section_path: History/Meiji era and the Empire of Japan
section_name: Meiji era and the Empire of Japan
paragraph_text: Meiji era and the Empire of Japan
  
  Breen and Teeuwen characterise the period between 1868 and 1915, during the Meiji era, as being the "formative years" of modern Shinto. It is in this period that various scholars have argued that Shinto was essentially "invented". Fridell argues that scholars call the period from 1868 to 1945 the "State Shinto period" because, "during these decades, Shinto elements came under a great deal of overt state influence and control as the Japanese government systematically utilized shrine worship as a major force for mobilizing imperial loyalties on behalf of modern nation-building." However, the government had already been treating shrines as an extension of government before Meiji; see for example the Tenpō Reforms. Moreover, according to the scholar Jason Ānanda Josephson, It is inaccurate to describe shrines as constituting a "state religion" or a "theocracy" during this period since they had neither organization, nor doctrine, and were uninterested in conversion.
  
  The Meiji Restoration of 1868 was fuelled by a renewal of Confucian ethics and imperial patriotism among Japan's ruling class. Among these reformers, Buddhism was seen as a corrupting influence that had undermined what they envisioned as Japan's original purity and greatness. They wanted to place a renewed emphasis on kami worship as an indigenous form of ritual, an attitude that was also fuelled by anxieties about Western expansionism and fear that Christianity would take hold in Japan.
  
  In 1868, all shrine priests were placed under the authority of the new Jingikan, or Council of Kami Affairs. A project of forcibly separating kami worship from Buddhism was implemented, with Buddhist monks, deities, buildings, and rituals banned from kami shrines. Much Buddhist material was destroyed. In 1871, a new hierarchy of shrines was introduced, with imperial and national shrines at the top. Hereditary priesthoods were abolished and a new state-sanctioned system for appointing priests was introduced. In 1872, the Jingikan was replaced with the Kyobusho, or Ministry of Edification. This coordinated a campaign whereby kyodoshoku ("national evangelists") were sent through the country to promote Japan's "Great Teaching", which included respect for the kami and obedience to the emperor. This campaign was discontinued in 1884. In 1906, thousands of village shrines were merged so that most small communities had only a single shrine, where rites in honor of the emperor could be held. Shinto effectively became the state cult, one promoted with growing zeal in the build-up to the Second World War.
  
  In 1882, the Meiji government designated 13 religious movements that were neither Buddhist nor Christian to be forms of " Sect Shinto ". The number and name of the sects given this formal designation varied; often they merged ideas with Shinto from Buddhism, Christian, Confucian, Daoist, and Western esoteric traditions. In the Meiji period, many local traditions died out and were replaced by nationally standardised practices encouraged from Tokyo.