Christianity & Shinto
Nature and the Creator: Reverence and Worship
Shinto sees the world as alive with the sacred. The kami dwell in the sun and the sea, in mountains and waterfalls and ancient trees, and Shinto meets nature with reverence, gratitude, and care. Christians love this reverence for creation and share the wonder, and yet point it in a different direction: the beauty of the world is the work of a Creator who is himself beyond it, and it is he, not the creation, who is worshiped. The sacred found within nature, or a Creator who made nature and stands above it, is where Shinto and Christian faith honestly meet and part.
What Shinto teaches
For Shinto the natural world is charged with the presence of kami. Motoori Norinaga’s classic account gathers the sacred into the very things of the world:
A great tree, a mountain, a waterfall, the sun itself, each may be honored as kami or as the dwelling of kami. Shinto is a this-worldly faith of gratitude and reverence toward the sacred that fills the living world.
What Christians believe
Christians also stand in awe of creation, and read its beauty as the handiwork of a Creator who is distinct from it and worthy, alone, of worship.
Where they meet
Both refuse to treat the world as dead or merely useful; both meet mountains and seas and living things with reverence, gratitude, and care; and both sense that the world is shot through with a glory greater than ourselves.
Where they differ
Shinto finds the sacred within nature itself, in the kami of the sun, the mountain, the tree. Christianity honors the same beauty but reads it as the work of a Creator who is not the world and not a power within it, but its Maker, distinct from it and alone to be worshiped (Romans 1:25). Reverence for the sacred in nature, or worship of the Creator who made nature, is the honest difference, named with respect.
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
Yaoyorozu no kami (yaoyorozu no kami) → the eight million kami → the countless kami of nature
Yaoyorozu no kami, literally the eight million kami, is the Shinto sense that sacred powers beyond counting fill the natural world, in sun and sea, mountain and tree. Christians share the reverence for creation but worship the one Creator who made it and stands above it (Psalm 19:1; Acts 17:24; Romans 1:25).
Frequently asked questions
- Does Shinto worship nature?
- Shinto reveres nature as filled with kami, the sacred powers present in the sun, the sea, mountains, waterfalls, and great trees. It is a this-worldly faith of gratitude and reverence toward the sacred within the living world, rather than a doctrine about a Creator beyond it.
- How do Christians regard nature differently?
- With the same reverence and wonder, but pointed beyond the world to its Maker. Christians read the beauty of creation as the handiwork of a Creator who is distinct from it and alone worthy of worship (Psalm 19:1; Romans 1:25). The sacred found within nature, or a Creator who made nature and stands above it, is the 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.
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