Word: shinto
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
State religion of Japan since the Meiji Restoration of 1868 has been Shintoism ("The Great Way of the Gods"), a native Japanese system of nature and ancestor worship. Shrine Shinto is worship of the Imperial ancestors. Since the invasion of Manchuria Japanese nationalists have emphasized its religio-patriotic importance...
...Japanese Government demanded that Christian schools and some individual Christians take part in shrine ceremonies. Officially the Government tried to pass this off as a form of politeness to departed heroes, like D. A. R.-ism in the U. S. But Japanese don't fool themselves: Shrine Shinto is a religious rite. The Government pressed Japanese Catholics and Protestants to join "patriotic" ceremonies at Shinto shrines, has been as insistent about it as Red-fearing U. S. school boards are about saluting the flag...
...Japanese soldier has on him a charm, worn in life to ward off death. Often a man draws about himself a magic circle (the round of his life is full; no escape) and puts a bullet in his head. Instead of cremating bodies to be returned home for proper Shinto burial, Army officers cut off heads, cremate them for home burial, and bury the bodies in China, or drop them in rivers or wells. All these things prey on the Japanese will to fight...
...stock picture of the Japanese soldier in China is a uniformed fanatic who is taught from birth that dying for his Emperor automatically gives him a ticket into the Shinto heaven. At home, his relatives are pictured as accepting with happy little Japanese smiles the news of his death at the front...
...number of Northern missionaries in Korea have sought to keep their schools open by bowing. The case for these Northerners, as reported in World Christianity by Missionary Horace Underwood. is that the ceremonies at Shinto shrines are no more religious than those in which floral offerings are placed in Lincoln Memorial or on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington. As Missionary Underwood described a Shinto ceremony, it involves "making a slight inclination of the head and body" when a command is given which means: "Respectful Salute!" Wrote he: "No genuflection or prostration is required." Furthermore, the Government permits...