How to Cultivate a Mass Movement: Buddhism, Education, and the Rise of Soka Gakkai, Japan's Largest Active Religion

By Levi McLaughlin, Department of Religion, Princeton University

Though too often ignored, the growth of new mass religious movements represents an integral part of modern Japanese social development. One organization emerged in the decades following World War Two to dominate Japan's religious landscape: Soka Gakkai, literally the "Value Creation Study Association," a Japanese lay Buddhist movement that is not only Japan’s largest active religion but also the largest active independent organization of any kind in Japan today. Soka Gakkai is well known for its committed membership, its schools, media empire, and particularly for its connection to electoral politics through its affiliated political party Komeito. However, despite Soka Gakkai's prominence, recent years have seen very little reliable scholarship on the movement, and no extended study to date has paid attention to the group's ordinary members. Drawing on archival research and years of non-member participant observation, including months spent living with Soka Gakkai families, studying for and taking the Soka Gakkai doctrinal examination, and playing violin with a Soka Gakkai symphony orchestra, I will introduce life inside Japan's largest lay Buddhist organization. In this presentation, I will consider case studies that exemplify how Soka Gakkai's origins in both Japanese Buddhism and Euro-American educational philosophies inform the lives of its grassroots practitioners. I will also discuss reasons for Soka Gakkai's unprecedented growth in the postwar era and ways Soka Gakkai's distinctive combination of Buddhism with modern educational ideals contributes to its continuing development as a politically active mass movement with millions of adherents.

Levi McLaughlin is a candidate for the Tung Lin Kok Yuen Canada Foundation Chair in Buddhism and Contemporary Society

Wednesday 7 January
12:00-1:15pm

INSTITUTE OF ASIAN RESEARCH, UBC
C.K. Choi Building Conference Room #120
1855 West Mall