Objects Relating to Early Christianity in Japan
What better time to host this exhibition than around Christmas? Like many other imports from the west, Christianity has a chequered history in Japan. Many of the Spanish and Portuguese missionaries came here in the 1500s expecting to find natives to convert in the same way as they had elsewhere. Instead they found a land that surprised them with a civilised alternative to the west. In fact many missionaries converted to Japanese Shinto and never went back. Even today, only 2 per cent of the Japanese population is Christian, so this exhibition promises interesting early artifacts from one of the few countries where Christ has failed to make much of an impact.
