It arrived too late to share with the other foreign imports, Buddhism and Confucianism, a role in shaping the basic infrastructure of Japan. While the results were dramatically successful in the short term, the effort was ultimately abortive. In the 17th century, missionaries were expelled by the Tokugawa shogunate and the visible Christian community was destroyed by persecution. Christianity was readmitted to Japan in the late 19th century, following the opening of the country to trade and diplomatic relations in 1854 and the beginning of a program of modernization with the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Their success is mainly among less traditional, Western-oriented, urban Japanese.
Christian progress seems limited by one great impediment.
Even so, certain customs associated with Christianity have been widely adopted by the Japanese. Christmas is almost as prominently featured in Japanese department stores and shopping centers as it is in their American counterparts. Some hotels have built their own wedding chapels in order to meet the demand. Hundreds of thousands of these figures are purchased annually from temples, shrines, and other outlets in the hope of fulfilling personal wishes. Additionally, however, there is a considerable body of folk beliefs and customs that flourish outside the range of institutionalized religion.