Yasukuni fundamentalism : Japanese religions and the politics of restoration

"Although religious fundamentalism is often thought to be confined to monotheistic 'religions of the book,' this study examines the emergence of a fundamentalism rooted in the Shinto tradition and considers its role in shaping postwar Japanese nationalism and politics. Over the past half-century, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the National Association of Shrines (NAS) have been engaged in collaborative efforts to "recover" or "restore" what was destroyed by the process of imperialist secularization during the Allied Occupation of Japan. Since the disaster years of 1995 and 2011, LDP Diet members and prime ministers have increased their support for a political agenda that aims to revive patriotic education, renationalize Yasukuni Shrine, and revise the constitution. The contested nature of this agenda is evident in the critical responses of religious leaders and public intellectuals, and in their efforts to preserve the postwar gains in democratic institutions and prevent the erosion of individual rights. This timely treatment critically engages the contemporary debates surrounding secularization in light of postwar developments in Japanese religions and sheds new light on the role religion continues to play in the public sphere"-- Publisher's website "Recent decades have seen a rise in religious nationalism and fundamentalism around the world. This book focuses attention on a Japanese expression of fundamentalism and neonationalism based on Shinto and symbolically centered on Yasukuni Shrine. The Shinto tradition is often seen as a very tolerant expression of religion that allows for diverse forms of belief and practice, but when closely tied to the interests of the state or political power it can be used to legitimize coercion in public life and institutions. This became particularly apparent in wartime Japan and has reappeared in the postwar period in what has been identified as expression of "Yasukuni fundamentalism," a movement that seeks to revive and restore the social order and values expressed in the Emperor-centered form of Shinto that existed before the end of the Second World War. Yasukuni fundamentalists not only want to recover and revitalize the tradition disestablished by the Allied Occupation of Japan, but also seek to impose it on the larger public through the re-nationalization of Yasukuni Shrine, revision of the postwar Constitution, and reform of the public school system. This book examines the growth of this neonationalist movement in post-disaster Japan, the social conflict generated by their political agenda, and the various forms of opposition by religious leaders and groups, as well as public intellectuals, to the reappearance of coercion the public sphere"-- Provided by publisher