Improvement of Society（社会の改良）

Background

As shown in the above words, Jo Neesima insisted that social improvement and Christianity should not be separated but should be practiced as one. To realize this, he clearly stated that they must be cultivated through “the juxtaposition of knowledge and morality” education (see “The Juxtaposition of Knowledge and Morality”). To this end, Neesima taught that it is important for Christianity and education to become “two wheels of the civilization” and that this is the basis for the “improvement of society.”
　In modern Japan, with the opening of the country to the outside world and the rise of “wealthy countries and strong military forces,” the mainstream values of society were expansionist and upwardly mobile in a competitive capitalist society where the law of the jungle was the rule of the weak and the strong. Against this backdrop, the spirit of “improvement of society,” a crystallization of the Doshisha spirit inherited from Neesima, influenced the view of “the little things” and “the bottom tier,” although it was the exact opposite of the prevailing conditions and values of the time.

Contemporary Significance

“Aspiration toward the Bottom”

The formation of the “improvement of society” philosophy was influenced by Isoo Abe (an early Doshisha professor), who was trained by Dwight Whitney Learned (1848–1943, an economist who was a professor at Doshisha), a teacher at the pioneer Doshisha and who taught the idea of “Bible in the right hand and economics in the left.” Political improvement was necessary for society’s improvement, and Christian socialism and other forms of socialism were advocated. This would lead directly to macro reforms, but the Neesima spirit crystallized more clearly in the micro perspective, the idea of “aspiration toward the bottom (margins).”
　The phrase “aspiration toward the bottom” is not Neesima’s own words but those of former Doshisha University professor Joji Ogura (1926–2004) (Joji Ogura, Right Wing, and Welfare: A Message to the Current Welfare Situation from a Different Kind of ‘Aspiration toward the Bottom,’ Horitsu Bunka Sha, 2007). Ogura was a direct disciple of Katsuo Takenaka, one of Japan’s leading social policy scholars and the father of Doshisha’s social welfare studies.
　Ogura stated that it is important to “see what needs to be seen” and to face directly the social contradictions hidden in the darkness and social problems at the “bottom” of society. The ideology that embodies this is "aspiration toward the bottom.” This was the basis of the welfare practices of Neesima’s disciples, such as Kosuke Tomeoka (founder of Hokkaido Family School, a rehabilitation facility for juvenile delinquents and considered the father of child welfare) and Gunpei Yamamuro (social worker and evangelist active in the Salvation Army) and has since been passed on as the direction of research and education in social welfare at Doshisha.

Doshisha Spirit and Social Welfare (Social Work)

　The idea of “aspiration toward the bottom” was also a symbol of anti- authority and resonated with the “idea of resistance” and became a major driving force for social improvement by confronting oppressed society and its darkest problems. Supported by this ideology, Doshisha was one of Japan’s first universities to establish a social welfare (social work) department to directly face society’s bottom tier in each era and produced many welfare leaders.
　For more than 90 years since the establishment of the Department of Social Welfare within the Faculty of Theology in 1931, Doshisha has played a major role as a pioneer in Japanese social welfare research and education. Known as the “Doshisha School” or “Conscience School,” it contributed to the formation of modern Japanese social welfare and continues to exert a major influence today. This is the result of “the juxtaposition of knowledge and morality” approach to education espoused by Neesima. In other words, it is proof that Christianity and education have become “the two wheels of civilization” and have realized the “improvement of society.”
　Doshisha University has produced such figures as Kosuke Tomeoka, Gunpei Yamamuro, and others who have served as “salt of the earth” in the field of education. Doshisha has also been a representative of Japan in the study of social welfare. Doshisha has also produced some of Japan’s leading scholars in social welfare research, such as Katsuo Takenaka, Aiji Takeuchi, and Keiichiro Shimada. The influence of these scholars is not limited to Japan but has also been felt in Korea, where scholars such as Kim Deok Joon, who systematized social welfare studies, have been produced. Today, many people have inherited this spirit and are active in Japan as social welfare researchers and practitioners. As indicated by the expression “aspiration toward the bottom,” they sought to break through, reform, and improve existing society, which had a sense of stagnation, through values that opposed upward mobility and strength-oriented thinking. They embody the spirit of Neesima.

Finding “the Bottom Point”

By the way, Pastor Fumio Fukatsu, who has long practiced Christian welfare as the head of the Kanita Women’s Village, a women’s shelter long-term residential facility, criticizes the term “bottom” as follows.

“To One of the Least of These”

What Fukatsu and Ogura have in common, apart from their differences in expression, is not an orientation toward upward mobility or strength, but rather, as Christian thought has shown since ancient times, the idea of “weakness” and a way of thinking that sees Jesus himself in the smallest of the small. It is derived from the idea of Jesus, who said, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:40), which is the starting point of today’s Christian social welfare studies.

(Katsunobu Kihara)