Ultranationalism Lingers Within Shintō’s Shadowy Leadership

Shintō, Japan’s indigenous religious tradition, has no founder and no definitive scripture. It originated from an ancient animistic, polytheistic folk religion that deified mountains, megaliths, and other features and forces of nature.

Animism and polytheism are by no means unique to Japan but can be found throughout the world. Hinduism, the indigenous Phi animism of Southeast Asia, and Native American shamanism are just a few examples. What is unusual about Shintō is the fact that it has a strong leadership organization despite being a natural religion with no codified system of beliefs.

Organized and Natural Religions

Natural religions have no identifiable founders and no definitive scriptures. Believers are free to commune with their divinities and practice their faith as they see fit, with no need for top-down supervision.

Hinduism has upwards of 1.1 billion followers, but there is no overarching “Hindu church” and no single entity with authority over matters of Hindu doctrine. That is typical of natural religions.

By contrast, Catholicism, Christianity’s largest church, has a hierarchical organization led by the pope and headquartered in the Vatican. It traces its origins to Jesus of Nazareth, and it has a holy scripture, the Bible. From the beginning, it has had a leader and a set of doctrines united by fairly clear-cut principles. The Vatican functions as a kind of executive body that prevents clergy members or followers from undermining the doctrinal discipline of the faith with their own individual interpretations of Christian theology.

For much the same reason, each sect of Buddhism generally has a head temple that exerts authority over the others and functions as a unifying symbol of that sect.

Shintō differs somewhat from the majority of natural religions in that it does in fact have a central executive body, known as Jinja Honchō (Association of Shintō Shrines). Headquartered in Tokyo’s Shibuya, this “comprehensive religious corporation” boasts a membership of more than 78,000 shrines all around Japan. It also oversees around 20,000 priests (kannushi), whom it groups into five ranks (jōkai, meikai, seikai, gonseikai, and chokkai). These priests take a portion of the offerings collected by their shrines and contribute it to the association, which has an annual operating budget of roughly ¥5 billion. Jinja Honchō also draws up and enforces various regulations governing the operation of member shrines, including rules—some carrying penalties—pertaining to the conduct of Shintō rites and the management of shrine finances. In short, it tells the shrines and priests what they may and may not do.

Is a body like Jinja Honchō really necessary for a natural religion like Shintō? A good number of priests have asked this question and even called openly for the organization’s elimination.

But how did such a body ever come to wield control over a natural religion like Shintō? The answer lies in the politicization of Shintō during the modern era.

The Shrines of State Shintō

The religion that has exerted the greatest spiritual influence over the Japanese people during their long history is Buddhism. Entering Japan in the sixth century, Buddhism impressed the Japanese with its sophistication, having an actual founder (Siddhartha Gautama, or Sakyamuni Buddha) and systematic teachings codified in various scriptures, or sutras. The emperor himself converted to Buddhism, and thereafter the ruling class embraced the religion, erecting great temples in cities like Nara and Kyoto.

Meanwhile, Buddhism and Shintō intermingled in a number of ways. The Chinese-derived architecture of Buddhist temples affected the construction of Shintō shrines, and Buddhist services are said to have influenced Shintō ceremonies. The Heian period (794–1185) saw the spread of honji suijaku, the theory that Shintō kami were incarnations of Buddhist deities. It became increasingly common for shrines to be incorporated inside temple complexes. It is said that by the Edo period (1603–1868), few people—especially among the general public—even distinguished between temples and shrines.

But this syncretism between Shintō and Buddhism (shinbutsu shūgō) did not sit well with the architects of the Meiji Restoration (1868), who toppled the semi-feudal Tokugawa shogunate in order to establish a modern nation with the emperor as head of state.

Japan’s emperors trace their lineage back to the sun goddess Amaterasu Ōmikami, one of Shintō’s most important kami, or deities. The architects of the restoration believed that establishing Shintō as the de facto state religion would solidify the emperor’s status as the nation’s supreme ruler. Thus was born the institution known as State Shintō.

In 1868, the fledgling Meiji government moved to suppress Buddhism with an imperial order on the separation of the two religions (Shinbutsu Hanzen Rei). That set off an anti-Buddhist movement (haibutsu kishaku), which led to the destruction or closure of many temples.

Of the Shintō shrines familiar to people nowadays, a large number were created artificially during the modern era with government backing. Under the Empire of Japan (1868–1945), shrines were treated as state facilities and priests as government officials.

Fallout from the “Shintō Directive”

The environment surrounding Shintō changed abruptly with Japan’s defeat in World War II.

The US Occupation authorities, viewing Shintō as the wellspring of Japanese militarism, moved quickly to abolish State Shintō. In addition, the Constitution that they drafted, promulgated in 1946, explicitly mandated religious freedom and the separation of religion from government.

Within the Shintō community, there was deep concern that many of Japan’s shrines would not survive if suddenly deprived of government support and guidance. In 1946, leaders of that community created Jinja Honchō as a nongovernmental religious organization to replace such state organs as the Home Ministry’s Bureau of Shrines and Institute of Divinities, which had been entrusted with shrine administration under the prewar government.

Given this history, the upper echelon of shrine priests—the core of Jinja Honchō’s leadership—have tended to view themselves as victims of the Occupation’s coercive, misguided policies, which abruptly wrenched the priesthood out from under the government’s wing.

Of course, there is an element of truth to the accusation that the Occupation’s religious policies were precipitate and high-handed. But some of those at the core of Jinja Honchō are driven by a deeper ideological aversion to the democratic reforms undertaken by the Occupation. They see it as their mission to overturn the postwar Constitution and restore the State Shintō of the prewar era. Indeed, over the years there has been a distinctly nationalist, reactionary tinge to the Jinja Honchō’s activities. The organization’s political arm, the Shintō Association of Spiritual Leadership (Shintō Seiji Renmei) has aggressively courted and supported far-right members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and in so doing has exerted a significant influence on Japanese politics.

That said, today—80 years after the end of World War II—there are very few living priests who actually remember the situation before and shortly after the war. The status of shrines as private-sector religious corporations is more or less taken for granted, and the Shintō world has adapted to that reality. Few of the working priests with whom I have spoken seem to harbor strong political views. Where the future of Shintō is concerned, most seem to support the status quo.

By the same token, however, one sees little evidence of the sort of ideals and aspirations that might help steer a new course for an organization born of resentment against the United States.

Tanaka’s Entrenched Leadership

Over the past few years, serious rifts have emerged within Jinja Honchō’s leadership. In the wake of scandals over real estate dealings, President Tanaka Tsunekiyo (age 81) has been the focus of mounting criticism, and at one time Tanaka himself spoke of stepping down. But in May this year, he was elected for the sixth time. If he serves out this last term, he will have reigned over the association for 18 years, despite the customary limit of two three-year terms.

Of course, this situation has drawn a good deal of criticism, including talk of a “Tanaka dictatorship.” But ultimately the situation reflects the state of the Shintō community, which is plagued by stagnation and a lack of new blood entering the priesthood.

The individual shrines scattered about Japan are under no obligation to join Jinja Honchō. Fed up with the stultifying atmosphere that persists under the prevailing leadership, more and more shrines are opting to leave the association and strike out on their own.

But such dispersion raises further questions about Shintō’s long-term vitality and survival. What we need now is the collective will to forge a new understanding of the role of Shintō in contemporary Japanese society.

(Originally published in Japanese. Banner photo: Headquarters of Jinja Honchō in Tokyo’s Shibuya, April 2024. © Jiji.)