Ed. Note: This article is part of our "Various Views of Jesus"
About 80 million people, mostly in Japan, practice Shintoism. The word Shinto, which comes from the Chinese word Shen-tao, means “the way of the gods.” Shintoism is characterized by its emphasis on purity, and a great many of its practices are focused on purification rituals. One website reveals, “The two fundamental Shinto doctrines are that Japan is the country of the gods, and her people are the descendants of gods. This concept of the divine descent of the Japanese people, as well as the divine origin of the land, has given rise to a conviction of superiority over other countries and peoples.”[1] Little wonder Shintoism has not “caught on” in any other country.
Unlike Christianity, Shinto is a polytheistic religion, venerating spirits and deities (kami) that inhabit various natural objects and places. In addition, Shintoism does not emphasize the afterlife or salvation. Rather, the focus is on maintaining harmony with nature and spiritual balance in the present life.
Because Shintoism teaches that people were “given life” by kami, they are considered sacred by nature. There is no idea of “original sin,” and in fact people are primarily divine by nature. Therefore, of course, there is no concept of a need for salvation.
There are several areas where Shinto is incompatible with biblical Christianity. First, the idea that Japan and the Japanese people are especially favored by God stands in vivid contrast to God’s declaration in the Bible that the Jews are His chosen people (Deuteronomy 7:6).
Second, Shinto’s belief in multiple deities flies in the face of God’s declaration that He alone is God: “I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God” (Isaiah 45:5; cf. Deuteronomy 6:4; Psalm 86:10; Isaiah 43:10-11). Beyond that, the Shinto idea that “Kami must be responsible to the people who surround them. Just like people have to do things to keep the Kami happy, the Kami must, in turn, perform the specific function of the place, object, or idea they inhabit,”[2] is in direct contrast to the biblical description of God’s relationship to the world and those who inhabit it. For example,
We read at gotquestions.org,
“The Bible also teaches that God is not an impersonal force but a loving and caring Father to those who fear Him (2 Corinthians 6:17–18). He alone created the universe, and He alone reigns sovereignly over it. The idea of gods that inhabit rocks, trees, and animals combines two different falsehoods: polytheism (the belief in many gods) and animism (the belief that gods are present in objects). These are lies from the father of lies, Satan, who “walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8).”[3]
Gotquestions.org goes on to say that
“…the teachings of the basic goodness and divine origin of the Japanese people preclude their need for a Savior. This is the natural consequence of assuming one’s race is of divine origin. The Bible states unequivocally that ‘all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God’ (Romans 3:23), that we all need a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, and that there is ‘no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved’ (Acts 4:12).”
In short, Shintoism has no room for Jesus. They see no need to pursue a God who died on the cross to provide salvation for them. They do not understand the love of God that compelled Him to give “his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
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