Church vs. State : Japan Faces Paradox Over Emperor Role

With the passing of Emperor Hirohito, whose 62-year reign bridged two distinct eras in Japanese history, the country now faces an imperial paradox that has lain dormant beneath the surface of its postwar democracy.

Political leaders have pledged to uphold a 1945 American-drafted constitution that strictly separates the functions of state and religion.

Yet the emperor, whom the government regards as the head of state, is by convention also the high priest of the Shinto faith, Japan’s indigenous religion.

The contradictions of this ambivalent role of the modern emperor have never been fully aired because Hirohito--who died Saturday at 87--was allowed to carry out his priestly duties discreetly and largely in private since he renounced his divine status shortly after the end of World War II.

Sets Them Apart

But over the coming weeks, Japan will bury the man who was worshiped as a god during a disastrous war of aggression and enshrine his spirit in perpetuity. In doing so, the Japanese will tacitly reaffirm their veneration for an ancient, ethnocentric tradition that sets them apart from the rest of the world.

After a year of mourning, the Imperial Household Agency will formally enthrone Akihito, the new emperor--and Japan’s head of state--in a series of elaborate Shinto rites that, according to precedent, will celebrate his imperial divinity.

Among the enthronement rituals, expected to continue until the fall of 1990, will be one in which Akihito communes with his ancestor, the Sun Goddess, and another in which the kami or “god-spirit” of the late emperor is mystically transmitted to his body as he lies on a couch in a sacred, primitive hut.

“Whatever happened to the emperor’s renunciation of divinity?” asked Daikichi Irokawa, a history professor at Tokyo University of Economics and advocate of imperial reform.

On Sunday, the Cabinet of Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita made its first attempt to wrestle with the knotty problem of separating religious and state ritual when it decided that Hirohito’s state funeral will have both.

In a curious exercise in logic that was promptly criticized by the left-wing opposition in Parliament as violating article 20 of the constitution, the government announced that Hirohito’s funeral on Feb. 24 will be conceptually divided: one religious and “private” part and one secular and “public” part. Both will be paid for by public funds.

Total expenses for the funeral and construction of a new imperial mausoleum are estimated at more than $80 million, according to the Asahi newspaper.

Leaders from around the world are expected to attend the ceremony in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Gyoen Park. It will be an extraordinary diplomatic event that will greatly enhance the prestige of Takeshita, whose government is currently embroiled in a widening stock-trading scandal and suffering a serious erosion in popular support.

International Funeral

The international scope of the funeral will also help legitimize Japan’s emperor system that--51 years after Japan invaded China and 43 years after Hirohito prodded military leaders toward unconditional surrender--remains deeply entrenched and cloaked in ambiguity.

Hirohito’s death saddened the vast majority of Japanese, but it also left them with a number of unresolved questions.

In addition to the puzzle of how to divide the functions of church and state, the emperor’s role under the constitution, which describes him merely as “the symbol of the state and the unity of the people,” has never been clearly defined.

In heated parliamentary debate last fall, the government defined the emperor as genshu , which literally means both sovereign and head of state, in terms of representing Japan in external affairs. But when it comes to ruling the country, the people are sovereign and the emperor is a powerless symbol, the explanation goes.

“It all depends on what definition you use,” said Koiichi Haraguchi, a Foreign Ministry spokesman. “Our position is that it’s all right if you choose to regard the emperor as head of state.”

Era of Militarism

Hard-line critics maintain that the imperial institution retains the potential to serve as the linchpin of a repressive social order, as it did during Japan’s era of militarism when its religious authority was invoked to mobilize the citizenry. The specter of authoritarianism was evident last fall, they say, when Hirohito fell seriously ill and mass psychology led the Japanese to conform blindly to a mood of self-restraint, canceling celebrations and festivals.

Serious debate over the late emperor’s wartime responsibility, meanwhile, remains stifled.

Hitoshi Motoshima, the mayor of Nagasaki, marked the anniversary of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor last year by saying publicly that he thought Hirohito bore some responsibility for World War II. He subsequently received death threats from right-wing extremists and was censured by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, of which he is a member.

“Japan is one of the few societies in the world where freedom of speech is guaranteed, but there is one taboo,” said Irokawa, the history professor. “The emperor.”

Political controversy is a relatively recent development for Japan’s imperial lineage, which according to mythology dates back 2,600 years to the legendary first emperor, Jimmu. In history, which becomes reliable some time around the 4th Century, emperors were traditionally manipulated by scheming courtiers and warlords. Most scholars credit the line’s remarkable endurance to its lack of any real power other than symbolic or religious authority.

State Shinto

But Hirohito’s grandfather, Emperor Meiji, was thrust into the center stage of political affairs when reformers toppled the last shogun, or feudal military ruler, in 1868 and Japan emerged from feudal isolation. An ideology known as State Shinto became the cornerstone of an aggressive policy of modernization, economic growth, military strength and territorial expansion that ultimately led to the folly of World War II.

That same Shinto theology is still embraced by Japan’s nationalistic right wing, which never got used to the fact that Hirohito repudiated his status as an arahito gami , or “god incarnate,” in his Jan. 1, 1946, New Year’s edict.

“That imperial rescript was forced upon the emperor at gunpoint, and so it has no meaning,” said Hideaki Kase, a conservative writer. “The majority of our people believe that the emperor is a divine being.”

Kase may not be in a position to speak for the majority of Japanese, but he represents a point of view that left-wing critics like Irokawa fear could gain increasing prominence under the reign of the new emperor, as an affluent Japan gropes for national pride commensurate with its new role as a global power.

‘Bitter Memory of 1945’

“The national psychology will be liberated from the bitter memory of 1945,” Kase said. “Akihito is free from the stigma of ignominious defeat.”

Kase, who like many rightists advocates revising the postwar constitution to make it a genuinely Japanese document, predicts that the separation of religion and state will be tested in the new era. He favors eliminating the barrier, while returning the imperial family to an apolitical “cultural” role.

Defenders of the principle of separation admit they are fighting a losing battle. Over the last few years, leading politicians such as former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone and several Cabinet ministers have defied harsh criticism by observing the anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II with controversial visits to Yasukuni Shrine, where the souls of military dead--including war criminals--are enshrined. Most have defended the worship as done in a “private” instead of “public” capacity.

Last year, in a landmark decision, the Supreme Court rejected a damage suit by a Christian widow who complained that the government had assisted in enshrining the soul of her husband, a member of the Self-Defense Forces killed on duty in an auto accident, at a Shinto shrine--against her wishes.

Budget Obscured

Even disbursal of the budget of the Imperial Household Agency, which administers the affairs of the emperor and his kin, is obscured by a bookkeeping method that skirts the question of what is a religious and a government expense.

The agency relies entirely on taxpayers’ money, but it distinguishes between three funds: the Imperial Court budget, the Imperial Household Agency budget and the Imperial Inner Court budget. The latter fund is used to pay for religious affairs deemed “private” and not “public.”

Opinion polls indicate that only a small minority of Japanese advocate abolishing or modifying the emperor system. Whether it is out of apathy, conformity or conviction, most favor the status quo.

“There’s been no change in the hearts of all Japanese that the emperor has been the focal point of national unity,” said Kenji Ueda, a professor of Shinto theology at Tokyo’s Kokugakuin University. “And that’s got to continue.”