Uchimura Kanzô was one of Japan’s foremost thinkers. His ideas influenced contemporary novelists, statesmen, reformers, and religious leaders. The originator and proponent of a particularly "Japanese" form of Christianity known as mukyôkai, Uchimura struggled with the tensions between his love for the homeland and his love for God. Articulate, prolific, passionate, and profound, he earned a reputation as the most consistent critic of his society and knowledgeable Japanese interpreter of Christianity and its Bible. Through this exceptional man’s life, John Howes charts what it meant to live during the introduction of Christianity to Japan.