Sixth Great Awakening

The Sixth Great Awakening was a major Christian religious awakening movement that spanned the globe, and saw the rebirth of religious activity around the world between 2027 and 2062. The reawakening was especially well felt in countries that once possessed large irreligious or atheist populations, seeing a boom in church membership and attendance rate. Many of the changes that took place during the period were incredibly profound, with the unification of nearly all Christian denominations thanks to the efforts of Christian reformists, Oliver Bernard, Hayden Ainsworth, and Masahiko Ishikawa the two most notable figures of the Sixth Great Awakening.

Origins
The origins of the Sixth Great Awakening undoubtedly begin with the collapse of the Japanese economy in 2019. In 2019, the Japanese government defaulted on its debt to its foreign lenders, resulting in the bankruptcy of the Japanese economy. The crisis sent shockwaves throughout the globe, affecting nations from one end of the world to the other as the third-largest economy in the world collapsed. Many Japanese citizens blamed the government for its poor handling of the situation in the years prior to the crisis, while others blamed the citizens themselves for their refusal to build up the demographics needed to sustain such a massive economy.

The existence of so-called "parasite singles" and the aging population of Japan, resulted in a shrinking workforce, that could not maintain the same national economic output as in the decades before, resulting in the failure of the government to pay back its lenders with funds that shrank every fiscal year. A civil war erupted when it became clear that there would be no easy recovery, and the other financial powers of the world refused to float the Japanese economy with a line of credit. From 2019 to 2023, the Japanese Civil War saw the deaths of more than eight million people, further destroying the Japanese population, and lowering it from 92 million to 84 million inhabitants.

In the end, some Japanese Christians came to believe that God had punished their people for their abhorrent ways, for allowing sexual deviance, irreligious beliefs, and materialistic obsessions dominate their society, sparking a desire to change the way the Japanese thought and acted as a people. Spearheading this new movement was Masahiko Ishikawa, a Protestant preacher from the city of Niigata, who saw and believed that the entire affair was an act of god sent to punish his people and their nation for their actions. Thus, Ishikawa took it upon himself to do something about the crisis he had survived, and bring his people back into reconciliation with God and his standards.

Ishikawa and his followers traveled throughout Japan, preaching and reaching out to the disillusioned people of the country, who had witnessed the darkness period in Japanese history, and were searching for answers to the sudden collapse of their economy and destruction of their way of life. Within two years of his ministry, Ishikawa had established the Japanese Nakanaori Church in 2025, and had a following of more than 27 million people, all of who saw the church and its teachings as the truth, single-handedly bringing religion and Christianity back to Japan. With years of the Nakanaori Church's formation, it had taken over much of the Japanese government, economy, and society, with Ishikawa the man who would represent the Japanese theocracy as its leader.

Expansion of the Awakening
The spiritual events in Japan did not go unnoticed by the world. Many Christians, especially those in China and South Korea, were astounded by the sudden change in Japanese culture, from a predominately atheist society to a highly religious one, all within the span of five or seven years. The Nakanaori movement had inspired many in China, India, Russia, Europe, and North America, to begin reconciling with God and re-establishing Christian doctrines as cultural norms once again. Before the civil war in Japan, the industrialized world had largely done away with religious movements and teachings. The most notable being Italy's own move to annex Vatican City in 2026, and end special treatment of the Roman Catholic Church after the pope refused to answer calls to prosecute and expel priests accused to child molestation.

With the weakening of the world's largest Christian church and denomination, many believed that the end times were near. However, others such as Oliver Bernard, believed that the time of the end was already underway, and the foretold "fall of Babylon the Great" – all religious groups that claimed to represent God and his will, was being fulfilled. The Catholic Church and other Christian groups, saw concerted efforts by many European countries to outright close churches and ban their activities in their countries. The flight of hundreds of thousands of religious Europeans to the United States and Brazil sparked religious movements in those countries, as they too began to fear the attempt of their own governments to outlaw their religious activities at home. Soon, Nakanaori-style "reconciliation movements" were underway.