ABSTRACT
The idea that Shinto shrines are ‘non-religious’ was a principle integral to religious administration under the Meiji constitution of 1889. It is frequently maintained that this principle was adopted by the Meiji government in order to dissolve the obvious contradiction between the Meiji constitution’s provision for religious freedom on the one hand, and the reality, on the other, that the state was in fact according to shrines the privileged status of a state religion and enforcing public worship at them. Miyazawa typifies this approach when he writes:
Shrines were in receipt of a quite different treatment from the state – that of a state religion no less – when compared to other creeds. If [the government] were to regard shrines as religious, in the way that, say, Buddhism and Christianity were so regarded, then it would be in breach of the Meiji constitution’s provision for religious freedom. So, shrines were not dealt with as ‘religious’. They existed uniquely for the purposes of rituals for ancestors, not at all what was meant by religion under the Meiji constitution. As a consequence, it became possible to regard the according of special treatment to shrines, the acknowledgement of their public status, and enforcement of nation-wide worship at shrines as [lying] beyond the bounds of the constitution’s guarantee of religious freedom. Herein consisted the essence of the [Meiji] principle that shrines are non-religious. [Meiji bureaucrats] believed it possible to argue there was not the slightest contradiction between providing for religious freedom in the constitution on the one hand, and granting state protection to shrines and forcing people to worship at them on the other. 1
