[MuttTheHoople]

Why did he turn Hirohito down? Because MacArthur thought that “No nation must be made to conform to any religion. It must be done on a voluntary basis.”

[Leaning Right]

Hirohito offering to make Japan a Christian nation? I find that very hard to believe.

Now, Douglas MacArthur wildly exaggerating? That I would believe.

[Oratam]

This reminds me of something I recall reading over 25 years ago. During the 70s, a senior American diplomat in China asked a senior Chinese official (Zhou Enlai?) what he wanted most for the Chinese people. He answered “that they become Christians.”

I think it was a senior Chinese administrator who had been educated in the West and saw that Christian nations were orderly and prosperous. I doubt very much he viewed it with anything other than a practical end in mind. Perhaps that was Hirohito’s view as well.

I wish I had saved that article (from National Review?) because I cannot find any reference to it. Oh, well.

[Wuli]

I was trying to find independent confirmation of this, outside of Mr Graham, and I thought the Japan Times would be a good source - from Japanese sources. And there is a Japan Times article on it. But it requires a paid - $30/month - subscription to see the whole article, before the article becomes covered in the demand for a subscription. Too bad.