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State Shinto

1868-1945 · Japan (Japan)

From 1868 to 1945 the Japanese state built the shrines into an apparatus of loyalty. Shrines were ranked, funded, and inspected by the state; schoolchildren bowed toward the imperial palace and the portrait of the emperor; the great shrines taught reverence for the imperial line descended from Amaterasu as a civic duty above religion, binding subjects of every faith. Historians call the system State Shinto: not a church but a machinery of sacred patriotism, with the shrines as its local organs in every village and city.

Tagged: Shinto State Shinto

The Event

Date
1868-1945 (exact)
Era
Meiji and State Shinto; Standard periodization of Shinto history
Location
Japan; today Japan
Traditions
Shinto
Streams
State Shinto

How the Tradition Tells It

Scholars dispute the term itself: some hold that State Shinto names a real system of state ritual distinct from religion, others that shrine practice, imperial rites, and civic schooling were never one thing. The entry uses the term as the period's own machinery is usually described, while the dispute about its unity stands.

Connections

Illustration for Shinbutsu bunri History Event Shinbutsu bunri 1868 follows from

Primary Sources

  • The records of the Bureau of Shrines.

Secondary Sources

  • Hardacre, Helen. Shinto: A History. Oxford University Press, 2017.
  • Breen, John, and Mark Teeuwen. A New History of Shinto. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.

Provenance: HIST-0911; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-28.

Related on This Site

Illustration for Meiji Constitution History Event Meiji Constitution 1889 Illustration for Shinbutsu bunri History Event Shinbutsu bunri 1868 Illustration for Shinto Directive History Event Shinto Directive 1945 Illustration for Shrine registration system History Event Shrine registration system 1871 A text in Classical Japanese Language Classical Japanese The classical written language of Japan, in which the norito prayers and the early chronicles are composed. A gohei, the paper streamer wand used in reciting norito Prayer or Creed Norito Formal ritual prayers in classical Japanese, recited by priests to the kami at shrine festivals and rites. Two hyperboloid cooling towers venting steam at a nuclear power plant. Technology Nuclear power The reactor judged apart from the bomb: prudence, waste, and descendants on one side of the ledger, decarbonization arithmetic on the other; and no magisterium with a binding word. Visitors passing under the great wooden torii at the entrance to Ise Grand Shrine. Tradition & Science Shinto A tradition without a creed for science to contradict: kami in the landscape, a shrine rebuilt on schedule for thirteen centuries as a living school of craft, and modern flashpoints in nuclear pollution and the definition of death.