In Japan, You Can Buy A Priest On-Demand

Regulation makes the sharing a economy a challenge in Japan, but those rules apparently don’t quite apply to a network of freelancing Buddhist priests that is making on-demand gains by bringing enlightenment to the doors for the devout.

“Temples will sell you 10 yen candles for 100 yen,” one user noted. “They’re protecting their own interests.”

But those interests are getting more complex in the mobile and on-demand world, especially since Japanese religious institutions receive generous tax breaks.

“If it becomes a fee for services instead of a donation, and the government says, ‘OK, we’re going to tax you like a regular business,’ how are we supposed to object?” said Hanyu Kakubo, a priest at the Japan Buddhist Federation, which opposes obosan-bin (priest delivery).

Proponents of obosan-bin argue that conventional temples already operate like businesses — just opaque businesses that put a lot of blind pricing pressure on the customers they ask donations of.

As for local reaction, on the whole, obosan-bin has been well-received for many of the same reasons all on-demand services are: It offers a consistent, convenient and reasonably priced service.

“There has been fierce criticism from the Buddhist world, but these days, many people are abandoning religious funerals altogether,” said Noriyuki Ueda, an anthropologist who studies Buddhism at Tokyo Institute of Technology. “At least people using obosan-bin think having a priest is necessary.”