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Christian Wedding Ceremonies: "Nonreligiousness" in Contemporary Japan
Open accessAbstract
Christian wedding ceremonies have, since the mid-1990s, displaced the Shinto rite and continue to remain Japan's wedding ceremony of choice.In apparent contrast, the vast majority of Japanese individuals claim to be "nonreligious" or mushūkyō.Using the Christian wedding ceremonies of contemporary Japan as a context, this article explores the way in which claims of "non-religiousness" are used to both reject and affirm religious behaviors.Most typically, nonreligious attitudes reject religious positions perceived as abnormal, foreign, unusually intense, deviant, or unhealthy while simultaneously affirming the importance of religion to affective acts of belief.Furthermore, nonreligious individuals tend to rely heavily on religious professionals and to vicariously entrust specialized acts of prayer and ritual to religious authorities when desirable and appropriate.
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“What most Japanese mean when they say they are 'nonreligious,' is simply that they are not cognitively attached to a particular religious tradition, yet they may still engage in religious activities affectively and vicariously through the work of religious professionals who offer an eclectic range of religious services to them.”
From Practicing Spiritual Care in the Japanese Hospice (2018) · cites this paper as LeFebvre 2015
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“For example, Jesse LeFebvre has shown how many secular Japanese actually assert nonreligiousness in order to signal religious normalcy and distance from religious behaviors that are considered 'deviant, atypical, or extraordinary' (2015, 201).”
From Practicing Spiritual Care in the Japanese Hospice (2018) · cites this paper as LeFebvre 2015
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Research works printed but not linked: 12
- Anderson, Richard 1991 What constitutes religious activity? (I). Japanese Journal of Religious Stud- ies 18: 369-72.
- Baffelli, Erica, and Ian Reader 2012 Editors' introduction-impact and ramifications: The aftermath of the Aum affair in the Japanese religious context. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 39: 1-28.
- Nancy T. Ammerman, 21-36. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Fisch, Michael 2001 The rise of the chapel wedding in Japan. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 28: 57-76.
- Goldstein-Gidoni, Ofra 1997 Packaged Japanese: Weddings, Business and Brides. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.
- Jaffe, Richard 2001 Neither Monk Nor Layman: Clerical Marriage in Modern Japanese Bud- dhism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- Mullins, Mark 1998 Christianity Made in Japan: A Study of Indigenous Movements. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.
- Reader, Ian 1991a Letters to the gods: The form and meaning of ema. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 18: 23-50.
- 1991b What constitutes religious activity? (II). Japanese Journal of Religious Stud- ies 18: 373-76. 2012
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- Reid, David 1991 New Wine: The Cultural Shaping of Japanese Christianity. Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press.
Cited by
Practicing Spiritual Care in the Japanese Hospice
Benedict, T. O. (2018) · Japanese Journal of Religious Studies · doi:10.18874/jjrs.45.1.2018.175-199 · Cited by 8
Metadata
- Authors
- LeFebvre, J.
- Affiliations
- Harvard University (US)
- Corresponding author
- LeFebvre, Jesse
- ORCID
- LeFebvre, Jesse
- Venue
- Japanese Journal of Religious Studies
- Publisher
- Nanzan University
- Published
- 2015-11-02
- Volume
- 42
- Issue
- 2
- ISSN
- 0304-1042 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2598544769
- Cited by
- 46
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 17 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 4 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 3
- FWCI
- 3.32
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc
- Locations
- Japanese Journal of Religious Studies (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Social Science Open Access Repository (GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Religion and Society Interactions
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Study and Philosophy of Religion
- Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Japanese History and Culture
- Keywords
- religious behavior, religious professionals, deviance
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