State Shinto
State Shintō (国家神道 or 國家神道, Kokka Shintō) was Imperial Japan's ideological use of the Japanese folk religion and traditions of Shinto.[1]: 547 The state exercised control of shrine finances and training regimes for priests[2][3]: 59 [4]: 120 to strongly encourage Shinto practices that emphasized the Emperor as a divine being.[5]: 8
The State Shinto ideology emerged at the start of the Meiji era, after government officials defined freedom of religion within the Meiji Constitution.[6]: 115 Imperial scholars believed Shinto reflected the historical fact of the Emperor's divine origins rather than a religious belief, and argued that it should enjoy a privileged relationship with the Japanese state.[5]: 8 [3]: 59 The government argued that Shinto was a non-religious moral tradition and patriotic practice, to give the impression that they supported religious freedom.[3]: 59 [4]: 120 Though early Meiji-era attempts to unite Shinto and the state failed,[6]: 51 this non-religious concept of ideological Shinto was incorporated into state bureaucracy.[7]: 547 [8] Shrines were defined as patriotic, not religious, institutions, which served state purposes such as honoring the war dead;[6]: 91 this is known as Secular Shrine Theory.[9]
The state also integrated local shrines into political functions, occasionally spurring local opposition and resentment.[4]: 120 With fewer shrines financed by the state, nearly 80,000 closed or merged with neighbors.[6]: 98 [7]: 118 Many shrines and shrine organizations began to independently embrace these state directives, regardless of funding.[7]: 114 By 1940, Shinto priests risked persecution for performing traditionally "religious" Shinto ceremonies.[6]: 25 [10]: 699 Imperial Japan did not draw a distinction between ideological Shinto and traditional Shinto.[7]: 100
US military leaders introduced the term "State Shinto" to differentiate the state's ideology from traditional Shinto practices[5]: 38 in the 1945 Shinto Directive.[5]: 38 That decree established Shinto as a religion, and banned further ideological uses of Shinto by the state.[10]: 703 Controversy continues to surround the use of Shinto symbols in state functions.[2]: 428 [10]: 706 [11]
Origins of the term[edit]
Shinto is a blend of indigenous Japanese folk practices, beliefs, court manners, and spirit-worship which dates back to at least 600 CE.[7]: 99 These beliefs were unified as "Shinto" during the Meiji era (1868–1912),[6]: 4 [12] though the Chronicles of Japan (日本書紀, Nihon Shoki) first referenced the term in the eighth century. Shinto has no fixed doctrines or founder, but draws instead from creation myths described in books such as the Kojiki.[13]: 9
The December 15, 1945 "Shinto Directive" of the United States General Headquarters introduced the "State Shinto" distinction when it began governing Japan after the Second World War. The Shinto Directive (officially the "Abolition of Governmental Sponsorship, Support, Perpetuation, Control and Dissemination of State Shinto") defined State Shinto as "that branch of Shinto (Kokka Shinto or Jinja Shinto) which, by official acts of the Japanese government, has been differentiated from the religion of Sect Shinto (Shuha Shinto or Kyoha Shinto) and has been classified a non-religious national cult."[5]: 41–42 [14]
The "State Shinto" term was thus used to categorize and abolish Imperial Japanese practices that relied on Shinto to support nationalistic ideology.[6]: 133 [7]: 97 By declining to ban Shinto practices outright, Japan's post-war constitution was able to preserve full freedom of religion.[6]: 133
Implementation of Shinto ideology[edit]
The Empire of Japan endeavored, through education initiatives and specific financial support for new shrines, to frame Shinto practice as a patriotic moral tradition.[4]: 120 From the early Meiji era, the divine origin of the Emperor was the official position of the state, and taught in classrooms not as myth, but as historical fact.[3]: 64 [4]: 122 Shinto priests were hired to teach in public schools, and cultivated this teaching, alongside reverence for the Emperor and compulsory class trips to shrines.[4]: 120 State Shinto practitioners also emphasized the ritual aspect as a traditional civic practice that did not explicitly call on faith to participate.[3]: 59
By balancing a "suprareligious" understanding of Shinto as the source of divinity for both Japan and the Emperor, the state was able to compel participation in rituals from Japanese subjects while claiming to respect their freedom of religion.[4]: 120 The state was thus able to enshrine its place in civic society in ways religions could not. This included teaching its ideological strand of Shinto in public schools,[2] including ceremonial recitations to the Emperor and rites involving the Emperor's portrait.[4]: 120
In 1926, the government organized the Shūkyō Seido Chōsakai (宗教制度調査会, Religious System Investigative Committee) and then the Jinja Seido Chōsakai (神社制度調査会, Shrine System Investigative Committee), which further established the suprareligious "Shintogaku" ideology.[17]: 147
To protect this non-religious distinction, practices which did not align with state functions were increasingly prohibited. This included preaching at shrines and conducting funerals. The use of the symbolic torii gate was restricted to government-supported shrines.[21] As religious rituals without state functions were restricted, practitioners were driven underground and frequently arrested.[22]: 16 Alternative Shinto movements, such as Omotokyo, were hampered by the imprisonment of its priests in 1921.[6]: 24 The status of separation of so-called "State Shinto" shrines changed in 1931; from that point, shrines were pressured to focus on the divinity of the Emperor Hirohito or shrine priests could face persecution.[6]: 25 [10]: 699
Some intellectuals at the time, such as Yanagita Kunio, were critics of Imperial Japan's argument at the time that Shinto was not religious.[22]: 15 In 1936, the Catholic Church's Propaganda Fide agreed with the state definition, and announced that visits to shrines had "only a purely civil value".[23]