Word: shinto
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...name alone evokes modernity: dials, lights and numbers. The ancient civilization, with its Shinto priests and fragile poems, is more closely associated with all that is new in our times than any place on earth. Even the New World, now graying at the temples, regularly peers east to assess the future, to note where today's advances are going for finishing touches. For its part, the zealous student-nation, famous for raiding others' inspirations, has all but run out of models. The model is itself. Looking outward, Japan sees what it has become since Hiroshima: a source...
Night has come to Ise, 80 miles east of Osaka and the site of the holiest Japanese Shinto shrines. The chilly (33°F), placid waters of the Isuzu River can be seen clearly in the moonlight by the 80 or so people on the bank who await the command of their instructor. He barks angrily, and they wade into the stream, chanting, shouting and grunting in unison, praying for spiritual renewal and purification. Then they run quietly through the streets of the village, dressed only in loincloths, their heads banded in white cloth on which the characters for "love...
...typical programmed celebration was the recent wedding of Koji Takahashi, 26, an architect, to Kazuko Hasegawa, 23, at Meiji Memorial Hall, Tokyo's most prestigious marriage parlor. After the simple Shinto ceremony, capped by a sip of ritual sake, the groom, in cutaway coat and silk tie, and the bride, in a dazzling kimono, sat down with their 125 guests to consume a banquet, including lobster salad and ice cream. The master of ceremonies introduced important people from the couple's life-parents, teachers, bosses and friends. The guests offered presents. The current favored gift in Japan...
...neighboring islands, who were among the first to suffer, early on developed a way to preserve elements of their faith. Adopting a complex sham, they worshiped publicly at Buddhist temples, then slipped away at night to hold secret Christian prayer meetings. At home, they prayed overtly before Buddhist and Shinto altars, but their real altar became the nan do garni (closet god), innocuous-looking bundles of cloth in which revered Christian statues and medallions were hidden. For 2½ centuries, their fierce faith endured, but it inevitably also turned inward. Because their prayers and rituals had to be transmitted secretly...
...most controversial event of the three-day visit was a 45-minute meeting with Emperor Hirohito, 79. Rabid right-wingers, distressed that Hirohito, a former Shinto god, would deign to meet with a Vicar of Christ, rode about town waving a sign proclaiming POPE IS A BEAST. Some of Japan's 700,000 Protestants protested the meeting as well. The Pope's visit, they felt, would en courage a resurgent movement to elevate Shintoism to status as a national religion. About 70 others, including left-wingers, four Japanese Catholic clergy men and some Buddhist priests, accused John Paul...