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Long-Distance Relationship

Revd Tagawa’s series of columns about her career as a priest continued in the 15th September issue of Jinja Shinpō. In her previous column, she talked about the success of a crowdfunding campaign, and as a result of that people had started to visit the jinja from outside Saga Prefecture. She had just started to work on expanding the range of omamori and such when the pandemic hit. The precincts were quickly empty again, and Revd Tagawa wondered whether the jinja would go back to the way it was. At… Read More »Long-Distance Relationship

Depopulation Survey

On August 8th, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism published a survey on depopulation, and Jinja Shinpō published an article about it in the 1st September issue. (Yes, I have got a bit behind.) While this is not directly about Shinto, it is of great interest to many priests, as this is the most pressing threat to the survival of jinja across Japan. Put briefly, it is very hard for a jinja to survive if no-one lives nearby. The survey was about “shūraku” (集落), which is a term… Read More »Depopulation Survey

Filming at a Jinja

On Monday, I spent most of the day at a jinja that shall remain nameless, assisting at the filming of two videos for Jinja Honchō. During the morning, we were filming for an “image video” aimed at non-Japanese, and in the early afternoon we were filming for this year’s hatsumōdë promotion video (which, of course, is promoting next year’s hatsumōdë). The plan is for both of these to go up on Jinja Honchō’s YouTube channel, and so unless something goes horribly wrong I will write about the content then. I… Read More »Filming at a Jinja

Etiquette Poster

The 29th September issue of Jinja Shinpō carried a second article connected to me, this one about one of the projects I have worked on at Jinja Honchō. This is a poster explaining basic manners for visiting a jinja. With the massive increase in foreign tourists in Japan, this has become a bit of a problem. The events that get a lot of publicity are things like influencers doing chin-ups on torii, but the things that become a real issue are more subtle. I mean, most reasonable people realise that… Read More »Etiquette Poster

Against Xenophobia

The September 29th issue of Jinja Shinpō includes an article by me. It was written in response to the Japanese Upper House elections in July, in which Sanseitō (“Democratic Participation Party”, literally) took fourteen seats, adding to one that they already held. (The Upper House elections are for half of the seats every three years.) This is a problem because their slogan was “Japanese People First” — and I really don’t think they mean me. On the one hand, fourteen seats is only about 10%, so they are not going… Read More »Against Xenophobia

A Patriarch, a President, and a Rabbi

A week or so ago I was in Kazakhstan again with Jinja Honchō for the eighth Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions. This year the Pope wasn’t there, but we did have a cardinal, the two Chief Rabbis of Israel, the Patriarchs of Moscow and Jerusalem, and numerous representatives of the Islamic world, from Iran to Indonesia. There were also representatives of Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and us, for Shinto. In total, there were 101 delegations, and the event was chaired by the President of Kazakhstan. Jinja Honchō has… Read More »A Patriarch, a President, and a Rabbi