One of the readers of my blog asked a very good question in the comments a couple of weeks ago. The Tennō is deeply involved in the process of the Shikinen Sengū at Isë Jingū. That is clearly a religious event. However, the Constitution of Japan prohibits the state from conducting religious activities, and the Tennō is the head of state. So how does that work, then?
This is an issue that gets raised within Japan occasionally, as well, and it is a little complicated. The first complication is that it is not actually clear that the Tennō is the head of state. Article One of the Japanese constitution says, in the original English, “The Emperor shall be the symbol of the State and the unity of the people, deriving his position from the will of the people with whom resides sovereign power”. (Yes, the original English. The Japanese of the constitution is actually a translation, although it is the Japanese version that is legally binding. The Japanese constitution was written by a group of Americans. That’s also complicated (and I am simplifying), and off topic.) That does not say that the Tennō is the head of state, and neither does anything else. However, everyone assumes that he is, including every other country in the world.
So, on the assumption that he is the head of state, what happens is that, for these religious activities, he legally acts in a personal capacity. The Tennō can do that, just like any other head of state. This is how he is able to have a complex of three jinja in the palace grounds, with a staff of male and female priests. These are all paid for out of his personal allowance, rather than state funds. The same is true of the gifts that he makes to jinja whenever he visits one of the prefectures of Japan.
In principle, this is fine. The Tennō is allowed to personally prefer, for example, Lotte chocolate to Meiji chocolate, even though the state is not allowed to discriminate between the two companies. (I have no idea about the Tennō’s chocolate preferences. This is just an example. He studied at Oxford — maybe he likes Cadbury’s.)
There are two factors that keep things a bit controversial.
One is that the Tennō’s allowance, in its entirety, comes from the state. In a sense, this is also true of civil servants, but the Tennō is paid rather more than the civil servants. (It is worth noting that the religious activities of civil servants also cause problems from time to time, again because of their connection to the state.)
The other is that it is essential to his involvement in the Shikinen Sengū that he is involved as the Tennō. Prime ministers have tried visiting Yasukuni Jinja “as private individuals” (which doesn’t avoid controversy), but Naruhito simply can’t play his role in the Shikinen Sengū as just-Naruhito-not-the-Tennō. Jingū is associated with the Tennō, not the individual who happens to play that role at a particular time. The other religious things that he does could be done by a private individual, and indeed are not unusual in themselves, but it really matters to the jinja involved that it is the Tennō who has done them on that occasion.
So, legally, the Tennō is not acting as head of state when he participates in these rituals, and that is why they are able to continue. Even if he can only participate because he is the Tennō.