Is Japan a Secular Country?

[Quetzal]

I just saw an American Evangilical show in Japanese on my local Asian-themed station. The hosts were Japanese too.

[strategery blunder]

1. Not really

Shinto, Zen Buddhism, and Pure Land Buddhism all attract a lot of followers in Japan, I believe.

(Shinto is the "traditional" Japanese religion.)

There is also quite a bit of Christian missionary activity in that corner of the world, but Christianity is hardly widespread there.

I have never lived in Japan, nor am I a religious scholar, just my .02.

[gottaB]

2. Not in theory, or in common understanding

This is a great essay that gets at people's attitudes about religion in Japan:

http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/discussionpapers/Fitzgerald.html


Legally, Japan is a secular democracy. From their constitution:

Article 20, Freedom of Religion, Secularity of the State

1. Freedom of religion is guaranteed to all.
   
2. No religious organization shall receive any privileges from the State, nor exercise any political authority.
   
3. No person shall be compelled to take part in any religious act, celebration, rite or practice.
   
4. The State and its organs shall refrain from religious education or any other religious activity.
   

http://www.oefre.unibe.ch/law/icl/ja00t___.html

I hope that's accurate. I just googled it.

[BR_Parkway]

5. No special tax breaks?

"No religious organization shall receive any privileges from the State, nor exercise any political authority."

No registration drives to get the party more voters?

"No person shall be compelled to take part in any religious act, celebration, rite or practice."

Marriage is only a civil union?

[gottaB]

7. I meant not *religious* in theory....

oops

[necso]

3. Yes.

"Religious" figures and beliefs do not have a significant impact on political life.

This is my definition of a secular country, state support of historical "religious" artifacts being largely irrelevant in this case. Shinto is in no small part reverence for the natural environment... with such "religion" we should all be cursed. Buddhism is similarly a respect for life.

"Christianity" has very small penetration in Japan.

Of course I would be delighted to hear arguments to the contrary... I live to learn.

[psychopomp]

4. "Secular Country": separation btw church and state?

If that is the question, then yes, there is legal separation between church and state.

Privately, religion and ritual are a part of most people's lives. There is an old saying, that the Japanese are "Shinto at birth, Christian when they get married and Buddhist at death."

PM Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni shrine in a "private capacity" while signing the guest book as "Junichiro Koizumi, Prime Minister" would seem to call into question the present condition of the influence of religious beliefs on affairs of state.

[necso]

6. The Yasukuni shrine

is a memorial to Japanese War dead. While this does include certain war criminals and has lingering elements of a "divine" Emperor, paying respect to those who have fallen in the name of "national" interests is not foreign to any state.

Shinto and to a lessor extent Buddhism has widespread expression in Japanese peoples' lives. I know however of no such phenomenon in Japan as the significant influence of a "religious" party on the body politic such as we are suffering in the US, in Israel, in India, in most Muslim states or elsewhere.

The Japanese have been largely resistant to "Christianity" since its introduction. While in the past this has been reinforced by state policy, it is largely a matter of culture... more power to them.

[psychopomp]

8. Have you been there?

If you have, and you have seen the war museum next to it on the shrine grounds, you may rethink your position. It is not an ordinary shrine to war dead.

You are wrong about the influence of religion on the LDP; see former PM Mori for details.

[psychopomp]

9. On Christianity

It has survived in Japan since it was introduced some four hundred years ago, though the Christians were mercilessly persecuted under the Tokugawa shogunate. Many were crucified and the rest were forced underground, where they continued practicing their beliefs in secret. This went on primarily in Kyushu as the port in Nagasaki was the only place where the Europeans could establish themselves, by writ of the shogun.

After the Meiji Restoration Christians could come out into the open.

Today, their numbers are small relative to other industrialized countries, however they are steadfast in their beliefs.