This week in Christian history: Protestant reformer born, Japanese evangelist baptized

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, February 12, 2023

Japanese evangelist baptized – Feb. 14, 1904

This week marks the anniversary of when notable Japanese Christian evangelist, writer and social reformer Toyohiko Kagawa was baptized.

Born in Kobe in 1888, Kagawa befriended American Presbyterian missionaries Harry W. Myers and Charles A. Logan not long after his parents had died when he was a child.

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Myers baptized Kagawa at a church in Tokushima, and from there he studied theology at the Meiji Gakuin in Tokyo and Kobe Theological Seminary.

“Between August 1914 and May 1917 Kagawa studied in the United States at Princeton Theological Seminary and then became involved in labor and peasants movements in Japan and in organizing religious programs, with the Jesus Band of Kobe as the base of his work,” noted Boston University’s School of Theology. 

“In 1921 Kagawa organized the Friends of Jesus. This Franciscan-like band of young people strove for spiritual discipline, compassion for the poor, and an evangelical life of witness. When Tokyo suffered a massive earthquake in 1923, he shifted the main emphasis of his work to that city.”