What is the meaning of ように in the following sentence?

Question

I came across this sentence in a text regarding the Japanese and religion (please see the end of the post for the full paragraph if more context is needed):

そして、神道が人々の生活の中で生き続けてきたように、仏教やキリスト教の行事なども、日本人の生活の一部になっているのだ。

I roughly translate the sentence as:

Besides, Shintō has continued to live in the daily life of the Japanese, Buddhist and Cristian events and such have also become a part of Japanese people's lives.

The problem is that my translation would work removing the ように, too:

そして、神道が人々の生活の中で生き続けてきて、仏教やキリスト教の行事なども、日本人の生活の一部になっているのだ。

This ように doesn't look like the ように for purpose (日本語が分かるよう勉強する), nor the ように for wishes or requests (先生に宿題を減らすように頼む). I'm probably missing some nuance in the sentence since I'm unable to identify what role does this ように play here. What is it?

Thank you in advance!

Answer 1

You're forgetting the other really common meaning of ように which is the adverbial form of ようだ meaning 'like'. In this context I think 'just as' would work nicely here. Inserting into your translation gives:

Just as Shintō has continued to live in the daily life of the Japanese, Buddhist and Cristian events and such have also become a part of Japanese people's lives.