What are kami in Shinto?

Kami are the sacred powers and presences at the heart of Shinto: the deities of heaven and earth, the spirits of nature (the sun, mountains, rivers, great trees), and the spirits of extraordinary people and ancestors. Motoori Norinaga described kami as all awe-provoking things that possess superlative, extraordinary power. Kami are many, and Shinto has no single founder or creed.

Is Shinto monotheistic like Christianity?

No, and we do not pretend otherwise. Shinto is genuinely a religion of many kami, with no one supreme God in the biblical sense. Christianity confesses one Creator God, worshiped as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Genesis 1:1; 1 Corinthians 8:6). Many kami filling the world, or one God who made it, is the honest difference.

Christianity & Shinto

Kami and the One God

Shinto is the indigenous way of Japan, and it is genuinely a religion of many kami: the sacred powers and presences found in the sun and storm, in mountains and rivers and great trees, in remarkable people and honored ancestors. Kami are countless, and Shinto has no single founder, no creed, and no one supreme God in the biblical sense. Christians honor the Shinto reverence for the sacred and its wonder at the world, and confess something different: one Creator God who made all things, worshiped as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Many kami filling the world, or one God who made the world, is where Shinto and Christian faith honestly meet and part.

What Shinto teaches

At the heart of Shinto is the kami: the sacred powers and presences of nature, of extraordinary people, and of ancestors. The scholar Motoori Norinaga gave the classic description of how wide the word reaches:

“[Kami are] the various deities of heaven and earth seen in the classics, together with all the spirits of shrines devoted to them, and also birds and beasts, trees and grass, sea and mountain, and all other awe-provoking things which possess superlative power of an extraordinary kind.”

Motoori Norinaga, Kojiki-den (definition of kami)

The oldest record, the Kojiki, opens with the first kami coming into being as heaven and earth began:

“The names of the Deities that were born in the Plain of High Heaven when the Heaven and Earth began were the Deity Master-of-the-August-Centre-of-Heaven, next the High-August-Producing-Wondrous Deity, next the Divine-Producing-Wondrous-Deity.”

Kojiki, Section 1 (trans. Chamberlain)

Kami are many, not one; Shinto is this-worldly, ritual rather than doctrinal, and has no founder and no single creed.

What Christians believe

Christians confess not many gods but one Creator, the Maker of heaven and earth, worshiped as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”

Genesis 1:1 (KJV)

“For though there be that are called gods... to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things.”

1 Corinthians 8:5-6 (KJV)

Where they meet

Both are filled with wonder at a world that is more than mere matter; both sense that the sacred presses close in nature and in those who came before us; and both meet the world with reverence and gratitude rather than cold calculation.

Where they differ

Shinto is genuinely a faith of many kami, sacred powers beyond counting, with no one supreme God and no founder or creed. Christianity confesses one God, the Maker of heaven and earth, worshiped as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, from whom every good thing comes. Many sacred kami filling the world, or one Creator who made the world and everything in it, is the real difference, and we name it without forcing Shinto into a shape it does not claim for itself.

Shinto sources: the Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters, trans. Basil Hall Chamberlain, 1882, public domain) and Motoori Norinaga’s classic definition of kami; renderings of Japanese terms follow widely published scholarship, which varies, compare others. Bible: King James Version. Every reference on this page was checked against its source.

The word itself

Kami (kami) → sacred powers, spirits → gods or sacred presences

Kami are the sacred powers and presences at the center of Shinto: the deities of heaven and earth, the spirits of nature such as the sun, mountains, and great trees, and the spirits of remarkable people and ancestors. Kami are many, and the word does not map neatly onto the one God of the Bible, whom Christians confess as the one Creator of all (Genesis 1:1; 1 Corinthians 8:6).

Frequently asked questions

What are kami in Shinto?: Kami are the sacred powers and presences at the heart of Shinto: the deities of heaven and earth, the spirits of nature (the sun, mountains, rivers, great trees), and the spirits of extraordinary people and ancestors. Motoori Norinaga described kami as all awe-provoking things that possess superlative, extraordinary power. Kami are many, and Shinto has no single founder or creed.
Is Shinto monotheistic like Christianity?: No, and we do not pretend otherwise. Shinto is genuinely a religion of many kami, with no one supreme God in the biblical sense. Christianity confesses one Creator God, worshiped as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Genesis 1:1; 1 Corinthians 8:6). Many kami filling the world, or one God who made it, is the honest difference.

Come and see

Shinto surrounds life with gratitude and a longing to be clean before the sacred. The Gospel tells of the God who makes the heart clean and welcomes us home. The most direct way to know Jesus is to read his words for yourself. There is no pressure here.

Read the Gospel of John Why Jesus?Ask for prayer

Explore furtherKami and the one God Purity and cleansing Nature and the Creator Gratitude and worship Ancestors and the saints