Religion and the Japanese Constitution

Abstract

This paper examines provisions regarding religion in the 1947 Constitution of Japan, showing how they differ from the Meiji constitution of 1889. It examines policies on religion established by the Allied Occupation of Japan (1945-1952), especially relating to Shinto, their implementation, and their relation to the 1947 constitution. The paper documents the process through which Occupation officials drafted entirely new articles on religion, displacing a Japanese government commission that was working to revise the Meiji constitution. The paper shows that while in post-Occupation discussions of constitutional revision, issues concerning religion have not been controversial, recent proposals for a revised constitution would introduce significant changes. Introduction The present Constitution of Japan (Nihon koku kenpō) was drafted under military occupation in 1946 and promulgated in 1947; I will refer to this document as ‘the postwar constitution’. The document is formally regarded as a revised version of the 1889 Constitution of the Empire of Japan (Dai Nihon Teikoku Kenpō, hereinafter, ‘the Meiji constitution’, so called because it was issued during the Meiji period, 1868-1912). In fact, however, the content and orientation of the two constitutions are so different that for all