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The Secularization of Religion in the City

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The Secularization of Religion in the City Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 1986:13/2-3 The Secularization of Religion in the City Ishii Kenji Religion is an area of life extremely hard to rationalize. Since religious institutions are communitarian by nature, rationalization cannot easily be adopted and specialization tends to be delayed. Moreover, conceptual models of society have shifted from the moral order to the technical order (see Wilson 1976). If we use the term secularization to refer to this process whereby the domain of religion as a supernatural order gradually shrinks along with structural differentiation in the social system as a whole, in a society which has attained a high degree of industrialization religion becomes a private affair, driven out from the center of society and answering only to the needs of the individual. If society indeed only consists in mutual actions of anonymous role- players who have become depersonalized by the rationalization process，can religion still have a positive relation to society? This is the theme I would like to deal with in this essay. If, as Thomas Luckmann claims，secularization is the result of a unique historical combination of cultural, religious, and socio-structural conditions (1976，p.ll), then combination patterns different from that of Western society are possible. Yanagawa and Abe have argued that one key for solving the problem of the integration of Japanese society is to be found in ancestor worship. Their point of departure is “the assumption that the integration function that the ‘church’ exercised in Western societies has never been performed either by ‘institutional’ or ‘organizational’ religions in Japan” (1978，p.12). I would like to tackle this problem by focusing upon the city as an exponent of rationalization. The city I take here as the epitome in present-day society of highly-advanced industrialization, characterized by thorough rationalization and efficiency. As a concrete area of research I have chosen the Ginza district in Tokyo, which can be considered representative of contemporary Japanese society as a whole. Moreover, I have put the emphasis more on obtaining a general grasp of the Ginza district than on a detailed description of research data about individual religious facilities. 194 Japanese Journal o f Religious Studies 13/2-3 General Overview of Religion in the Ginza District The Ginza in Tokyo is a small district which covers not even one square kilometer. Formerly it was surrounded by rivers on all four sides. But these rivers have been filled in and nowadays highways form the border between the Ginza and the adjacent districts. It is divided neatly by Ginza Street into East and West Ginza, each with eight blocks. The western end of the Ginza Street continues from Kyobashi to Yaesu and further up to Nihonbashi, while the eastern side is connected to Shinbashi. At its center runs also Harumi Street which intersects Ginza Street and leads to Yurakucho in the north and to Tsukiji in the south. The Ginza is famous both as a high quality shopping district and as an entertainment quarter. Being close to the Central Government offices and the Diet, it is also an information center, housing several newspaper offices and news agencies. The Ginza evokes many different images. During the Meiji era it was known as the symbol of civilization and enlightenment, then of Taisho romanticism, and still later as the functional center of the rapid, postwar urban economy. In one way or another it has held a central place in Japanese society for many years. This does not mean, however, that the Ginza has a long, uninterrupted tradition. In the 380 years of its existence the Ginza has been devastated on four occasions. Each time its features were totally changed and it was cut off from its immediate historical background. As our investigation revealed, there are at present not less than thirty-six religious facilities in the district, of which the majority are Inari shrines dedicated to the Fox Deity (see Table 1).Only four are religious institutions in the strict sense with a legal identity and which actively propagate their teachings: the Ginza Church of Konkokyo, Ginza (Christian) Church, the Hachikan Shrine, and the Hoju Inari Shrine. The Asahi Inari is a subordinate shrine of the Hie Shrine elsewhere in Tokyo. Religion and Change In the Ginza Disttict The bulk of Chuo ward, in which the Ginza is located, was built as part of his castle town when Tokugawa Ieyasu established the Edo Shogunate. The name Ginza (“silver mint”）comes from the fact that the Shogunate founded a foundry for silver coinage there. The Ginza district was then established, constructed, and administered from above. It was an artificial district given its specific city functions from its very beginning. It was completely reduced I s h i i： Secularization of Religion in the City 195 to ashes in the Meireki Conflagration of 1657，the greatest fire ever in Edo. Thenceforth it became a town of artisans. Edo, developing as a castle town of the Shogunate, was endowed with numerous temples and shrines, as can be seen in old maps. An old saying recounts that the things found most frequently in Edo were “firemen and dog droppings in the Inari Shrine of Iseya，” suggesting that similar shrines were to be found in every neighborhood. Another fire turned the Ginza into a model zone for the modernization policies of the Meiji Government. In 1869 (Meiji 2), the first year the name Ginza was officially recognized, a fire consumed the area presently extend­ ing from 4-chome to 8-chome. Three years later in 1872 the greater part of the Ginza was again burned to the ground. These two disasters prompted a metamorphosis in the district. The day after the 1872 fire, Yuri Kimimasa，governor of Tokyo at the time, proposed to his cabinet the construction of a fireproof city. Anxious to establish a society modeled on the West, the government decided to recon­ struct the Ginza. As the opening of Japan’s first railroad from Yokohama to Shinbashi was planned for the same year, it was decided to build brick houses in the Ginza so it could serve as the front door to the capital. The streets were widened, the few remaining houses torn down, and the section completely renovated. Since no records remain, we do not know what became of the Inari shrines, the Jizo temples, and other places of worship which predated the Meiji fires and the reconstruction effort. Many of the present religious facilities trace their origin to the Edo period, and some can be dated precisely. The Hoju Inari Shrine reportedly dates from 1706 (Hoei 3) and the Horiki Inari and Eikyu Inari Shrines originated in the Tempo Era (1830-1843). The dates for the Hodo, Shirazasa，Yasuhira，and Toyoiwa Inari Shrines or the Suehiro and Konparu Inari Shrines are unclear, but oral tradition tells us that they were centers of faith during the Tokugawa period. Thus the Ginza was forcibly turned into a modern city by the government policy. Yet, even in their new brick Western houses, the people continued to practice their traditional religions. For example, it is reported that an image of Shusse-Jizoson of Ginza 4-chome found in a filled-in moat in early Meiji became an instant object of worship and that the Ginza Inari of 2-chome was set up on the tragic occasion when several people died in the collapse of a storehouse at the Harukiya store in 1910. In later times when the Ginza was again destroyed by the Great Earthquake of 1923 and the Great Tokyo Air Raid of 1945，it was quickly rebuilt with its religious facilities. At present no records can be found as to how these religious facilities 196 Japanese Journal o f Religious Studies 13/2—3 changed under the Meiji modernization policies. We can, however，investi­ gate the social and religious changes that occurred by examining the example of the Ginza Shusse-Jizoson which continued to be an object of worship from early Meiji throughout the Meiji and Taisho periods. Ginza Shusse-Jiz5son On the roof of the Mitsukoshi Department Store in 4-chome an image of Jizo is worshiped. As mentioned above, this image was discovered in the earth when the Sanjukken canal was excavated in the early years of Meiji. The name Shusse (“appearing in the world”）was given to the image precisely because it appeared in the world out of the earth. The construction workers set it up in a vacant plot which is now Ginza 4-chome 3，where it immediately drew crowds of worshipers. Later a wooden temple was built to enshrine the image. It is clear then that religious facilities found a place even while the Ginza was being reborn as the symbol par excellence of the new modernization with its brick buildings after the 1872 fire. Such facilities seem to have a compelling power, for once they appear and become places of worship, it is difficult to move them. Indeed, moving them could invite disaster. Throughout the Meiji and Taisho periods, the seventh, eighteenth, and twenty-ninth days of each month were festival days on which street stalls were set up. On April eighth, the birthday of Buddha, it is reported that sweet tea was served. In the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923，the wooden building was destroyed by fire and thereafter the setting up of festival stalls was forbidden. A small temple was rebuilt, but it also was destroyed in the Tokyo Air Raid on May 25，1945. After the war the stone image was recovered from the debris of the temple by Hosaka Koji, the former president of the Ginza Federation, and enshrined in the courtyard of his house.
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