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New Contract

I’ve just got back from Jinja Honchō, where I signed a one year consulting contract with them. I will be providing translations between English and Japanese, advising them on their English language publications, and interpreting at presentations and, possibly, on international trips.

I am not an employee of Jinja Honchō; I am a freelance consultant, albeit on a one-year contract. I am certainly not a Shinto priest.

When I am working on Jinja Honchō’s material, I will, of course, be doing my best to put Jinja Honchō’s official position into English as clearly and persuasively as possible. My posts on this website and my Patreon essays, however, reflect my own position and opinion, which are not exactly the same as those of Jinja Honchō; on some topics, I disagree quite strongly, although on many we are in good agreement. As a freelancer, I am not in a position to speak for Jinja Honchō, and nothing that I personally publish does so. I may well link to English publications from Jinja Honchō that I was involved with; those can be assumed to speak for Jinja Honchō, but not for me.

There are two reasons for making this public here, the two sides of the same fact. First, the fact that I have a contract with Jinja Honchō is evidence that I know what I am talking about, and that people in the Shinto community trust me to explain Shinto in English. Second, it could be thought to create a conflict of interest, in that Jinja Honchō is paying me for my services. Personally, I do not think that a bias towards the largest organisation of jinja in Japan is a bad thing in someone writing about jinja and Shinto, but as it is public, readers can make their own judgements.

This new situation will have no immediate effect on the blog posts or the Patreon essays, although in the future there may be material arising from the work that I do.

Update (28 July 2019): I have signed a new contract with Jinja Honchō for the next year, on just the same terms as last year, so all the above is still true, and will remain true until at least the end of June 2020.

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