The Japanese evangelist, advocate of social change, and pacifist, Toyohiko Kagawa (1888-1960), was a major twentieth century religious figure often compared to Mahatma Gandhi.

Kagawa was the son of a wealthy Kobe Buddhist business entrepreneur-politician and his concubine, both of whom died when Kagawa was four years old. The youth was raised by Presbyterian missionaries and had a conversion experience at age fifteen. O God, make me like Christ he prayed repeatedly.