Missionary Trans-Border Religions and Defensive Civil Society in Contemporary Japan: Toward a Comparative Institutional Approach to Religious Pluralism

Abstract

This chapter examines how the transnational religions brought by immigrants and missionaries diversified hegemonic religious order in Japan from the institutional perspective of religious and social history. Several important conclusions can be derived.

First, religious diversity has been the original characteristics of Japanese religiosity since the ancient times. From eighth to nineteenth century plural religious cultures were syncretized to form Japanese Buddhist denominations, Shugen-do, and popular religions.

Second, the control of religion by secular authority relies on historical and social institutions. The Tokugawa dynasty prohibited Christian missionary due to the fear of western colonization and thereby rigorously ordered every lords’ serfs to be parishioners of Buddhist denominations. Religious control by authority continued to the end of World War II, until that time the government forced its people to bow in front of Shinto shrines. After the war, the US and new government imposed religious freedom and the policy of religio-politico separation on Japan.

Third, since the 1980s new comers’ religions have been active and they were divided into two types, ethnic churches and missionary religions, both of which had to develop their mission strategies and organizational management under the conditions of pluralism and very loose control from administration and general public.