Nov. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Western society “is facing an impasse” because of its tradition of Christianity, said Ichiro Ozawa, a lawmaker with the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, according to Kyodo news service.

Christianity is an “exclusive and self-righteous religion,” Ozawa, Secretary General of the DPJ, told reporters after meeting a Buddhist leader in western Wakayama prefecture, Kyodo said last night. Ozawa added that while Islam was better, it too was exclusive.

Ozawa, 67, his party’s second-ranked official, engineered the DPJ’s landslide victory in August’s lower-house election in which the DPJ ended five decades of almost uninterrupted rule by the Liberal Democratic Party.

To contact the reporters on this story: Sachiko Sakamaki in Tokyo at Ssakamaki1@bloomberg.net;

Last Updated: November 10, 2009 19:54 EST