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First Decision on Presidency

The dispute over Jinja Honchō’s presidency continues. I am writing an update because the first court has issued its decision on the case launched by Revd Ashihara against Jinja Honchō asking the court to confirm that he was the president. (Click on the tag to get links to earlier posts, as there is a lot of background to this case. I will refer to the parties in this case as Revd Ashihara and Jinja Honchō because my understanding is that that is the legal situation — even though the dispute… Read More »First Decision on Presidency

Presidency in Court

Not wanting to be left behind by the USA, Jinja Honchō is currently in court to decide who the president is. The tags on this post should now link to all the immediately relevant posts, but I will start with a quick recap. At the last Oversight Council meeting in May, the chairman was re-elected, and a new board of directors was chosen. The new board of directors had a lot of overlap with the old one, despite the problems over the last court case. At the board meeting to… Read More »Presidency in Court

Preparing for the Oversight Council

The regular autumn meeting of Jinja Honchō’s Oversight Council is scheduled for October 13th, and it promises, once again, to be “lively”. On September 7th, the Board of Directors met to prepare for it, and the meeting was reported on the front page of the September 19th issue of Jinja Shinpō. A lot of boring but important business seems to have passed without issue. That is one of the most promising features of the current problems — no-one seems to be interested in disrupting the normal operation of Jinja Honchō… Read More »Preparing for the Oversight Council

Board Meeting & Kanagawa Resolution

The August 15th issue of Jinja Shinpō contained two things connected to the current controversy over the president of Jinja Honchō, but only one of them was technically an article. That article was on the front page, and reported on a meeting of the Board of Directors held on August 5th, which was attended by the chairman and both claimants to the presidency. This meeting appears to have been open to the press, or at least Jinja Shinpō, and nothing in the article can be interpreted as meaning “and then… Read More »Board Meeting & Kanagawa Resolution

Disputed Presidency

The 1st August issue of Jinja Shinpō carried a couple of articles about the dispute over the presidency of Jinja Honchō. The first reported some legal moves. It seems that Revd Ashihara, the director who was appointed president by the chairman, applied to the Tokyo Legal Affairs Office to record the change of president of Jinja Honchō from Revd Tanaka to himself. (This is a standard procedure, and my understanding is that it is necessary when certain officers of a religious corporation change.) He did this on March 6th. When… Read More »Disputed Presidency

Statements on the President

Another post about Shinto politics today, I’m afraid. The 11 July issue of Jinja Shinpō had a short article reporting the official statements on the current state of the elections for the leadership of Jinja Honchō. The Board of Directors held an emergency meeting on June 23rd, and on July 1st (the first day of the financial year for Jinja Honchō), they sent a statement about it to all the Prefectural Jinjachō. This said that four issues had been decided. First, by a majority vote, they had re-elected Revd Tanaka… Read More »Statements on the President