Shinto

Official numbers published by the Japanese statistics bureau rank Shinto as Japan's largest religion, with a following that constitutes more than 80% of the population. Yet at the same time, questionnaires asking people for their religious identity consistently reveal that only a few percent of Japanese consider themselves as “adherents” of Shinto. Depending on one's point of view, Shinto may be regarded either as the largest religion of Japan or as a marginal phenomenon. To shed light on this confusing state of affairs, this entry will first distinguish between different layers within the broad category of Shinto and between different discourses on Shinto's meaning and essence and then present a brief overview of Shinto's historical development.

The term Shinto does not refer to a single, centralized religion but rather to a cluster of groups, organizations, and even popular practices that all, in their own ways, focus on shrines (jinja, jingū) and/or their deities (kami). Some 100,000 shrines are scattered throughout the Japanese islands. Most of them are very small and lack a permanent staff of priests, but many thousands have at least one dedicated priest, and several hundreds sustain tens or, in some rare cases, even hundreds of professional clergy and other personnel. There are around 20,000 registered Shinto priests; a considerable number of them take care of more than one shrine.

Since 1946, the majority of shrines (approximately 80,000) have been members of an umbrella organization called the Association of Shinto Shrines (in Japanese, Jinja Honchō). This association educates priests, defends the interests of shrines in the public arena, and allocates funds raised by member shrines and sponsors. Yet while the association takes the lead in giving meaning to Shinto in the public realm, it avoids defining a Shinto teaching, and it consciously makes space for many voices. It refrains from laying down a Shinto orthodoxy and only rarely meddles in the [Page 1169]religious or ritual policies of its member shrines. The association stresses that shrines should function as stages for community rites open for people of all faiths—not as churches with an exclusive following of dedicated believers. It is hardly surprising, then, that the “users” of shrines rarely perceive Shinto as their religious identity. To them, shrines offer an evocative and nostalgic setting for a range of traditional rituals, such as New Year prayers for happiness in the coming year, life cycle rites for children, purification rites for building sites and cars, weddings, and neighborhood festivals, often focusing on a parade. Most shrine rites deal with issues of life and live in a functional symbiosis with Buddhist rites that take care of death and mourning.

A second layer is constituted by a number of independent religious groups that identify themselves with Shinto. The oldest among these groups have histories that stretch back to the 19th century. These so-called Shinto sects have a much more clearly defined religious profile than the member shrines of the association. They can be divided into two types. The first type takes the form of a loose coalition of different groups of believers dedicated to a single shrine site, but with varying practices and backgrounds. The second typically focuses on a single deity who is believed to have revealed specific teachings to the world through the life and writings of the group's founder. Groups of this last type may in many respects be compared with Christian church movements: They feature explicit teachings that are actively promoted by preachers, and they have a clearly defined congregation, regular church meetings, and a hierarchically organized priesthood.

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