After Japan lost World War II, its government and policy changed radically during occupation by Allied troops. The other main religious denominations in Japan are Christianity (1.4%) and other (6.9%), which includes Islam, animism, Judaism, Hindu, and the Baha’i Faith. List of Figures Acknowledgements Note on Japanese names, terms and transliteration Introduction 1. Under the new Constitution of Japan, the Diet had the supreme authority for decision making in state affairs and all its members were elected by the people. In the 1950s and 1960s some started to become popular among the non-Japanese population as well. The story of a religious founder: Kiriyama Seiyu, turmoil, charisma and experience 3. Above is a picture of the Mahikari World Shrine , a major shrine for one of many new religions in Japan. The new religions, at the same time, are often heavily influenced by the traditional reli­ gions. As a result, she and her son-in-law Deguchi Onisaburo founded Omoto, which centered on this god. The social tension continued to grow during the Meiji period, affecting religious practices and institutions. Major goals of Shinshūkyō include spiritual healing, individual prosperity, and social harmony. Celebrity Gods: New Religions, Media, and Authority in Occupied Japan, University of Hawaiʻi Press. Our second focus is on other lay-centred religious groups that offer an alternative avenue of adherence and faith to the mainstream. In generalizations about the healing practices of the new religions, Jōrei and Okiyome, the purification rituals of Sekai Kyūseikyō, Shinji Shumeikai, and Mahikari, have been mislabeled as forms of faith healing. Conversion from traditional faith was no longer legally forbidden, officials lifted the 250-year ban on Christianity, and missionaries of established Christian churches reentered Japan. From the first half of the nineteenth century onward, a new stratum of religious affiliation has emerged in Japan that is not directly related to the traditional customs, practices, and beliefs of Shinto shrines, Buddhist temples, and household gods. Missionaries arrived not only from traditional churches, but also from some modern denominations, such as Jehovah's Witnesses. At present S6ka Gakkai and other groups have reached out to virtually every corner of the world through their missionary activity. It also began to advertise itself as philosophy rather than religion in order to avoid conflict with the Roman Catholic Church and other socially conservative elements in society. The official status of State Shinto was abolished, and Shinto shrines became religious organizations, losing government protection and financial support. 30 We may classify the new religions into three groups according to the dates they emerged. Losing the protection of the Japanese government which Buddhism had enjoyed for centuries, Buddhist monks faced radical difficulties in sustaining their institutions, but their activities also became less restrained by governmental policies and restrictions. GHQ invited many Christian missionaries from the United States to Japan, through Douglas MacArthur's famous call for 1,000 missionaries. Although the Occupation Army (GHQ) practiced censorship of all types of organizations, specific suppression of Shinshūkyō ended. After the collapse of Tokugawa control and the opening of Japan to the world in the Meiji period (1868-1914), Christianity was again introduced by Protestant missionaries. Clarke, Peter B., Somers, Jeffrey, editors (1994). Tubinger Ostasiatische Forschungen. “Since this month’s earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, other types of organized aid networks have…largely been neglected by the news media, including the Japanese news: those managed by […] Dr. Barbara Ambros, associate professor of Religious Studies, contributed an opinion piece to CNN’s Belief Blog on the responses of Japanese new religions to the recent crises. [2], Soka Gakkai has a particular influence to politics since 1964, thanks to their affiliated party Komeito, later New Komeito. The problem centers around two questions relating to the meaning of "new", which is a very relative term. Kauffner 00:47, 31 May 2012 (UTC) That's an interesting idea. By contrast, temple Buddhism and shrine Shinto have been in decline since the end of the World War II. And like many other new religious movements, Millah Abraham is dreaming big, with hopes to supersede Christianity and Islam as the dominant Abrahamic faith. This presentation discusses the dynamic new Japanese religions formed during the last century and a half. Create your own unique website with customizable templates. In the 1960s it adopted Portuguese, rather than Japanese, as its language of instruction and communication. … Table of contents. Followers of Tenrikyo believe that God, known by several names including Tenri-O-no-Mikoto, expressed divine will through Nakayama's role as the Shrine of God, and to a lesser extent the roles of other leaders. The SGI has steadily gained members while avoiding much of the controversy encountered by some other new religious movements in the US. In addition to the traditional religions of Shinto and Buddhism, Japan is also home to more than 600 “new religions” (shinko shukyo), which incorporate Buddhist, Shinto, and Christian elements.In this video series, Harvard University professors Theodore Bestor and Helen Hardacre discuss the impact of religious values and traditions on Japanese life. Japanese new religions are new religious movements established in Japan.In Japanese, they are called shinshūkyō (新宗教) or shinkō shūkyō (新興宗教).Japanese scholars classify all religious organizations founded since the middle of the 19th century as "new religions"; thus, the term refers to a great diversity and number of organizations. The main religions in Japan are Buddhism (69.8%) and Shinto (70.4%). While the membership in Japanese new religions has been rising since 1945, the ties between the people and their temples and traditional shrines are tending to weaken since 1945. Namely, reports published in the popular media can be thought of as reflections or projections of the vague impressions and fears of ordinary Japanese citizens toward the new religions. The average person typically follows the religious rituals at ceremonies like birth, weddings and funerals, may visit a shrine or temple on New Year and participates at local festivals ( matsuri ), most of which have a religious … There are three books with the phrase "Japanese new religions" in the title, see here, here, and here. The teach-ings and thought of Japan's New Religions have been translated into many languages and have been accepted by people of widely different Although it is a term in common use in Japan today, and although its signification is quite generally understood, its exact delimination is not always made clear. In Japan, Jehovah's Witnesses tend to be considered a Christianity-based Shinshūkyō, not only because they were founded in the 19th century (as were other major Shinshūkyō), but also because of their missionary practices, which involve door-to-door visiting and frequent meetings. The fact that no social phenomenon is ever completely new and that none is ever completely unchanging can make the term ”new” problematic. The emergence of a number of new religious movements (shin shukyo) offers alternative modes of religious faith and belonging. He believed he had been saved by the Bodhisattva Kannon. By 1988 it had more than 2.4 million members in Brazil, 85% of them not of Japanese ethnicity. 14 This is a noteworthy development, given the fact that the sects of established Japanese religions have generally taken little or no interest in missionary activities among non-Japanese people. Most Japanese people identify as members of both faiths. Japan’s new religious movements are as diverse as new religions in the United States, where Mormonism and Scientology have emerged only relatively recently. ", In the 1950's Kiriyama Seiyu had a religious revelation. It referred to two types of ”new” religions: first, as in The New Religions (1970) by Jacob Needleman, it covered various forms of eastern spirituality that were new to most west… image of the new religions, the opposite potential must also be considered. Sōka Gakkai has not released figures for 1989 and 1990, so this figure is the membership number for 1988, Most of the statistics in these charts are from the 1991 edition of the Shūkyō Nenkan (Religion Yearbook, Tokyo: Gyōsei). New Year’s Day - Ganjitsu (元日) You might be confused by two different yet similar words, ganjitsu … Under the Meiji regime lèse majesté prohibited insults against the Emperor and his Imperial House, and also against some major Shinto shrines which were believed to be tied strongly to the Emperor. Japanese "new religions" (shinshūkyō) have used various media forms for training, communicating with members, presenting their messages, reinforcing or protecting the image of the leader, and, potentially, attracting converts. I went to a Japanese Cult. Situating Agonshu: the concept of 'new religions' in modern Japan 2. "New Religions" that prospered in the postwar period have hit a slump. [3], In Brazil Shinshūkyō, like Honmon Butsuryū-shū, were first introduced in the 1920s among the Japanese immigrant population. The 19th and 20th centuries saw an explosion of new religious movements across the world, and in Japan, these movements helped shape the way many Japanese perceived "religiousness." ): Establishing the Revolutionary: An Introduction to New Religions in Japan. In the 1950s, Japanese wives of American servicemen introduced the Soka Gakkai to the United States, which in the 1970s developed into the Soka Gakkai International (SGI). In the 1860s Japan began to experience great social turmoil and rapid modernization. The Authorities, New Religions, and a Postwar Taboo, INFORM (Information Network Focus on Religious Movements), Academic study of new religious movements, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Japanese_new_religions&oldid=1009175309, Articles with unsourced statements from February 2014, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles containing Japanese-language text, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Ōyama Nezunomikoto Shinji Kyōkai (大山ねずの命神示教会), God Light Association Sōgō Honbu (GLA総合本部), Extra-Sensory-Perception Kagaku Kenkyūjo (ESP科学研究所). Tenrikyo's worldly aim is to teach and promote the Joyous Life, which is achieved through acts of charity and mindfulness (, Above is a picture of the Mahikari World Shrine. Numbers marked with this footnote are from other sources, https://web.archive.org/web/20140827014822/http://www.bunka.go.jp/shukyouhoujin/nenkan/pdf/h24nenkan.pdf, New Religions through the Eyes of Ōya Sōichi, ’Emperor’ of the Mass Media, SCAP’s Scapegoat? Not one of the religions is dominant, and each is affected by the others. Japan - Japan - Religion: The indigenous religion of Japan, Shintō, coexists with various sects of Buddhism, Christianity, and some ancient shamanistic practices, as well as a number of “new religions” (shinkō shukyō) that have emerged since the 19th century.