著者

Lande Aasulv

出版者

Doshisha University Center for Interdisciplinary Study of Monotheistic Religions (CISMOR)

雑誌

Journal of the interdisciplinary study of monotheistic religions : JISMOR (ISSN:18801080)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.4, pp.1-10, 2008-02-29

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The early Japanese Christian leader, Uchimura Kanzo, experienced Shinto a century ago as disturbingly polytheistic. There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of his experience and thought. But in my view, there already existed in his time a monotheist Shinto. It later changed character, but I argue that Shinto is still an inclusive, narrow monotheist religious cult. In modern Shinto, divine power includes some and suppresses other cosmic powers. An Emperor-centered monotheism with a universal scope emerged during early modernity. Shinto retained its inclusive monotheism after the Shinto Directive of 1945, but the privatization of emperor veneration has reduced Shinto to a norm for the Japanese people, even if a potential universality is still expressed. Postmodern Shinto dresses its universality in individual and varied coats, transcending the boundaries of Japanese nationality. New Shinto is in my view not polytheistic. However, its inclusive, monotheist universalism is transformed onto a purely spiritual and individualized level.