6 - The Religions of Japan

Summary

After a general survey attention is first paid to the transformations Shintoism has undergone over the centuries, with its present stress on the environment used to illumine tensions in Christianity between the transcendent and the immanent. With Buddhism two very different forms are contrasted, Zen and Pure Land. With the former modern American, English and European appropriations are first analysed, including the work of Jack Kerouac, Charles Johnson, D. T. Suzuki and Alan Watts. Thereafter, a positive value is assigned to Zen aesthetics (especially in its positive evaluation of impermanence), while a more critical assessment is offered of its ’emptiness’ doctrine. Various versions of Pure Land are then discussed. Not only is Karl Barth’s negative judgement firmly rejected but also its notions of grace treated as illuminating for Christianity’s own approach to the subject.