JAPAN

The Christian population in Japan has remained at around one percent of the country’s population since 1549, when Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier arrived, says a professor of the sociology of religion at Tokyo’s Roman Catholic Sophia University. “But the young generation no longer has a negative image of Christianity, which was once stigmatised as heretical or a religion of Japan’s enemy [during the Second World War], as many of them are seeking Christian-style weddings,” said Mark Mullins, author of the book Christianity Made in Japan that has sold thousands of copies in its Japanese version. (Ecumenical News International)