OCR Text |
Show Japan Recognizes Christianity Christianity is now recognized officially as a religion in Japan, wnere it enjoys a status of equality with Buddhism and Shmtoism, but there is reason 10 beleive that the Japanese government govern-ment will make all religious organizations or-ganizations in Japan subverse I the interests of the empire. By the terms of a law recently enacted every religious group must have an offical head who is to be responsible to the Ministry : of Education for seeing that his group lives up to the Govern-ments's Govern-ments's regulations. There is provision for tine and imprisonment imprison-ment for disobedience. Moreover no new religious body can be ! .ormed without the approval of j the government which will pass ! upon its creed, organization and ' practices. Education Minister Araki warns that religion must increasingly in-creasingly . become a servant Ox the State. He reasons that while religions have hitherto had little place in regulating international relations "in view of the prevailing pre-vailing situations we shall make j use of them in the future." j Thus it appears mat the Japanese government considers religions as possible instruments to be used in gaming ui. sought by the government. This attitude is somewhat simular to .he idea that dominates several European States. It is akin to the idea that States exist lor tne purpose of propagating and advancing ad-vancing the progress ox rengiua. |