ABSTRACT
This chapter presents Japanese religious groups as diverse as denominations of traditional Buddhism, Shint, Christianity, and new religious movements who jointly subscribe to the importance of 'living in harmony with others'. The relativization induced by other religious systems under globalizing conditions can elicit the repositioning of Japanese religions in various ways. Shint is a form of polytheism and is based on this conception of truth. Some ideological structures have come to exert a powerful influence upon the repositioning of Japanese religions in contemporary global society. At the doctrinal level, ideological structures may be observed that in Japanese Buddhism elements of cultural chauvinism tend to resonate with 'its universalistic sense of superiority'. An important link between modern manifestations of religious superiorism and contemporary perceptions of religion in Japan was offered by the work of the famed buddhologist Nakamura Hajime.
