ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the relationship between Christianity and anticommunist ideals in democratization policy and practice during the American occupation of Japan. It looks specifically at how early democratization in postwar Japan unfolded in part through two programs within the Civil Information and Education Section of Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), namely, the Return of Missionaries to Japan program, based within the Religion and Cultural Resources Division, and the Civil Censorship Detachment. The democratization of Japan in the years following the war involved people at all levels of society, from both Japan and the United States, who each helped shape Japan’s democracy in their own way. Planting the seeds of democracy in the minds of the Japanese people, as occupation planners had phrased it, necessitated the promotion of so-called American ideals beyond religious freedom. Occupation leaders had been working on the democratization of the residents of Kyushu through cultural activities since 1946.
