Introduction - Religion and Politics in Contemporary Japan - page 7

tolerate people of other beliefs, mostly coming from new religions, unless
these new religions complied with expected norms. The assumptions in the
modern context that religious is a sign of tolerance, and that new

religions in their emphasis on particular beliefs must therefore be intolerant,
need to be underpinned by further empirical research. As it is, the argument
rather lazily falls into deeming

' syncretism '

' tolerant ' that which is deemed ' established ' .

For instance, Nakamaki (2003) has argued that doctrinal di erences are

essentially unimportant for most people who as religious choose

a religion in the same way they choose between electrical appliances from
either Toshiba or Hitachi. Nakamaki concludes that only a minority of
Japanese are

' consumers '

, such as those belonging to Soka Gakkai, an
organisation he regards as un-Japanese in their

' brand loyalists '

' intolerance ' and ' exclusi-

vism ' . If we conclude that ' tolerance ' is the absence of debate or emphasis on

doctrinal di erence, Soka Gakkai will come across as intolerant.

While Soka Gakkai s particular reading of Nichiren (discussed in Chapter

1 ) is nowhere more conspicuous than in its

'

support for one poli-
tical party, political involvement of new religious groups has been common.
Some of the religious groups that had not dispersed during the war were able
to organise politically almost immediately. For example, in the

' exclusive '

rst post-war
House of Representatives election of 1946, eight candidates from traditional
Buddhist organisations and two from the new religious organisation Tenriky -
were elected. The following year in the House of Councillors election, candi-
dates from J - d - Shinshu Buddhism, the Soto school of Zen Buddhism and
the United Church of Christ in Japan were elected, while representatives from
new religious groups stood for election as well. In October 1951 many of
these new religious groups joined to form the Federation of New Religious
Organisations of Japan (Shin Nihon Sh - ky - Dantai Rengokai), which was in
1952 accepted by the more socially prestigious Japan Religious League
(Nihon Sh - ky - Renmei). This new cooperation also served as a base for some
new religious organisations entering the world of politics, such as Rissh -
K - seikai, although there was no united movement as such (Nakano 1996).
Rissh - K - seikai went on to be supporting certain LDP candidates. Other
examples could be given (see Nakano 1996), but it is clear that there was a
context of newly formed or forming religious and political alliances at the
time that made Soka Gakkai is political involvement less remarkable. What is

striking, however, still today, is the continuing success of a political party
primarily supported by one religious group.
As indicated above, Japan

'

s new religions have usually had a contentious
relationship with the national media, which has exercised a kind of self-
censorship that prevented reporting anything, and certainly anything positive,
about religious organisations (e.g. Mur - 2000; Hardacre 2003). This is despite
the fact that Japanese religious organisations get involved with serving the
public good in various ways. They run schools, hospitals, orphanages, homes
for the elderly, and museums; they organise concerts, exhibitions, collect aid
for disaster relief, and volunteer in a multitude of ways. Some of them, such

'