Shinto

Overview

Shinto emphasises purity, purification rituals and a harmonious relationship with the kami and the community. About 100,000 public shrines, marked by torii gates, are scattered across Japan. About 80,000 of them are affiliated with the Association of Shinto Shrines. Many Japanese turn to Shinto for birth rites, weddings and festivals (matsuri), and to Buddhism for matters of death. That is why the question "how many Shintoists are there" is complicated.

Origins and History

Nature worship in Japan is very ancient. In the 7th and 8th centuries Shinto took a more organised form, as the imperial house linked itself to the sun goddess Amaterasu. For about a thousand years Shinto and Buddhism were intertwined, and kami were seen as manifestations of buddhas.

Development and Branches

In the Meiji Restoration (1868) the government separated Shinto from Buddhism and created "State Shinto". This was a national ideology that presented the emperor as a divine descendant and required worship at shrines. After defeat in World War II, State Shinto was dismantled on the orders of the occupation authorities (the "Shinto Directive", 15 December 1945), and on 1 January 1946 the emperor declared that he was not divine. Since then Shinto has functioned as a private religion with no official status.

How It Spread and Grew

🗺️ Maps of how the five largest religions spread →

Shinto barely spread outside Japan. The exception is the period of the Japanese empire, when shrines were built in Korea, Taiwan and other occupied territories, and local people were sometimes forced to take part in worship. Today the number of active participants is declining, because of urbanisation, an ageing population and secularisation.

Influence on the World

• Aesthetics and art: Shinto shaped Japanese aesthetics, for example simplicity, natural materials and respect for the seasons, as well as architecture, theatre and art.
• Popular culture: shrines such as Fushimi Inari and Ise are heritage and tourist sites. Shinto also appears in global popular culture, for example in Miyazaki's films.

What Draws Believers (Strengths)

• Deep respect for nature and the environment.
• Community rituals and festivals that strengthen identity and belonging.
• Flexibility and easy combination with other religions.
• No demand for dogmatic belief.

Criticism and Challenges

• Japanese militarism: the main criticism concerns Shinto's historical link to Japanese nationalism and militarism.
• Yasukuni Shrine: this is the focus of the controversy. It honours the spirits of Japan's war dead, including convicted war criminals. Visits by politicians provoke protests in China and Korea.
• Exclusion of women: there is also criticism of women's exclusion from certain rites and sites.

Human Life, War and Peace – What It Teaches

• The sanctity of nature and life. A central idea is purity versus impurity, and contact with death is considered impure.
• Shinto has no developed doctrine of war. In the State Shinto period an ideal of self-sacrifice for the emperor was cultivated.
• Since 1945 Shinto has emphasised peace, as well as memorial rites for the war dead.
• Compared with other religions: Sanctity of Life Across Religions

Religion, Power and Violence

State Shinto:

• Imperialism: in the decades before and during World War II, State Shinto served as an ideological basis for Japanese imperialism. The cult of the divine emperor justified conquest and war, and soldiers were taught to sacrifice themselves, for example the kamikaze pilots.
• Coercion: Shinto worship was imposed on the population of occupied territories.
• Harm to Buddhism: after Shinto was separated from Buddhism (1868), a wave of destruction of Buddhist temples, images and texts followed, and monks were forced back into lay life ("haibutsu kishaku"). It is hard to know how many temples were destroyed or closed: one estimate puts it at about 40,000, and in some places up to 80% of the temples. According to another estimate, about 18,000 temples were eliminated between 1872 and 1874 alone, and perhaps as many again between 1868 and 1872. Scholars note that the wave also had economic and political motives, such as seizing temple lands.

When believers were victims: the state itself suppressed new religious movements that drew on Shinto but departed from the official cult. Ōmoto, for example, was persecuted in 1921 and 1935: its leaders were imprisoned (among other charges, for lèse-majesté), its headquarters destroyed, and until the end of World War II it was effectively outlawed. In 1946 it was registered again as a religious organisation.

The other side: outside that period Shinto is not a tradition of conquest or religious war. After 1945 it returned to being a local, community religion.