The Soka Gakkai Practice of Buppō and the Discourse on Religion in Japan

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3141104
AutoresAnne Mette Fisker-Nielsen (0000-0002-7809-5842, Soka University, autor correspondente)
Ano2022
Volume13
Fascículo2
Páginas167
Data de publicação2022-02-14
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoReligions (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444
EditoraMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/rel13020167
OpenAlexW4213198270
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas3
Referências citadas40

This paper investigates the Japanese Nichiren Buddhist organization, Soka Gakkai (SG), whose members have supported the political party known as Kōmeitō, or Clean Government Party, in Japan for over half a century. SG members have often been criticized as 'impure' political actors, undergoing frequent public questioning of their motivations for engaging in electoral politics in light of their 'religious' status. The paper shows how the SG members' support for Kōmeitō at a qualitative level indeed transcends the typical demarcations of the 'secular-religious' binary system. However, they also simultaneously challenge the term 'religion' that has functioned as an ideology in the creation of statecraft and in their competition for legitimacy. The current paper is based on long-term fieldwork, extensive interviews, and doctrinal analyses that highlight how socially productive this discourse on religion has been. It also shows how a counter-episteme, rooted in Nichiren's theory of the Risshō Ankoku Ron and the idea of kōsen-rufu, sought to bring a 'Buddha' consciousness to bear on individual and collective action as a model for alternative 'politics'. Contrary to many claims, this did not entail contesting the modern institutional separation of 'church' and 'state', but is rather an attempt to find legitimacy for participating in 'Japan-making' in ways that cannot easily be understood or confined to explanations framed within the 'religious-secular' binary system

Binary opposition · Buddhism · Civil society · Collective action · Epistemology · Ideology · Legitimacy · Political science · Politics · Secularism · Sociology · Theology · Chinese history and philosophy · Gender Studies · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Religious studies