Shinto After Bunce

With Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess, with bearded Jimmu Tenno (Emperor of Divine Valor), with the 14,000 kami (gods) of wind and mountain and sea, Lieut. William K. Bunce, U.S.N.R., wrestled for three months. Then the tall, slight, 38-year-old former dean of Otterbein College (Westerville, Ohio), for three years a teacher in Japan, produced a directive reshaping the relationship of 77,000,000 Japanese to the Shinto faith. Last week, with not even a penciled change by Allied headquarters, Shinto according to Bunce was promulgated in Tokyo.

The Bunce directive skirted dangerously close to violating religious liberty. But it had long been agreed among most students of Japan that Shinto in its modern form was a tool and a disguise for militarism.

Under the directive, State Shinto -- part religion, part patriotic ritual -- was to be stripped of public support and of its "ultra-nationalistic and militaristic" trappings. Henceforth the bare remnants could exist as part of sectarian Shinto, an un-privileged equal among other faiths, sup ported only by voluntary offerings.

No public funds could be used to sup port Shinto shrines or priests. The Emperor could no longer report on public matters to his ancestors in official visits to the shrines. But he and other officials could worship as private individuals. Shinto doctrine would "be deleted from text books.

"Militaristic and ultranationalistic ideology" must not be promoted or encouraged in connection with Shinto or any other creed. These doctrines are specifically banned: that the Emperor is superior to other rulers because he descends from the sun; that the Japanese people are superior to other peoples, or the Japanese islands superior to other lands, because Amaterasu so willed.

This was more than formal separation of Church and State. It was the first official U.S. attempt to draw the fine line between genuinely religious doctrine and social propaganda. Advocates of the Bunce directive pointed out that modern Shintoism has shallow roots, and that many--perhaps most--Japanese would welcome its modification. There remained, however, the danger that at some future date revived Japanese nationalism would rally round the "persecuted" Shinto faith.

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