Can Shinto Become a Global Religion?

Photo Attributions
Ainu Man and Woman:

[hoonterofhoonters]

It's important to realize that culture, land, history and religion are all connected. American Christians trace their religion to the other side of the world, but they can never really experience and understand the life style of the early Christians, or even modern ones who live in different cultures. It's even more important to understand this in the context of Shinto, which doesn't emphasize faith and biblical canon the same way that Christianity does.

[wompa]

I would say it's both. Traditionalists might not accept people in other parts of the world but that won't stop people from believing, practicing, and adapting religions.

[milhz]

This Hawaiian Shinto reminds me of the syncretism of Christianity and traditional African religions that happened here in Brazil and other places in the Americas.

[JAGzilla-urlh]

I find it absolutely hilarious that a shrine exists venerating George Washington and Abraham Lincoln as kami.

[donsample]

All religions start out as indigenous. Some of them spread beyond the founding group, and others don't.

[brometheus]

The Hawaiian shrine reminds me of the Vietnamese Cao Dai religion which you should definitely do an episode on. They have saints like Charlie Chaplin and Herman Melville.

[joaosantiago]

Actually in my city Santos, Brazil, hade a Shinto Shrine that was demolished to build a park in their place that has a Shinto portal and some few rocks of the old temple, the japanese people that came her 100 years ago practiced their religion but over time they would convert do catolicism like majority of brazilians to better adapt to our culture but have some japanese that even in this day attend to shinto shrines in São Paulo to some festitivites

[selphur]

Imo, being a form of polytheism (see Edit below for clarification) and incorporating ancestor and nature spirit worshipping, Shinto certainly can find something in common with Neopagan traditions and maybe even New Age spirituality. This would make it possible for non-Japanese to incorporate Shinto practices into their religious lifes and, in the end, adopt Shinto practices holistically.

That being said, if a foreigner adopts Shinto on account of its similarity with that foreigner's, say, Neopagan beliefs, there would be a reason to ask, whether what has been adopted is actually Shinto and not some sort of "non-specific eclectic paganism" with Japanese aesthetics.

EDIT: Thanks for all the replies, certainly gives something to think about. A little clarification: by "polytheism" I did not mean the term in its strict sense of "worshipping a multitude of deities/spirits equally", but rather "the belief in multiple deities/spirits that can be worshiped in any number of ways". That would include henotheism, monolatry, etc.

[floralfemme]

I think the answer might be "both". I can imagine that when building a shrine outside of Japan, practitioners can conceive of Kami local to their own area. In polytheism and animisim there's the idea of "our local spirits/gods" and then also foreign ones, which are recognized but live elsewhere (and not in your local shrine).
I think that allows for shrines outside Japan that utilize the same ritual practices but recognize a different mix of Kami.
Imo I think shinto may be flexible enough to have shrines overseas, since ritual practice seems to just as or more important than believing in Kami.

[maskedsaiyan]

Religions are very interesting when dissecting the culture behind them.

[bobmilaplace]

Maybe this American Shinto will be like how Romans accepted Jewish concepts to create a distinct Roman/Greek/Semitic religion.

Forming a new form of religion.

[lutilda]

It's so strange to learn that Granite Falls WA has a Shinto shrine. I grew up there for a while and it's a VERY small rural town just below the Cascade mountains. It's also very conservative. That seems like such a random place to put a Shinto shrine!

[nomadicmonkey]

08:50 It's quite interesting that a lot of Western converts to Shinto practice their faith with what seems to me as characteristically born-again-esque fervour like daily offerings of prayer which to my Tokyoite sensibilities is quite foreign to say the least, while a vanishingly small percentage of urban population in Japan own a personal Shinto-specific altar as opposed to a more syncretised, part Shinto part Buddhist part vaguely ancestor-veneration kinda altar, to which then again as far as I personally know very few people pray or light an incense in front of on a daily basis.

[japc]

Missed opportunity to call the video AMERI-KAMI. Lol

[MadHatter]

I'm curious to know exactly how the American Shinto priests interact with the idea of Kami in America. If they are spirits connected to the natural environment, such as rivers, trees, rocks, etc. then do they have to make up new spirits connected to American natural phenomenon? Would you name and identify these spirits, or just worship the natural phenomena themselves without anthropomorphizing them? Do Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon have really big, important spirits, comparable to that of Mt Fuji? How does the Kami of Mt. Rushmore feel about having presidential faces carved into it? Also, there are many natural sites that are already sacred to Native American traditions, such as Bear Butte in SD. What if a non-native American wanted to build a Shinto Shrine at Bear Butte? Do you worship two different spirits side-by-side, or do you try to work Lakota mythology into Shinto practices? That sounds problematic, to say the least...

[ConcernedAboutCrows]

As a neopagan I certainly see Shinto as having universal appeal. When speaking with japanese exchange students at my university, it seemed clear that our ideas about religion were more similar than different. Considering how new age religious movements tend to work, and I mean this in positive and negative ways, it's amazing to me that Shinto type practices and inspirations aren't more widespread among neopagans.

Shinto has all of the tools necessary to adapt to new environments, adopt elements of them (such as foreign or cultural gods), and an appealing, relavant message about both nature and mindfulness.

I maintain a personal shrine which sits high on a wall. It's not a kamidana, but it might be close. Neopagan belief already incorporates nature worship, polytheism, and animism, often with purification practices and interaction with a personal, dynamic, spiritual world.

[quintustheophilus]

You can't imagine how delighted I was to click on this video :)

[dershogun]

I live in germany and in my hometown there is a shinto shrine. Very beautiful place

[oberonichiban]

The very first non Japanese/ Western Shinto priest lives in the Netherlands and is named Paul de Leeuw. He had to proof that kami also exist outside of Japan. He send a photo of a tree in the Netherlands and he was proven right by his Shinto teachers in Japan.

[LangThoughts]

Could the tension between Ethnic Japanese-Only Shinto and Gaijin-Inclusive Shinto lead to a split of religions, like between Judaism and Christianity?