Column: Letters from Japan (Part 2)
Religion has been a part of Japanese life from the earliest folk eras thousands of years ago. Folk practices then blended with later religions. Buddhism came to Japan in the sixth century and established a dominant hold on the people. However, Shinto religion soon emerged and incorporated a blend of Buddhist ideas as well as Chinese ideas from Confucian and Tao beliefs. Shinto also carried a nationalistic creation story--that the kami--gods--came to Earth and took human form in Japan. The people of Japan then ventured into the world; however those remaining in Japan were favored by the gods and were considered to be a superior people. While Shinto, like other religions, asks people to lead good lives, it puts an emphasis on reverence for parents and ancestors. A special place was also held for the emperor of the Japanese people as he was considered to be descended from the major god--the Sun god. Like Buddhism, Shinto was not an exclusive religion--a person could be Shinto as well as Buddhist, or even Hindu or Christian for that matter. In such a case, only other Christians would object, for Christianity is an exclusive religion, to be Christian implies a rejection of other faiths.
The creation story is found in almost all religions, as is also the idea of having reverence for elders and the departed. Most religions also recognize that certain human beings have elements of divinity--at least more so than other human beings. The" chosen people" concept abounds in religions. Within the United States, these ideas are not alien to most sects of Christianity. Shinto also incorporates familiar ideas of people having a oneness with the natural environment. Christians are beginning to come around to this one.
The trouble with the Shinto religion involved the fact that Japan's military leaders in the early decades of the twentieth century exploited economic needs with power-grabbing greed, and in doing so they used the Shinto religion to justify conquests of other (in their eyes--inferior) people in Asia. Shinto beliefs were also used to motivate military troops to make heroic sacrifices in wartime.
Didn't work out.
Japan was crushed by the superiority of American military might aided by our allies. Soon the American armies were occupying Japan. Rather than merely subduing the Japanese people, our political leaders embarked upon a pacification campaign with reeducation. The Japanese, like their fallen counterparts in Germany, had to be taught that they had been a bad aggressor, and that they had to atone for the bad things they had done. But unlike what happened in Germany, where Christian religions had on occasion (maybe a lot of occasions) been manipulated and also used to support the Axis war effort, in Japan the religion of the fallen was targeted for revision and restructure.
Two pieces of writing capture the American effort in this direction. The American policy was never mandated by Congress, but it must be assumed that it was endorsed by the executive political leader (Harry Truman) who had supreme power over the military command in Japan. That command issued a directive on December 15,1945 attacking the Shinto religion. All officials of Japanese government, national, prefecture, and local were prohibited from allowing any public expenditures for Shinto shrines, shinto practices, or any shinto institutions--including grave sites of fallen soldiers. No Shinto thoughts (actually the word used was"doctrines"--but Shinto is not in a doctrinaire religion) could be taught, or referred to in textbooks. The directive actually used the phrase that all teacher manuals"will be CENSORED." (Great words for venerated heroes of the Liberal persuasion to have been using.) Schools could not take children on field trips to war cemeteries. The excoriating of Shinto deed being done, the directive then said that Japan would have free exercise of all religions and there would be a complete separation of church and state. (Note that any mention of the Atomic Bomb was also censured from the school and public media--rather strange given that the Truman mantra was that the bombs saved a million lives--so many of the saved being Japanese.)
The next document of note was written by the Emperor--the nation's religious leader--on January 1, 1946. Can there be any doubt but that it was written under military duress (wonder about the Geneva Convention on this one)?
The Emperor indicated that the idea that he was a"manifest god" was a"fictitious idea" and so was the notion that the Japanese people were a people superior to any other. The statement, although written in rather convoluted language, was taken to be an admission not only that the Emperor was not a god, per se, but that he was not descended from god.
The consequences of these two statements have been lasting. It is not just Shinto but it is ALL religion that has as a result been exorcised from playing a meaningful (as opposed to"playful") role in Japanese life. More of this in Part 3, but a terrible lingering thought has struck me and stuck with me ever since I first examined this history. (Or, being honest, this account of history.) Could there have been a dark side explanation why we would want to so"mess with" another country's religion? The war was OVER. They had LOST. They were not about to form an army and fight again. They--unlike many (you guess the number) Iraqis--had STOPPED FIGHTING. Jerry Falwell, try this one out: could American Christian forces have desired to"open up Japan" for a great conversion revival? Did they influence the Truman-Military directive? Was our directive for religious freedom (for non-Shinto) a"toe in the door" for Christian proselytizers. It wasn't really needed by Buddhists, as many Shinto were already Buddhists. The only discernable minority that had been subjected (over recent Japanese history) to religious (not national) discrimination were Christians. Maybe our armies wanted to turn the Christians loose on the Japanese. If they did---
Didn't work out.
The Christian community of Japan, which actually included some peace activists, was centered and concentrated in a southern port city where Dutch traders had set up operations in the seventeenth century. Nagasaki was the name of the city. We had destroyed the Christians in Japan too--August 9, 1945. The second"bomb" detonated directly above the city's Catholic hospital. The Japanese Christians were not about to embark on any door knocking campaigns.
Postscript
Nara is sort of becoming like the volcano at the Mirage in Las Vegas. When visitors come it is the first place I wish to take them. The Kosaka train station is only two blocks from the Osaka University of Commerce where I am staying, and Nara is but seven stops away on the Kintetsu line. The giant image of Buddha inside the largest wooden structure in the world is only thirty minutes away. The Buddhist Temple and an adjoining Shinto Shrine are on a very large expanse of park land in Nara. The entire park with the religious symbols is operated by a private company. The company subsists on entrance fees (1000 Yen) and sales of souvenir merchandise. The operation must be totally private. No tax money involved, no public employees performing maintenance or security duties. The park must be totally outside the hands of government because the United States military in December 1945 (a month to remember--more on that soon) mandated a complete separation of church and government in Japan. A separation that does the words of Thomas jefferson honor indeed. The puppet government of Japan wrote the separation mandate into its 1946 constitition where it remains.
I suspect that the most ardent secularists in the United States loudly applaud this arrangerment of matters. I have one bit of concern about those advocating such total separation. They also seem to be the crowd that tells us that the United States must recognize a greater sovereignty for the United Nations, that we must go to the UN for permission for our foreign intrigues, and that we must be more observant in paying all our dues to the UN on time--that is dues taken from taxpayers in the United States of America.
A postscript on my postscript: on my most recent visit to the Nara Buddhist-Shinto park I noticed a bronze plaque on a bench as I entered the south gate (the one with the statues of ummm and ahhh). The plaque proclaimed that the United Nations had recognized Nara park as an official world heritage site. Glad someone around here has religion. Mr. Jefferson you can turn over in your grave.