ABSTRACT
This article investigates the mission of J. M. McCaleb and the subsequent beginnings of the Churches of Christ (Stone-Campbell) in Japan in the late nineteenth century. Specifically, it examines how McCaleb dealt with Japanese Christians in his efforts to convey the distinctive doctrines of this Christian group, as well as how McCaleb’s pacifist and antipatriotic messages were heard among Japanese converts in the developing stage of imperial Japan. The argument is twofold: McCaleb’s teachings on distinctive doctrines and pacifism/antipatriotism were not received particularly well by Japanese people of the time, but nonetheless they created a limited and yet significant space in which a few Japanese would find alternatives to what they were accustomed to thinking in the context of imperial Japan. English and Japanese sources are analyzed to examine McCaleb’s mission, particularly his interactions with three Japanese individuals.
