In November 1877, three months after Emperor Meiji's conscript army of commoners defeated forces led by Japan's famous ""last samurai,"" the Reverend Tom Alexander and his new wife, Emma, arrived in Japan, a country where Christianity had been punishable by death until 1868. A Christian in the Land of the Gods offers an intimate view of hardships and challenges faced by nineteenth-century missionaries working to plant their faith in a country just...