A few weeks ago, a reader left a comment noting that I was optimistic about the future of Shinto. This is true, and there are reasons for that, despite all the problems at Jinja Honchō, the shortage of priests, and the declining population of Japan.
I should be clear that I do not think that every jinja in Japan will survive into the future. Indeed, I know they will not. Some have already been merged, and there was an article in Jinja Shinpō a few years ago about a group of priests who headed up into the mountains to try to find a legally inactive jinja — and failed. Now, while a missing jinja would be a good plot element in an urban fantasy story, in the real world it is conclusive evidence that the jinja has failed.
However, I am confident that a lot of jinja will survive, and prosper, and thus that the tradition of Jinja Shinto itself will continue.
There are two reasons for this.
The first is that Shinto practices are still an important part of the lives of a majority of Japanese people. I was volunteering at Asakusa Jinja again on July 7th this year, and because it was the 7th day of the 7th month of the 7th year of Reiwa, there was a long queue of people who wanted their 7-7-7 goshuin. I was talking to the chief priest about it, and while people queued for hours on that day, apparently people waited eight hours for a goshuin on the first day of the Reiwa era — and he later heard about even longer queues elsewhere. Visiting a jinja at New Year is still an absolutely normal thing to do, and most children have at least one Shichi-go-san.
One way to put this is the following. If you are a priest at a neglected jinja, you do not have to convince people to visit jinja — you just have to convince them to visit your jinja. That’s a much easier task.
And that leads to the second reason. There are 20,000 Shinto priests, most of them deeply committed to their own jinja, and there is no central authority with any ability to stop them trying anything legal to preserve it. (No, Jinja Honchō is not such an authority. Some priests seem to think it is, but legally it doesn’t have the power, and, at least in my experience, temperamentally it doesn’t want to interfere.) Each of these priests is going to try to come up with ideas that will make their jinja viable into the future, and an integral part of the local community. Between them, they will try a lot of different approaches.
Will they all succeed? No, of course not.
Will all 20,000 fail? No.
What is more, priests do talk and share ideas, which means that effective new tools (like goshuin) will spread among jinja. That will keep even more jinja alive.
This does not mean that I can be complacent, because the work I do for Jinja Honchō is part of the process of trying to find effective ways forward. My optimism relies on priests being proactive and forward-thinking, and willing to try something new.
But with 20,000 priests, some, even many, will do that, and the Japanese people are still receptive.
Shinto clearly has a bright future.
Well said.