Shinto

Three traditions: a Shinto shrine, a Konko church, and a Tenrikyo church. Each worships before a kami altar and keeps the Japanese year with its New Year visits, and in America each is small and mostly Japanese American, three or four generations old, with Hawaii as much its home as the mainland. None burns incense.

Konko and Tenrikyo describe themselves as religions of their own. Japan's government classed both as Sect Shinto; Konko has stayed in that federation while calling itself a universal faith, neither simply Shinto nor Buddhist, and Tenrikyo set itself apart from Shinto after the war and left the federation in 1970. The game lists them beside the shrine for that history, as the Latter-day Saints sit under Christianity, and otherwise describes each in its own terms.

Shinto shrine its page →

A jinja, written from the small Japanese American shrines that survive in Hawaii. A shrine isn't a congregation: people come one by one through the day (open hours, eight to five), pass under the torii, rinse at the chozuya, drop a coin in the offertory box, bow twice, clap twice, bow, and go; some buy an amulet, hang an ema, or book a prayer. A small core of supporters comes to the monthly rite on the 1st and the 15th, and hatsumode brings thousands over the first three days of the year, nearly all passing through. There's no weekly service, and the game holds none: the shrine's week is its open hours, its supporters come to the monthly rite and the festivals (held as services of their own, by the shrine rite), and its newcomers come through its visitors and those rites. Money comes per visit and per rite: the box and the amulets, prayers (a kitō, $100) for a newborn, a bad-luck year, or a new business, the Shichi-Go-San in November, and house and car blessings; supporters pay smaller dues to the sukeikai (35% of what they could give, against a synagogue's 70%). Death is kept away from the shrine: it holds no funerals.

• Required: the kami altar, a Torii, a purification basin (it needs plumbing), and an offertory box.
• Expected: the Honden, an amulet counter, an ema rack. Pianos, organs, and drums are discouraged.
• Fits best: the kami altar, the honden, the torii, purification basin, offertory box, amulet counter, and ema rack (+0.5); pews, pillars, the dome, and formal items (+0.33). The pipe organ −0.33, drums and the sound system −0.5; stained glass, pianos, the electronic and Hammond organs, and handbells −1; chairs and the screen 0.

Each shrine is an independent nonprofit whose lay board decides renovations and new building and calls the guji: one priest, trained and ranked in Japan and here on a religious-worker visa. Priests are scarce, a shrine often passes within a priest's family, and losing its priest can close one. The head shrine in Japan holds no power over it. A negi takes the prayers when the guji can't, and a miko keeps the shrine office. Leaving takes a majority and costs nothing. Every visit buys something once there's an amulet counter: put one in early.

Konko Churches of North America its page →

A church of the Konko Faith, founded in Okayama in 1859, worshipping Tenchi Kane no Kami, the Divine Parent of the Universe: thirteen churches on the mainland and six missions in Hawaii, each a few dozen households. Its heart is mediation (toritsugi): a minister sits at the mediation seat beside the altar through the day (open hours, Monday to Saturday, and an hour after Sunday's service), and anyone may come and speak of a worry or a thanks, which the minister conveys to the Kami. Sunday brings a service with the minister's talk and members sharing their blessings; the Spring and Fall Grand Ceremonies draw the year's largest congregation, and thirty dawns of Winter Special Prayer open the year. No images, no incense, no amulets. Giving is free will only: no dues, fees, or tithes. Konko churches are liberal and welcoming, and marry same-sex couples.

• Required: the kami altar, the mediation seat.
• Expected: the mitama altar, for the ancestors. Pianos, organs, and drums are discouraged.
• Fits best: the kami altar, the mediation seat, and the mitama altar (+0.5); pews, stained glass, pillars, the dome, and formal items (+0.33). The pipe organ −0.33, drums and the sound system −0.5; pianos, the electronic and Hammond organs, and handbells −1; chairs and the screen 0.

Ministers train at the seminary in Japan; many are women, and a church often passes to a minister's child, the family living at the church. Konko Churches of North America appoints them and can remove one. The minister governs, and works another job besides. A share of income goes to KCNA (5%, voluntary; nothing is published, so it's an estimate). Leaving takes two thirds and costs nothing.

Tenrikyo its page →

A local church of Tenrikyo, "the Teaching of Divine Reason", founded in 1838 by Nakayama Miki, Oyasama, which teaches the Joyous Life. The head minister's family lives in the church, and the church runs every day: services morning and evening toward the Jiba in Tenri, and a Sunday morning service. Its great gathering is the monthly service (the game takes the third Sunday): the Dance with Hand Movements to the Mikagura-uta and the nine instruments, played and danced by members on a rota they practise for. Every service needs nine instrument players and hopes for six dancers, so a church needs enough trained members, and a service teacher to train them. Belonging runs up a line of parent churches, not across a town; the committed hear the nine Besseki lectures at the Jiba and receive the Sazuke, which they administer to the sick in their homes.

• Required: the altar, the kagura instruments, and priests' quarters.
• Expected: the mitama altar. Pianos, organs, and drums are discouraged.
• Fits best: pews, pillars, the dome, and every formal item (+1); the kami altar, the instruments, and the mitama altar (+0.5). Stained glass, chairs, other instruments, the sound system, and the screen −1.

The head minister governs everything, renovations and new building included, and is installed by Church Headquarters, usually a son or son-in-law succeeding for life; he serves with a spouse and works another job besides. Each month the church sends offerings to its parent church, which sends them on up the line (10%, required; no figure is published, so it's an estimate). Headquarters can close or merge a church or remove its head minister, and a church can't vote to leave. Followers don't vote. Ministers rise from yoboku to minister to head minister.