The impact of COVID-19 on religion in Japan

Abstract

On 3 June 2020, the Regional Planning Research Center at Taisho University, an institution of Buddhist higher learning in Tokyo, publicized results of a survey that canvassed temple priests across the country about their experience with Japan’s pandemic shutdown. Overall, Japan’s experience with COVID-19 appeared less dire than many had predicted would be the case in the pandemic’s early phases. In-person attendance at ceremonies is the social and economic lifeblood of Buddhist temples in Japan, as it is for Shinto shrines, Christian churches, and other religious organizations. Approval of certain ritual responses and public opprobrium for others sharpened divides between socially sanctioned Buddhist and Shinto traditions and so-called New Religions. Religious aid providers afford an alternative history of Japan’s experience with COVID-19, one told from the perspective of the country’s most precarious residents. COVID-19 has contributed directly to marginalizing Buddhist voices in the government and increasing opportunities for nationalists who promote a vision of a remilitarized Japan. © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Dorothea Lüddeckens, Philipp Hetmanczyk, Pamela E. Klassen, and Justin B. Stein;individual chapters, the contributors.