Why ‘Religion’ and ‘Secular’ Categories in Sociology: Decolonizing the Modern Myth by Mitsutoshi Horii is a major contribution to critical religion

Abstract

An anecdote that Mitsutoshi Horii sets out in his earlier book, The Category of ‘ Religion ’ in Contemporary Japan: Shukyo & Temple Buddhism (2018), illustrates that deconstructing discourse and narrative about matters pertaining to religion is a project that is never far from his mind. He tells his readers that a while ago, on a long fl ight from Tokyo to London, he reached for an in- fl ight magazine to help pass the time. What should have been a sopori fi c, anodyne piece of touristy prose quickly turned into something that provoked him. The following bland sentence stimulated his scholarly brain like caffeine: “ the days when a temple visit was a strictly solemn affair appear to be over, as Japan ’ s ubiquitous places of Buddhist worship open their gates to market traders and even yoga enthusiasts ” (1). Horii sees pervasive in fl uence of distorted narratives about history, au-thenticity, and propriety embedded in this well-intentioned statement. In his fi rst book, with careful and detailed critical scholarship, he counters the fantasies that underlie such prevalent assumptions about what constitutes religion in Japan. He examines the “ classi fi catory practices ” that pertain to Temple Buddhism and explains how the allied occupation imposed and utilized “ religion ” to construct an acceptable post-war Japanese state. “ Religion, ” he argues, operates in contemporary Japan as a constitutional and socio-economic category that, along with the construction of “ non-religion, ” serves particular “ purposes and interests. ” He writes that the term “ religion ” … “ is a rhetorical weapon, which is utilized in relation to speci fi c objectives. It is in this kind of struggle where different meanings of “ religion ” are constructed and