A Review: Unique But Not Different

Unique But Not Different: Latter-day Saints in Japan by Shinji Takagi, Conan Grames, and Meagan Rainock is a fascinating glimpse into the world of Japanese Latter-day Saints. The book is based on a comprehensive survey data, which it explores to examine the diverse social, political, and ideological backgrounds of Japanese Latter-day Saints. Over the course of exploring those data, the book provides valuable insights for scholars, missionaries, Church leaders, and members alike about the state of the Church in Japan. The format is very academic in its investigation of the survey results and reads more like a scientific paper than narrative history, and it is very well done.

The book compares data with the Next Mormon Survey and has some commonality with The Next Mormons: How Millennials Are Changing the LDS Church by Jana Riess in the types of information that it explores. Some differences with Riess’s work are that less liberal bias is present in the text, but there are also less stories from interviews with survey respondents. The group that Unique But Not Different focused its survey work on is much more narrow—active Latter-day Saints in Japan (rather than also including former members or less-active members). This focus allows the survey analysis to get a good view of the type of people you would meet if you attended church in Japan. The authors have an awareness of that limitation and made sure to point them out at the appropriate times. For example, survey respondents reported extremely high compliance with the Word of Wisdom. What the authors of Unique But Not Different point out, however, is that indications are that activity rates are only about 20% in Japan; that due to cultural rituals around tea, coffee, and alcohol, Church members tend to put a lot of peer pressure on each other to follow the Word of Wisdom; and that when members in Japan begin to violate the Word of Wisdom, they usually leave the Church. Thus, high compliance is likely to be more an artifact of survival bias in the data gathered than Latter-day Saints being more faithful overall in Japan.

One idea that was explored in the book that I found to be insightful is the idea of religious and cultural capital. The basic idea is that when we participate in institutions (religions, a society, etc.), we have to learn information and behaviors that allow us to be accepted and incorporated into that institution. For example, in the Church, familiarity with the scriptures is a form of cultural capital that generally is a prerequisite to certain callings in leadership or teaching at Church. A known history of reliably serving in callings is another form of cultural capital that accrues over time in the Church. When someone makes a major change, like converting to another religion, they tend to sacrifice a significant amount of their human capital that they have developed over time. The more significant the change, the bigger the hit to cultural or religious capital (e.g., less cultural capital is lost when someone converts from another form of Christianity to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints than when someone from a radically different background like Hinduism, Taoism, etc. converts to the Church). This concept was useful to explain why it is more difficult for people in non-Christian countries (like Japan) to convert and why the survey indicated that it is generally people younger than age 30 who made a lasting conversion (they have accrued less religious capital, and thus lose less through the conversion process).

Unique But Not Different: Latter-day Saints in Japan is an important study in understanding The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Japan and contains larger implications for how the Church functions in non-Christian majority nations. I recommend it to historians interested in minority religions, Latter-day Saints who are involved in missionary work or administration of the Church in Japan, or general members who want to gain a deeper understanding of their coreligionists.