The invention of “religion” as a category in Japan coincided with the rapid modernization during the second half of the 19th century, which saw the country transform from an isolated feudal state into an imperial nation-state. Through the Meiji Restoration of 1868, whereby the samurai leadership of the former state was replaced by a civilian government dominated by the wealthy merchant class, the emperor was granted the position as the nation’s supreme political and spiritual leader. According to the mytho-historical narrative of the nation, Japanese emperors ruled by virtue of their status as descendants of the sun goddess Amaterasu Ōmikami, through an unbroken line stretching back to the first emperor, Jimmu. When Japan enacted its first modern constitution in 1890 (the “Meiji Constitution”), this narrative was reflected in the legal text through the preamble, which made clear that the document was a gift from the emperor to his imperial subjects. The constitution established that as the sovereign of the nation, the emperor was “sacred and inviolable,” and through his office he was granted supreme command over the nation’s military and naval forces. Thus, although the reinvented Japanese nation-state of the Meiji period (1868-1912) was established as a bicameral parliamentary democracy, supreme leadership rested with the divinely sanctioned emperor.
Despite the imperial institution’s preeminent role in the nascent nation-state, Japan under the Meiji constitutional system was a secular state. The constitution of 1890 established a distinct sphere of social life designated for religion, and the state was formally separated from this sphere. The new constitution of 1947, introduced during the occupation of Japan after World War II, did not signal a move from “state religion” to “secularism,” so much as it indicated a change in how religion was understood as a legal and social category in Japan. Both constitutional systems contained provisions for distinguishing between the two distinct spheres of “religion” and “not-religion,” with the key difference being how the boundaries of these spheres were understood. This chapter explores how religion has been framed under Japan’s two modern constitutional regimes. The discussion focuses on the central question of whether Shinto is a public expression of nationhood or a private belief of individual citizens; a question widely debated in Meiji era society and of continuing relevance to this day. I use the case of Yasukuni Shrine to illustrate how this question has manifested under both regimes, as well as to show why the definition of religion continues to be a topic of significant political importance in contemporary Japan.