Tokyo

Religious Corporations

Shintarō Ishihara, the governor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government since 1999, proposed in 2000 a vision of Tokyo as a “world city.” One of the aims of this vision is to have 5 million foreign tourists in 2015 (compared with 2.5 million in 1998) and 50,000 foreign students in 2015 (compared with nearly 20,000 in 1999). The present numbers reveal a relatively low level of internationalization or globalization for this city when compared with its size of 12 million residents. Official statistics of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, however, show the steady growth of the foreign population in Tokyo and that whereas the percentage of foreigners among the total residents in Tokyo was only 1% in 1980, it was 2.9% on January 1, 2007.

In 2007, of the approximately 371,000 foreigners (among the 12,692,000 total residents), 126,000 Chinese, 110,000 Koreans, 31,000 Filipinos, and 18,000 U.S. Americans live in Tokyo. As current migration studies reveal, these people of foreign origin have carried with them, at least to some extent, their own religious traditions. If they stay in Japan long enough to have a family and to experience the birth and/or death of some of their family members, then they may follow [Page 1290]some form of religious rituals or ceremonies deriving from their own tradition or another form that they have found and accepted on the new soil of Japan, whether it is Buddhism, Shinto, or any of the new religious movements.

Official data about the status quo of religions in Tokyo can be available in the list of religious juridical corporations compiled and published annually by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. According to the list dated on January 1, 2007, we can get a basic picture of religious corporations in Tokyo: The total number of religious corporations is 5,916, which consists of 2,873 Buddhist corporations, 1,604 Shinto, 454 Christian, and 985 other. The great majority (959) of the last category of “other” corporations belong to Tenrikyo, a new type of Shinto-based group.

The notable exceptions in the other corporations are the following: one Islamic corporation located in Setagaya, one Jewish corporation and three Islamic corporations in Shibuya, and one Confucian corporation in Musashino City.

If we take a closer look at Christian corporations, another feature will become visible. Among 454 Christian corporations, the great majority have derived from major Protestant missions from abroad, although their level of independence from foreign missions must be different from one group to another. There are a few exceptions to these Western mission churches. One category of the exceptions is seen in the indigenous Christian groups started by Japanese leaders outside of Western mission churches, and we will mention these indigenous groups below. Another category is seen among the immigrants' ethnic Christian churches. Three corporations belong to an ecumenical ethnic church, the Korean Christian Church in Japan (in Shinjuku, Shinagawa, and Adachi). Some of the other Korean Christians gather at another independent evangelical church in Arakawa and another corporation, Full Gospel Tokyo Church, in Shinjuku. Full Gospel Tokyo Church is a Japanese branch of the Yoido Full Gospel Church of Korea, the biggest Pentecostal church in the world. In addition to Korean churches, there is one Chinese Christian church in Suginami. Also under the category of Christianity in the list for Tokyo, we see Jehovah's Witnesses holding their congregations at Setagaya, Katsushika, Akishima City, Koganei City, and Kunitachi City.

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