health and death
Born July 10, 1888
Brotherhood economics Kobe, Japan
Three-dimensional forestry Died April 23, 1960
Legacy (aged 71)
Famous quotes Tokyo, Japan

See also Nationality Japanese

Writings Occupation Social reformer,

peace activist, labor
Bibliography
activist, evangelist,
References author
External links Spouse(s) Haru

Early life
Kagawa was born in Kobe, Japan to a philandering businessman and a
concubine. Both parents died while he was young. He was sent away to school,
where he learned from two American missionary teachers, Drs. Harry W. Myers
and Charles A. Logan, who took him into their homes.

Kagawa learned English from these missionaries and converted to evangelical

Protestant Christianity after taking a Bible class in his youth, which led to his
being disowned by his remaining extended family. Kagawa studied at Tokyo Toyohiko and Haru
Presbyterian College, and later enrolled in Kobe Theological Seminary. While
studying there, Kagawa was troubled by the seminarians' concern for
technicalities of doctrine. He believed that Christianity in action was the truth behind Christian doctrines.
Impatiently, he would point to the parable of the Good Samaritan.[1] From 1914 to 1916 he studied at
Princeton Theological Seminary. In addition to theology, through the university's curricular exchange program
he also studied embryology, genetics, comparative anatomy, and paleontology while at Princeton.[2]
Activism
In 1909 Kagawa moved into a Kobe slum with the intention of acting as
a missionary, social worker, and sociologist. In 1914 he went to the
United States to study ways of combating the sources of poverty.[3] In
1916 he published Researches in the Psychology of the Poor based on
this experience in which he recorded many aspects of slum society that
were previously unknown to middle-class Japanese. Among these were Toyohiko at Princeton Theological
the practices of illicit prostitution (i.e., outside of Japan's legal prostitution Seminary
regime), informal marriages (which often overlapped with the previous
category), and the practice of accepting money to care for children and
then killing them.

Kagawa was arrested in Japan in 1921 and again in 1922 for his part in
labour activism during strikes. While in prison he wrote the novels
Crossing the Deathline and Shooting at the Sun. The former was a semi-
autobiographical depiction of his time among Kobe's destitute. After his
release, Kagawa helped organize relief work in Tokyo following the
1923 Great Kantō earthquake and assisted in bringing about universal
adult male suffrage in 1925. Great Kantō earthquake, 1923

He organized the Japanese Federation of Labour as well as the National

Anti-War League in 1928. Throughout this period, he continued to
evangelize to Japan's poor, advocate women's suffrage and call for a
peaceful foreign policy. Between 1926 and 1934 he focused his
evangelical work through the Kingdom of God Movement.

Arthur Miller writes about hearing Kagawa give an evangelical lecture in

Hill Auditorium at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, in 1935,
and describes him as "a merchant of the sublime."[4]

In 1940, Kagawa made an apology to the Republic of China for Japan's Toyohiko in 1935
occupation of China, and was arrested again for this act. After his
release, he went back to the United States in a futile attempt to prevent
war between that nation and Japan. He then returned to Japan to continue his attempts to win women's
suffrage. After Japan's surrender, Kagawa was an adviser to the transitional Japanese government.

During his life, Kagawa wrote over 150 books. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1947
and 1948, and for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1954 and 1955.[5]

Health and death

In Osaka, March, 1955, Kagawa suffered collapse from his deteriorating heart, and remained bedridden for 2
weeks. He continued writing, preaching, overseeing projects, and hosting guests, despite concerns from his
family and associates. Kagawa's condition worsened throughout the years, and he was hospitalized again, for
3 months in 1959, at Saint Luke's Hospital in Takamatsu. Kagawa remained bedridden at home for most of his
time in Matsuzawa. His health gradually improved in mid-April, then worsened again. On April 23, Kagawa
was unconscious for 3 hours, then woke and smiled to his wife and others around him, his last words being
"Please do your best for world peace and the church in Japan."[6]

Brotherhood economics
Kagawa's economic theory, as expressed in the book Brotherhood Economics, advocated that the Christian
Church, the cooperative movement, and the peace movement unite in a 'powerful working synthesis' to
provide a workable alternative to capitalism, state socialism, and fascism.[7] Kagawa's work in the co-operative
movement consisted of founding several consumer co-operatives in 1921, including the Co-op Kobe, Nada
Consumer Co-operative (later merged with Co-op Kobe), the Kyoto Consumer Co-operative, Tokyo Student's
Consumer Co-operative and Tokyo Iryou (Medical) Consumer Co-operative.[6]

Three-dimensional forestry
While studying at Princeton University, Kagawa read Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture by Joseph Russell
Smith. Inspired by this book, he managed to persuade many of Japan's upland farmers during the 1930s that
the solution to their soil erosion problem lay in widespread tree-planting. Kagawa also advised that they could
receive further benefit if they planted crop trees, such as quick-maturing walnuts, to provide feed for their
pigs.[8]

The planting of fruit and nut trees on farmland aims to conserve the soil, supply food for humans and provide
fodder for animals, the three "dimensions" of his system. Kagawa was a forerunner of modern forest farming
and an inspiration to Robert Hart who pioneered forest gardening in temperate climates.[8]

Legacy
After his death, Kagawa was awarded the second-highest honor of Japan, induction in the Order of the Sacred
Treasure. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America commemorates him as a renewer of society on April
23; Kagawa is also honored with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) and on
the Calendar of the Presbyterian Church (USA) on that day.

Famous quotes
On the morning of 1946, at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, before Emperor Hirohito, "Whosoever
will be great among you... shall be the servant of all. A ruler's sovereignty, Your Majesty, is in
the hearts of the people. Only by service to others can a man, or nation, be godlike."
"Communism's only power is to diagnose some of the ills of disordered society. It has no cure. It
creates only an infantile paralysis of the social order."
"I read in a book that a man called Christ went about doing good. It is very disconcerting to me
that I am so easily satisfied with just going about."[9]
"It seemed that everyone was attacking me – the Soviet Communists, the anarchists, the
capitalists, the foul-mouthed literary critics, the sensationalist newspaper men, the Buddhist
who could not compete with Christ, and those many Christians who profess Christ but believe
in a Christianity which is sterile."[6]

See also
List of civil rights leaders
Japanese dissidence during the Shōwa period

Writings
Love - The Law of Life. Student Christian Movement Pr., London, 1930.
 Meditations on the Cross. 1935. Translated by Helen Topping and Marion Draper. Chicago,
New York: Willet, Clark & Company.
Songs from the Slums. Translated by Lois J. Erickson. Nashville, TN: Cokesbury Press, 1935.

Bibliography
"Unconquerable Kagawa", Reader's Digest, pp. 29–31, 1951.
Charlie May Simon. 1958. A Seed Shall Serve – A Story of Toyohiko Kagawa Spiritual Leader
of Modern Japan. New York: EP Dutton & Co.
Trout, Jessie M. (1960). Kagawa, Japanese prophet: His witness in life and word. New York:
Association Press. WorldCat Link (http://www.worldcat.org/title/kagawa-japanese-prophet-his-
witness-in-life-and-word/oclc/644530552&referer=brief_results)
Richard H. Drummond, A History of Christianity in Japan. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971.
Robert Schildgen. 1988. Toyohiko Kagawa. Apostle of Love and Social Justice. Berkeley:
Centenary Books.
"Toyohiko Kagawa, Japanese Original" (https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/time
line/1801-1900/toyohiko-kagawa-japanese-original-11630620.html). Christian History Institute.
28 April 2010.
"Kagawa Toyohiko". Encyclopædia Britannica (online ed.). 2005..
Kagawa Toyohiko (biography), BookRags
Bo Tao. 2013. The Peacemaking Efforts of a Reverse Missionary: Toyohiko Kagawa before
Pearl Harbor. International Bulletin of Missionary Research Vol. 37, No. 3: 171–76.
Toyohiko, Kagawa (2014), Hastings, Thomas John (ed.), Cosmic Purpose, Veritas, Cascade.
Thomas John Hastings, Seeing All Things Whole: The Scientific Mysticism and Art of Kagawa
Toyohiko (1888–1960), Pickwick Publications, 2015.

References
1. Axling,William.Kagawa.Harper and Brothers Publishers. New York and London. 1946.Chapter
3. p 28-41
2. Anri Morimoto, "The Forgotten Prophet: Rediscovering Toyohiko Kagawa," (http://digital.library.
ptsem.edu/doi/10.3754/psb2007283.4?page=10&count_results=false&div=7&htm=no&index=n
o&illustration=yes&firstfile=1&lastfile=17&nextfile=13&backfile=11&img=1) Archived (https://we
b.archive.org/web/20110726083801/http://digital.library.ptsem.edu/doi/10.3754/psb2007283.4?
page=10&count_results=false&div=7&htm=no&index=no&illustration=yes&firstfile=1&lastfile=1
7&nextfile=13&backfile=11&img=1) 2011-07-26 at the Wayback Machine The Princeton
Seminary Bulletin, Vol. 28, No. 3 (2007), 303.
3. ̔ٓ"" (https://web.archive.org/web/20160304004019/http://www.tv-naruto.ne.jp/kagawa-kan/kagaw
a21.html). Tv-naruto.ne.jp. Archived from the original (http://www.tv-naruto.ne.jp/kagawa-kan/ka
gawa21.html) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 2 December 2014.
4. Arthur Miller, Timebends: A Life, Methuen, 1987, p.99
5. "Nobel Peace Prize Nomination Database" (http://nobelprize.org/nomination/peace/database.h
tml). Nobelprize.org. Retrieved 2 December 2014.
6. Schildgen, Robert, "Toyohiko Kagawa", California: Centenary Books, 1988
7. Kagawa, Toyohiko (1936). Brotherhood Economics. New York and London: Harper & Brothers.
8. Robert Hart (1996). Forest Gardening (https://books.google.com/books?id=N01940btQAQC&p
g=PA41). p. 41. ISBN 9781603580502.
 9. Kabelitz, Norb (2010). " "Cross" fertilization: Third Sunday in Lent" (https://crossings.org/text-stu
dy/third-sunday-in-lent-13/). Chesterfield, MO: The Crossings Community, Inc. Archived (https://
web.archive.org/web/20100416023910/http://www.crossings.org/theology/2010/theolo775.shtm
l) from the original on 16 April 2010. Retrieved 2 May 2018.

External links
Newspaper clippings about Toyohiko Kagawa (http://purl.org/pressemappe20/folder/pe/00902
4) in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW

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