Religion and the State in Japan

Abstract

On 15 August 1985, a national controversy of thirty year's standing concerning the question of religion and the state in Japan reached its peak; on that day Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone performed the first postwar official act of worship at the Yasukuni (Shinto) Shrine, where the Japanese war dead are enshrined. The date, 15 August 1945, marks the termination of the Pacific War. For Japan, the date is symbolic of release from fear and oppression and an earnest desire for peace. Also, the date serves as the memorial day for the war dead. Almost all of the war dead were enshrined in the Yasukuni-jinja (Shrine) as fallen heroes fighting for the emperor and the empire. It might appear natural, therefore, for prime ministers to visit the Yasukuni Shrine on that day. However, if they do so officially their visits constitute a religious act, which is prohibited by the Constitution of Japan. If the visit is made on the memorial day it may well suggest a possible union of religion and the state—the rebirth of State Shinto and militarism—since the Yasukuni Shrine is a Shinto shrine that once played a leading role in glorifying fallen soldiers and whipping up war sentiment of the people for the purpose of expansionistic military activities as a constituent of the State Shinto regime. From the year of Japan's independence in 1952 to 1984, successive prime ministers from time to time visited the Yasukuni Shrine as private individuals or without official declaration of the nature of the act. In 1975, 1978, and 1980-1984, they visited the Yasukuni Shrine on 15 August, but did so as private individuals. On 15 August 1985, for the first time after the war, Prime Minister Nakasone and cabinet members performed the act declaring that they did so as public officials. They also paid ¥30,000 from public funds for a floral offering. This meant an apparent change of the government's view, as published in 1978 and 1980, that the constitutionality of official worship at the Shrine can still be doubted. In the latter half of the 1950s, the Japan Association for the