Japanese New Religions in Latin America

Social Science Japan Journal, 2016

Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 2008

THE DATE OF the publication of this special issue on "Japanese Religions in Brazil" coincides with the centenary festivities of Japanese immigra-tion to Brazil. On a number of occasions throughout the year, including 18 June-the day of the arrival of the vessel Kasato Maru in 190o8 in ...

This is a three-page report based on roundtable discussions at the 2015 International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR) conference in Erfurt, Germany.

New religions have been especially appealing to people in a rapidly changing society. Conservative and traditional moral values are often articulated in such a changing society. In a changing Japanese society, conservative and traditional moral values are often articulated; modes of hopes, understanding and meaning are provided; meaningful teaching and promises of salvation for people are offered. It should be mentioned that the various Japanese traditional ways of religious practices, such as magical healing, spirit possessions, and the gaining of worldly benefits, are the standard features of almost all of the New Religious Movements in Japan. This article contributes to the discussion on the background of New Religious Movements, the meaning of NMRs, their standard features, and persistent themes from a Japanese perspective. Thus, this paper proceeds by presenting some of the different socio-historical contexts based on which new religious movements emerged. It is an attempt of the current paper that can help us explain and evaluate the socio-historical facts of the rise of New Religious Movements in Japan. In addition, the current paper presents how New Religious Movements demonstrate their magnetic attraction for the ordinary people in Japan and create a new panorama providing the opportunity of being treated in a particular way. Finally, as for implication, this paper gives importance to some crucial issues that focus on further study of religion in Japan from different approaches in future that cannot be avoided the significant problems of democratisation, secularisation, and atheism in Japan. Keywords New Religious Movements. Persistent Themes. New Panorama. Democratisation. Secularisation. Organisational development. Multiplicity of religions .

One of the fascinating characteristics about the study of religion in general is how quickly change occurs regarding the topics we think are important and the methods we use to investigate them. For scholars working on religions in Japan, new discoveries, situations, understandings, and affiliations nurture fresh perspectives on projects ranging from the historical to the contemporary. The following summary of the roundtable discussion at the IAHR conference in Erfurt, Germany references some of these themes and ideas. (The speakers appeared in alphabetical order based on their surnames). course, scholars must satisfy critical academic standards within their disciplines, but this does not preclude finding other venues for communicating the richness of Japanese religious cultures. To this end, John encouraged the creation of short videos as a way to engage and connect with younger and more diverse audiences. He also suggested Academia.edu as a kind of public commons for disseminating published and seminar-level work. Finally, echoing a point raised by Jørn, John said he would like to see more collaborative projects between researchers, citing the example of Christoph Brumann's "temple economies of Asia" initiative sponsored by the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology (Halle, Germany).

Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 2008

This book contains academic papers based on an international conference that was also titled "Japanese Religions in and beyond the Japanese Diaspora.

A new stratum of religious affiliation emerged in Japan from the first half of the nineteenth century onward and quite a large number of movements were formed as a result of social, cultural, economic and political changes in Japan. To make a distinction from old fashioned religious traditions a wave of brash new and lively religious movements (known as " new new religious movements) has come into prominence in Japan, during the 1980s. Attracting equally the attention of the media and intelligentsia these new religious groups expanded their membership rapidly. They successfully appealed the Japanese populace because they emerged expressing anti modern and Japanocentric sentiments as well as focusing on miracles, spirit possession and a view of causation that is rooted very firmly in Japanese folk tradition in the midst of a rapidly changing Japanese society in terms of technology, modernization and internationalization. This paper aims to answer the question how religious discourse in contemporary Japan tends to keep pace with the changing patterns of society, highlighting the common characteristics and the dynamic role of new religious movements in media, politics and their penetration across the globe. It is hoped that this humble effort will help students of religion to some scholarly ways of looking at new paradigms of religious thinking in Japan.

2012

Winner of the SSSR 2013-Distinguished Book of the Year Award. "Throughout its long history, Japan had no concept of what we call “religion.” There was no corresponding Japanese word, nor anything close to its meaning. But when American warships appeared off the coast of Japan in 1853 and forced the Japanese government to sign treaties demanding, among other things, freedom of religion, the country had to contend with this Western idea. In this book, Jason Ananda Josephson reveals how Japanese officials invented religion in Japan and traces the sweeping intellectual, legal, and cultural changes that followed. More than a tale of oppression or hegemony, Josephson’s account demonstrates that the process of articulating religion offered the Japanese state a valuable opportunity. In addition to carving out space for belief in Christianity and certain forms of Buddhism, Japanese officials excluded Shinto from the category. Instead, they enshrined it as a national ideology while relegating the popular practices of indigenous shamans and female mediums to the category of “superstitions”—and thus beyond the sphere of tolerance. Josephson argues that the invention of religion in Japan was a politically charged, boundary-drawing exercise that not only extensively reclassified the inherited materials of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shinto to lasting effect, but also reshaped, in subtle but significant ways, our own formulation of the concept of religion today. This ambitious and wide-ranging book contributes an important perspective to broader debates on the nature of religion, the secular, science, and superstition."