Practicing the Redemptive Love of Jesus: The Enduring Witness of Kagawa Toyohiko (1888–1960)1

On Christmas Eve in 1909, 21-year-old Kagawa Toyohiko (1888–1960) rented a room in Kobe’s worst slum and, aside from two years of study in the United States, remained there with his wife and co-worker Haru more than ten years. In the slum, they engaged in pastoral work, evangelism, social reform movements, and literary activities. After publishing a best-selling novel in 1920 and donating all of the royalties to their many projects, Toyohiko began to draw the attention of people from around Japan and the world. He was often compared with his contemporaries Mahatma Gandhi and Albert Schweitzer. Arguing that spiritual reform must accompany genuine social reform, he proposed the “third way” of cooperative economics as an alternative to the materialism he perceived in capitalism and Marxism. The Kagawas founded Kobe Co-op in 1920, which today has 1.2 million members. To support the spiritual life and social commitment of young Christians, they started the “Friends of Jesus” in 1921, a lay Protestant order linking Franciscan and Jesuit traditions. They helped lead relief efforts in Tokyo after the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923 and Toyohiko led the Kingdom of God Movement from 1926–34, a massive ecumenical effort that fused evangelism with social activism. Toyohiko was a lifelong reader of natural science and saw no conflict between science and faith. His lifelong passivism was sorely tested as Japan headed into world war. By 1940, he had responsibility for 4 settlement houses, 6 cooperatives, 6 slum kitchens, 3 hospitals, 17 kindergartens, 3 tuberculosis sanitaria, 3 gospel schools, 1 domestic science school, 2 magazines, a farm, and 19 churches. Publishing over 300 books in his lifetime, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature twice, and the Nobel Peace Prize three times. This piece considers why Kagawa and his enduring legacy have been forgotten.