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disputed presidency

Tsurugaoka Hachimangū Departure

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Tsurugaoka Hachimangū, a very large jinja in Kanagawa Prefecture, suddenly announced that it was withdrawing from Jinja Honchō. At that point, the motives were unclear. The July 1st issue of Jinja Shinpō contained a report of a press conference held by the chief priest on June 20th, at which he gave his reasons. These refer to the current problems within Jinja Honchō, in particular the dispute between the president and the chairman, and align him firmly with the chairman. He said that Jinja… Read More »Tsurugaoka Hachimangū Departure

Rogue Speech

This year’s main meeting of the Oversight Council of Jinja Honchō was held on May 23rd and 24th, and reported in the June 3rd issue of Jinja Shinpō. If you have been following this blog for a while (or have read the other posts tagged with “Disputed Presidency”) you will know that this meeting used to be a boring, entirely formulaic rubber stamp for decisions made by the central bodies. Now, it… isn’t. Jinja Honchō is formally led by the Chairman, but all the decisions are taken by the President,… Read More »Rogue Speech

October 2023 Oversight Council

The regular October meeting of Jinja Honchō’s Oversight Council was held on October 20th, and reported in the October 30th issue of Jinja Shinpō. It seems that “lively exchanges of views” continued. The most important focus of debate was still the dispute over the presidency, but this issue did not go anywhere. That should not be surprising to anyone who has read my previous posts on this problem (click on the “disputed presidency” tag to see those earlier posts if you are interested). While many of the same arguments are… Read More »October 2023 Oversight Council

A Miscellany

Normally, I find a single topic for these blog posts, but the July 17th issue of Jinja Shinpō had a number of small points that I want to mention, and they have no connection to each other. The first is the editorial, which was inspired by the Marine Day national holiday (July 17th), and talked about how the sacred forests at jinja should be preserved to help preserve the oceans, and about the need to reduce plastic waste. The short piece by a journalist on the front page was about… Read More »A Miscellany

Appeal Decision

On June 14th, the Tokyo High Court handed down its decision in the appeal from the District Court in the case over the presidency of Jinja Honchō. The result was reported in the June 26th issue of Jinja Shinpō. The appeal was rejected, so the High Court agreed that Revd Ashihara is not the new president. Jinja Honchō was, of course, delighted by this. They sent out an announcement to all the Jinjachō saying that it was now clear that Revd Tanaka was the president, and that the chairman should… Read More »Appeal Decision

Unproductive Oversight Council Meeting

The “tl:dr” is the title. If you want to read more about the internal dispute in Jinja Honchō over the presidency, the rest of the article is here for you. If you think it is a largely trivial distraction from more important issues facing the Shinto community, then I’m not going to tell you that you’re wrong. Still, it is a major topic within the Shinto community at the moment, so I do feel the need to cover it. As I have mentioned before, Jinja Honchō holds a series of… Read More »Unproductive Oversight Council Meeting