Kurasawa, Masanori. Translated by Kelly Malone. "Is Polytheism Really Tolerant?" (多神教は本当に寛容であるのか) Japan Evangelical Association Theological Commission Pamphlet 6 (May 2006): 49-59.
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I. POLYTHEISM AND THE LIMITATIONS OF ITS TOLERANCE
Monotheism, as the belief in only one God, includes Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Polytheism, as the practice of worshiping many gods at the same time, includes Shinto, Hinduism, Buddhism and the religions of ancient Greece and Rome. Simply, there is a difference between the religious form of monotheism and polytheism, but differentiating between the content is rather difficult. Even in monotheism there is “monotheistic worship” which worships one specified god while recognizing many gods. Also there is “simple monotheism” which worships one god chosen from among many gods as the highest god. There is also “absolute monotheism” which does not recognize other divine beings. However, as for the special distinction of each one, monotheism worships one personal, transcendent god, on the other hand “polytheism” says that each of the various works of nature and spirit are symbolized as gods.
I.A. The Polytheistic World and the Roman Empire
Certainly, polytheism tolerates and is receptive to the existence of many gods. In polytheism various religious views and values are recognized, and are thought of as moving towards their mutual existence. But does history teach this? An often cited example is the Roman Empire. After Rome conquered various peoples by military power and established its rule, it cleverly employed the existing structures. Rome respected each nation's religion and values as much as possible and entrusted rule to their leaders. At the time of the birth of Christianity, while Palestine was under Roman rule, Judea was ruled by Herod (Matt. 2:1). Also, Rome tolerated the Jews' religion and had a tendency to avoid interference in their religious life. However, if a rebellion against the Roman government occurred, every religion and value system was restricted, and polytheism was strengthened to destroy real tolerance and compromise.
Among the Jews, the Pharisees, who were a religious sect, maintained religious purity against other peoples' gods and idols, and the zealots, who were political patriots, instigated continual political conflict with Rome. The resistance activity against Rome led to the Jewish war in which Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman army and the temple was burned (A.D. 70). Only among those who showed loyalty to the Roman emperor did the empire have tolerance for religion and values. After this, Rome tested this loyalty through the development of emperor worship. Until the Edict of Milan (A.D. 313), for 300 years although Christians were good citizens, in a polytheistic nation their faith and beliefs were restricted and excluded. Conversely, when Christianity was authorized by Rome and became the empire's only religion, in order to maintain political order, belief in other religions became the crime of “heresy.”
I.B. The Polytheistic Country of India
Taking India as a representative polytheistic country, in recent years confrontation and dispute among religions has intensified locally. Hinduism, which skillfully takes in internal pluralism and heterogeneous factors, includes the existence of many gods and is considered to be a tolerant religion, holds an adversarial opinion against Christianity and Islam in particular. The characteristic of maintaining the religious identity of ancient India by resisting pressure from political authority which accompanied foreign religions is strong. As a country that was once a Hindu civilization, India despised people who were imported by Islam, and later suppressed conversion to Christianity transplanted from England. After independence, India tried to be a secular polytheistic country with a multi-ethnic, multicultural society, but from the 1980's, a sense of brotherhood based on Hindu nationalism which considered both Christianity and Islam enemies was emphasized. In the multi-ethnic, multicultural society of India, this Hindu nationalism moved in the opposite direction towards a “homogeneous cultural” nation, bringing about huge friction and division in Indian society. Even in the polytheistic world, in relation to this identity, we can see a movement towards intolerance and exclusivism referred to as “religious nationalism”(Ogawa 2003: 153, 177).
I.C. The Politically Religious Country of Japan
Also in the case of Japan, there was a period which exhibited a condition which corresponded to the religion of the Roman Empire and the religion of Indian nationalism. Japan is a polytheistic country. Even Buddhism from the Chinese mainland went through the process of indigenization, passing through a Japanese transformation centered on the ancestral altar. Due to the influence of foreign religion, ancient Japanese animism (nature religion) was systematized as Shinto. Since the arrival of Buddhism, Japanese religion continuously has been under national control. On the one hand, those with authority were cautious about religion as something which misleads people's hearts. On the other hand, religion was used by political leaders as a psychological control to have their own way in controlling human hearts. Following the Meiji Restoration, in order to oppose the colonization of Japan by Western Powers, the Meiji government took the policy of “national wealth and military strength,” and set in place the “Yamato Spirit” cultivated by the emperor to accomplish the construction of a modern nation. The national Shinto system was based on “Japanese Spirit and Western Learning.” Even in Japan, which was thought of as a polytheistic country, the politicization of religion from ancient times should be evaluated. In the course of time the many gods were systematized so that national rule by the emperor, who was considered to be the 10,000th successor of the highest god Amaterasu Omikami, produced “National Shinto.” Shinto, which has a background of polytheism, by means of exclusivist religious teaching, became a “socio-political religion” (Nishitani 2004: 206), and resulted in an exclusivist religious nationalism. Japan was a polytheistic country which accepted various religions and beliefs, but there were limitations. Namely, on the one hand, National Shinto was established as the ultimate “orthodoxy,” and became the measure to evaluate public social consistency. On the other hand, religions such as Shrine Shinto, Buddhism and Christianity were positioned as “heterodoxy,” entirely in private domain to provide “peace in the heart.” The latter always was systematized by the nation, and became a means to serve the nation. Because of this, National Shinto (Emperor Worship) was not considered a “religion,” but rather became a public social duty which showed the people's loyalty. The polytheistic religious view was tolerated within this framework. Is polytheism really tolerant?
As the above examples show, in polytheistic societies, for the purpose of recognizing many value systems without boundaries, it is necessary to have the ability to unify confusion without consistency. Whether this comes about by a strong dictator who is granted religious authority or by religious ideology, to say that a polytheistic society is “tolerant” is “conditional.”
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