Shintô’s Spiritual Value to the Ancient and Modern Japanese

This essay will be covering the topic of Shintô, the native religion of Japan. The essay will try to explore the relationship between the Japanese people and Shintô, both in the past and present. First there will be an introduction to Shintô followed by a comparison between Shintô and Lutheran Christianity, which is split into two sub-chapters; the first sub-chapter will compare the religious aspects of both religions and the next sub-chapter will compare the practitioners of both religions. Following is another sub-chapter explaining about the relationship between Buddhism and Shintô and how both religions have managed to synchronize. Then there will be an introduction to the teaching of kegare (impurity) and how it affects the Japanese people. The next chapter will cover Shintô in ancient Japan. We will be exploring how Shintô was practiced during that period and how faithful the ancient Japanese were. In the following chapter, the essay will investigate how Shintô is being practiced in modern day Japan and how it affects the modern day people of Japan. The following sub-chapter will cover the emperor of Japan and his relationship with Shintô and the Japanese people. Then in the final sub-chapter we will explore the Japanese people’s attitude toward Shintô. Then there will be a short chapter concerning future developments of Shintô and how people’s attitude might change toward Shintô’s spiritual value in the future. The conclusion will include some of the author’s personal feelings concerning the matter as well as summarizing the outcome of the whole essay