The Resurgent Buddhism of the Soka Gakkai

Members of the Society are convinced that the Nichiren Shoshu Nichiren Orthodox Sect should spread—from Japan to the Orient and from the Orient to the whole world.…

If this published goal of Japan’s Soka Gakkai seems astonishing, the progress of the society has been no less astonishing. Membership has skyrocketed, according to Gakkai statistics, from about 5,000 families in 1951 to more than 5,000,000 families at the end of 1964. The present total of some 13,000,000 persons is nearly 15 per cent of the Japanese population. The immediate goal is to convert all of Japan by 1980.

The religious roots of the Soka Gakkai go back to Nichiren, the zealous and controversial Buddhist iconoclast of thirteenth-century Japan. Nichiren was a fearless priest and prophet of the Mahayana Tendai tradition whose scathing vituperative was directed against all religious rivals. He accepted the Lotus Sutra scripture as Buddhism’s final authority and claimed to be the real Buddha of the age whose advent it prophesied. He repeatedly admonished the government to establish his Buddhism as the national faith.

Of the numerous Buddhist sects in Japan, the Nichiren Orthodox Sect is perhaps the most intransigent. It claims to have enshrined the greatest of all objects of worship at Head Temple Taisekiji near famed Mt. Fuji in central Japan. This object, a plaque of camphor wood bearing an inscription by Nichiren, is called the Honzon. Thousands every day from all over Japan bow before the Honzon and repeat the words of homage, “Hail, Glorious Sutra of the Wonderful Law.” To them, Taisekiji is the center of the universe.

The philosophical roots of the Gakkai arose from a pedagogical society begun in the late twenties by Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, a Tokyo schoolteacher and author. Makiguchi developed what he called the “value-creation principle,” whose essence was that truth as such is not related to man’s happiness. Any truth simply is; it is not malleable or subject to change in accordance with man’s usages. The really significant quest is said to be, not “What is truth?,” but “What benefits man?” The axiological triumvirate is benefit, goodness, and beauty, and these are regarded as relative and plastic. Man is free to decide what is beneficial, good, and beautiful in terms of his aims. Once this decision is made he can set to work “creating” value.

In 1928, Makiguchi and a protege, Josei Toda, were converted to the Nichiren Orthodox Sect. As they brought about a somewhat tenuous synthesis between Makiguchi’s philosophical relativism and Nichiren’s religious absolutism, the society became increasingly preoccupied with religious issues. It eventually evolved into a lay auxiliary of the religious sect. Openly critical of State Shinto and the war policy, Gakkai leaders refused the talismans of the shrines and were finally arrested on charges of lese majesty. Most of those imprisoned modified their position and were released, but Makiguchi died in jail as a martyr for the faith. Toda used his time in prison to study Buddhist scriptures, and upon hearing of Makiguchi’s death he dedicated himself to the propagation of “true Buddhism.”

The milieu in postwar Japan was made to order for Toda. He reorganized the society and called it the Soka Gakkai (Value-Creation Society). He fashioned a rhetoric and perfected an organization and methodology that he propounded in forceful lectures and lucid books. Hundreds of thousands were immediately attracted to the egotistical, earthy fanatic who personified rebirth and promised utopia. In 1951 Toda initiated the “Great Shakubuku Advance,” shakubuku being the name of the method by which the society has achieved such astounding success. It means “coercive propagation” and involves beating down “heretical” beliefs and securing submission to the faith of Nichiren.

A flood tide of attractive literature asserts that heretical religion is responsible for defeat in war and continuing social ills. Political leaders are said to be self-seeking, factional, and corrupt. The Honzon is promoted as a “happiness machine” that dispenses money, job promotion, health, national prosperity, international peace, and eventual Buddhahood. As a harbinger of the latter state, the society teaches that true believers experience tranquil deaths after which the complexion becomes fair and the corpse soft and light as cotton. Hundreds testify to the alleged benefits.

The Gakkai has a highly complex and efficient organization ranging from the president and board of directors through areawide branches down to the local groups. Most adherents master a simplified set of teachings that enables them to propagate the faith, and many go on to take examinations that qualify them for special recognition and increased responsibility. Huge rallies feature athletic exhibitions, choral and band music, and endless parades.

In the past, militancy, intimidation, and even violence by bands of Gakkai youths have accompanied the propaganda. The strategy changed somewhat with the death of Toda in 1958 and the inauguration of young, handsome, executive-type Daisaku Ikeda as president in 1960. Ikeda calls for a more ameliorative approach and has shifted the battleground of shakubuku to the zadankai (discussion meetings) of the small, local groups of believers. Thus the society reaches the masses, not by gathering them in huge rallies, but by compelling attendance at the little group meetings.

The Soka Gakkai made its political debut in 1955. Success was immediate and phenomenal. By 1964 the Gakkai was able to muster enough votes to elect 964 candidates to regional councils and all of its fifteen candidates to Japan’s House of Councilors. In spite of previous assurances that it was not a political organization, the society launched the “Clean Government Party” on November 17, 1964. The party claims to be middle-of-the-road in the East-West conflict, favors a program of social welfare, and opposes the abolition of the no-war clause in Japan’s constitution. It also aims at the establishment of a so-called “Third Civilization” which will be realized through the fusion of Nichiren Buddhism and politics. A special honzon is reserved for the use of the emperor when this “Buddhist democracy” becomes a reality. Though society leaders deny any intention of establishing a state religion, their writings prescribe legal means for perpetuating it.

Among relics preserved at Taisekiji, there is a tooth of Nichiren bequeathed by a disciple who said that when a piece of attached flesh grew completely around the tooth, the time would be ripe for worldwide propagation of the faith. Soka Gakkai leaders say the growth had completely encircled the tooth by the time High Priest Nittatsu acceded to office in 1959. Leaders therefore are working to take the “true Buddhism” back to India and around the world. Ikeda has helped to establish groups of believers in North and South America and Europe as well as in several countries in the Orient.

While purportedly espousing democracy in their small groups, the movement fosters absolute authoritarianism in its society as a whole. In politics it espouses a Buddhist democracy—a fusion between Buddhist teaching and politics—which becomes the antithesis of democratic government.

The strength of the Christian witness, over against Soka Gakkai, remains. For the cult exploits the immediate, post-war responses of the Japanese people to the neglect of long-range issues of truth. A pragmatic and relativistic philosophy jeopardizes its epistemological stability. Its rhetoric leads from utilitarianism and relativism to ultimate religion and absolutism: the highest good comes from worshiping the Honzon. But Christ’s confrontation of Nichiren remains; while absolute authority is claimed for Nichiren, he has admittedly transgressed Buddhist law.

One Japanese pastor observes that, for all the cult’s emphasis on happiness, its followers still have an inner vacuum that preserves an interest in the Christian offer of inner peace. DAVID J. HESSELGRAVE.

The Saints At Thessalonica

Members of the tiny Protestant community of Thessaloniki, the biblical site which is now Greece’s second city, are putting finishing touches on a “Gospel Hall” of their own after meeting in rented quarters for thirty years. Spokesmen for the newly built church say they still need about $5,000 to furnish the building.

Rebels And Causes

A story about Speakers’ Corner in London purports to quote the words of a stolid bobby directing people at the gate of Hyde Park: “Those in favor of burning down Buckingham Palace, on the right; those plotting to blow up the Houses of Parliament, on the left.” The story is doubtless apocryphal, but it truly reflects a cosmopolitan institution that could flourish only under English skies.

Here on a Sunday afternoon converges a motley collection of individualists to hold forth in an atmosphere of high good humor, putting the world right, setting brother against brother, and exchanging frightful insults with fellow speakers and with hecklers. All, that is, but the Man with the Silent Message, who just stands aloofly on his platform. A smiling young man with a peculiar swaying motion is selling Onkism to a fascinated audience who don’t understand a word of it, yet feel they are on the verge of hearing something for their soul’s good. “I am sick of all the isms,” he yells at them, “because isms bring schisms, and there are as many divisions in the schisms as there are schisms in the isms.” An impatient hearer in a cloth cap gets a word in at last: “Hey, Mac, what are you talking about?” The Onkist fixes him with a compassionate eye, then in lofty tones refers the questioner to the Book of Onk, chapter 1980, verse one-million-and-something: “All is Onk, and Onk is all.”

The Man with the Tattooed Face is boasting as usual that he’d been deported from America, while the Irish Anti-Partitionist nearby is settling the age-old problem of the six counties. “What are you doing in our country?” an African speaker on immigration challenges an interrupter. “Why don’t you go back to Australia?” The Singing Woman, who is in particularly good voice, is making some extremely personal remarks about a fat little speaker before she bursts into more Victorian ballads. The fat man ignores her, but finally gives up and hands over his platform to a West Indian, to whom he gives a muttered word of encouragement: “Carry on with the old rubbish.” The West Indian immediately becomes the target for a heckler who has a low view of the new man’s mental capacity. The latter proves himself no slouch. “My friend,” he retorts, “if I am stupid, then that’s an accepted fact. But you are even stupider, because you stand there and listen to me.”

Notably absent on this showery Sunday in mid-April is any sort of orthodox Christian message. A little group of elderly people stand singing evangelical choruses of poor quality, one after another, under a banner inscribed on one side “FLEE FROM THE WRATH TO COME,” and on the other “THE END Is AT HAND,” but none of them deigns to interpret these somewhat unhelpful warnings.

A few yards off, a large crowd gathers round an elderly man in a clerical collar who is defending the government’s new budget and belaboring the opposition. To a heckler in the crowd he replies: “That’s just what I’ve been saying, if you’d only listen.” Then (taking the crowd into his confidence), “I know it must be very embarrassing for our friend here to have people agree with him, but I must insist on doing it.…” On this speaker’s platform are the words: “West London Methodist Church.” He is Dr. Donald O. Soper. Attracted by the man, some listen a while, then depart, perhaps wishing he had spoken a good word for Jesus Christ. Maybe he was leading up to it.

J. D. DOUGLAS

Revision And Relevance

The Synod of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), representing the “state” churches in East and West Germany, met this spring in simultaneous sessions in Frankfurt and Magdeburg to celebrate revision of the entire Luther Bible, then fell into endless disagreement over what the Bible has to say to modern man.

Bishop Otto Dibelius, Evangelical Bishop of Berlin and stalwart foe of atheistic Communism, turned the completed revision over to Dr. Kurt Scharf, chairman of the Council of EKD. Dibelius had served as president of the revision committee.

Messages based on the revision soon propelled the gathering of German theologians and delegates into spirited debate over the modern relevance of the Bible. The speakers reflected questions being asked in the churches, in religious instruction classes, and more and more by the man in the street when he opens the Bible: With theology itself getting more complicated and self-contradictory, can Scripture be simply and naively believed? Hasn’t historical research undermined many Bible statements? Can verses written 2,000 years ago still be taken literally under changed conditions?

Dr. Scharf hoped the synod, elected assembly of the church, would speak “a clarifying word.”

But Professor Helmut Gollwitzer, substituting for Bishop Hanns Lilje, asserted that “the problems are too difficult and cannot be solved with the left hand.” He insisted that scientific discussion among the theologians must be “free” and declared that the historical-critical method is just as competent as the existential interpretation of the Bible.

“In the Holy Scriptures there is kept for us what people in a distinct historical situation have proclaimed to be the word and will of God,” said Gollwitzer. “Through all this … can and must be revealed to us today what God wants to say to us today. But this is only possible if we recognize that the word of that time was determined by that time.”

Edmund A. Bieneck, national president of the YMCAs of Germany, rejected the idea that Bible research must be “free in principle.” He contrasted the complicated intricacies of some theologians with the believer’s simple faith and experience: “The more simple and naive the proclamation of the Word of the Cross, the profounder the effects—even today.”

Although the Berlin theologian Heinrich Vogel championed the historical-critical method, he criticized those who existentialize the Bible. “Sometimes it seems,” he said, “as if we sit not in an auditorium of theology but in a workshop of pathology.”

Professor Delekat of Mainz voiced regret that theology now influences those outside the Church more than the congregation’s proclamation of the Gospel. Professor Walter Kreck of Bonn, noting that “the sharpened knives of the theologians are directed at each other,” took the counter-offensive. Theology has the right and duty, he argued, to destroy the congregation in a certain way. “Worse than modern theology,” he said, would be self-security, demand for representation, and conformity.

Gollwitzer too insisted: “If we leave historical Bible research to the non-Christians and to the enemies of the Christian faith, then we wouldn’t honor the Bible, but dishonor it.”

But Erlangen Professor Walter Künneth thrust aside Gollwitzer’s contention that biblical truth is not dependent upon the historical question. “If what the Bible records didn’t actually happen, then we may as well close the Book,” kunneth replied.

The synod adjourned without reestablishing “a good theological conscience” in the midst of doubts. The Frankfurt assembly gratefully accepted the conclusion of the Magdeburg assembly to encourage pastors, despite all difficulties, to continue working with the Bible with persistent prayer, vigilant readiness, and concentrated thought.

“With the long breath of trust in the self-evidence of the Word of God,” the synod decided that the Council of EkD should call together a committee of theologians, giving them “time and freedom” to “find a clarifying answer.”

PETER SCHNEIDER

The Palm Sunday Tornadoes

The world headquarters of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Marion, Indiana, was badly damaged by one of the series of tornadoes which swept through the Midwest on Palm Sunday, April 11. Approximately two-thirds of the building, valued at $600,000, was destroyed. Marion College, the denominational school located nearby, escaped the tornadoes with only a few broken windows.

The same tornado swirled about a Nazarene church in Marion where some sixty persons were participating in a service. People were reported injured on all sides of the church, but the church was not damaged and no one inside was hurt.

In Shipshewana, Indiana, the Shores Mennonite Church disappeared in the storm. The tornado struck just a half hour before a service was to start there. Fourteen persons lost their lives in Shipshewana, most of them members of Amish and Mennonite religious groups which forbid the use of modern transportation and communications devices. Much of the community had no way of receiving storm warnings.

An Honest Confession …

Are reports of Roman Catholic renewal mere propaganda or window dressing?

David J. du Plessis, confidant of ecumenists and Pentecostalist extraordinary, thinks not. He offers some biblical advice in his April newsletter and lays bare some old prejudices.

“Remembering how bitter my heart used to be against Roman Catholics, and how prejudiced I was against anything tainted with Catholicism,” says du Plessis, “I am not surprised at the skepticism of Protestant and Pentecostal people regarding the phenomenal change that is taking place in the Roman Catholic Church around the world.”

The controversial minister, whose spring speaking engagements range from one at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana, to another at the Missionary Orientation Center in Stony Point, New York, insists that “the Holy Spirit is certainly moving upon Roman Catholic flesh.”

He says that Roman Catholics “are reading the Bible and they are showing a real regard for others. If you find it hard to trust them, then remember how hard it must have been for the Christians in Jerusalem to trust Saul of Tarsus.”

Evolution Vs. Evolutionism

Biology texts now used by high school students around the country tend to deal more extensively and explicitly with evolutionary theory. These texts represent a trend in the biological science publishing field begun about five years ago. As such, they are arousing considerable indignation in many evangelical parents across the country. The parents feel that the books are undermining the faith of their children, especially in that they pose a conflict with the biblical account of creation and leave the children with a distrust for the Bible. Some parents, therefore, have sought by legal means to prohibit the use of biology texts they consider objectionable.

Part of the problem is that evolution has been an extremely sensitive issue. Fundamentalists, feeling that ultimate tenets are involved, are ready to declare a national emergency at the mere mention of the word. Many are so unrelenting that they have built up images of evolutionary thought that are pure fiction. Oversensitive parents sometimes contribute unwittingly to skepticism in their children by insisting upon anti-evolutionary defenses in which the children readily see weaknesses.

In an effort to bring about a more reasoned approach by Christians, Dr. V. Elving Anderson of the University of Minnesota contributes an article, “Evolution vs. Evolutionism,” to the current issue of The Tie, a quarterly published by the Association of Evangelicals of St. Paul. Anderson, president of the evangelically oriented American Scientific Affiliation, is a member of Bethany Baptist Church (Baptist General Conference) in suburban St. Paul. He is associate professor of zoology and assistant director of the Dight Institute for Human Genetics, a research center on the Minnesota campus.

Anderson cautions religious groups against efforts to prohibit the use of the new high school biology texts, declaring he does not think that “external restrictions upon the teaching of evolution will win wide acceptance of belief in God.” Movements for such restrictions, he notes, “have arisen from a very sincere desire to uphold the relevance of the doctrine of creation as revealed in the Bible.”

He adds, however, that some of the anti-evolution arguments “reflect a theological position not widely held by evangelicals as well as a misunderstanding of the nature of science.”

Anderson suggested a four-point plan as an alternative to efforts to suppress the teaching of evolution:

1. “We need a renewed emphasis upon creation as an important theological doctrine. Man and all things that exist are dependent upon God who is Creator and Sustainer. God and ‘nature’ are not equivalent, for God is free and sovereign. The created order is good, and purpose can be seen in God’s providence. Man stands in a special relationship to God, for man alone is capable of response toward God.”

2.“People in the community should learn more about the basic objectives in the new high school science courses.… Students … must realize that scientific explanations are never final or ultimate, and that science cannot explore all problems of significance to mankind.… Science is not a sole and sufficient guide for life.”

3. A distinction should be made between “evolution” and “evolutionism.” The first term, Anderson said, “can be used to describe the aspect of biology which studies processes of change.” The second, he said, is an approach used by some scientists to construct an entire world view on the basis of the evolutionary theory. “It is important to realize that when a famous biologist such as Huxley denies the existence of God, he is stating his religious beliefs rather than a logical conclusion from his scientific investigations.”

4. “An adequate Sunday school and church program for high school students should permit and encourage the discussion of controversial questions within the context of faith.” Anderson suggests that pastors call upon laymen trained in science for information and advice.

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