Shinto

Shinto and the Environment

The NAS supports the activities of the Shinto culture society (Shintō bunka kai) or the Shrine forest society (Shasō gakkai). The former has been organizing conferences on nature and Shinto culture since 1999, tackling problems facing the oceans, mountains, rivers, and trees. The latter, the first environmental society created by Shinto priests, was founded in 2002 to raise awareness of the threat posed to shrine forests by environmental change. It conducts surveys of shrine and temple land and trains volunteers in forest management. The organization also convenes workshops to generate solutions to the environmental threat. There are many other regional initiatives, too, such as the Sennen no mori kai (Millennium Forest Association) run by shrine priests in Ibaragi Prefecture.

The distinctive NAS approach to the environment is most easily grasped through pieces in its weekly newspaper, Jinja shinpō. On July 28, 2008, it carried a rare and revealing editorial on shrine forests. The time had come, it announced on page 2, to reappraise our understanding of nature, but “not as a contemporary, technical problem.” Shrine forests are sacred places where humankind and the kami can intermingle; to study forests is to nurture a heart of gratitude to nature and feelings of awe and compassion. But shrine forests have a still deeper significance for contemporary society: They have a unique ability to generate in children love of community and thus patriotic love of Japan. Shrine forests are the key to restoring the ethical core to Japan's education system, emasculated by 60 years of malign Western influence.

This editorial came in the wake of an important environmental conference organized by Shinto priests in northeast Japan in June 2008. Jinja shinpō duly reported on the event and the initiatives debated there to protect shrine forests and the environment in general. A delegate from Miyagi Prefecture lamented Shinto's failure thus far to make any positive statement on environmental problems or to offer guidance to priests. The imminent rebuilding of the Ise shrines in 2013 was, he insisted, an opportunity Shinto must seize to demonstrate its environmental credentials. More typical was the priest who spoke of shrine forests as Japan's spiritual homeland and, without offering any evidence, proclaimed Shinto a “faith unsurpassed in the world” for its record on protecting nature. Another priest acknowledged the threat of environmental change and the need for action, suggesting priests look to the emperor for guidance.

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