06/11/28 Bali, Pontifical Coucil for Culture



2006/11/28

“Increase our faith” (Luke 17:5):

Jesus Christ the Way to the Father:

The Challenge of Sects and Indifference to the Faith

Yoshio Oyanagi

Dean, Faculty of Informatics, Kogakuin University

Consultor of the Pontifical Council for Culture

His Eminence Cardinal Poupard, honorable bishops, fathers, brothers and sisters, it is my great pleasure to have a chance to make a presentation here about culture and faith in the Asian, especially Japanese context.

The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith’; and the Lord replied, ‘If you had faith no bigger even than a mustard-seed, you could say to this mulberry-tree, “Be rooted up and replanted in the sea”; and it would at once obey you.

1. Religions in Japan

First I would like to talk a little bit about the religious situation of Japan.

Is Japan a Buddhist country? Or a Confucian country? Or a Shintoist country? The answer would be yes and no. Japan accepted several sects of Mahayana Buddhism mainly from China. A great number of Japanese Buddhist monks visited China to absorb various trends in Buddhism from the 6th to 9th centuries. But around the 13th century there came out a big movement to formulate a new Japanese Buddhism and many new sects started. They are very different from the Buddhism in India or China. Until now Japan keeps Buddhism in this Japanized form.

In a similar manner Confucianism in Japan differs a lot from that in China or Korea. We respect superiors in families and organizations. The industriousness of the Japanese in labor, which is often pointed out as the source of the high level of technological and economic development over such a short period of time, may originate from the Confucian influence. However, we Japanese are not Confucians in the way that Koreans are.

All kinds of religious organizations, sects, temples, shrines, churches and congregations, are registered by the Japanese Government. The Government publishes a report on the religions in Japan every year. According to this statistics the total number of the faithful of all the religions is nearly twice the population. Japan is, contrary to the ordinary expectation, a very religious country. There are superfluous faiths in Japan. We need not ask the Lord: “increase our faith”! The secret is that most Japanese people are counted both as a supporter of a Buddhist temple and a member of a Shintoist shrine in a sense automatically. A Christian may be counted three times as a Buddhist, Shintoist and Christian.

You may ask how one can believe in two religions. There is a long history. Just when Japan accepted Buddhism in the 7th century, a new “theology” emerged which syncretized the Buddhism with Shintoism. According to the theology, each god in Shintoism was identified with one Buddha or Bodhisattva in Buddhism. Buddhism thus succeeded in living together with Shintoism in Japan. Today in many traditional Japanese houses both a Buddhist altar and a small Shintoist shrine just in this size are equipped.

2. Aum Shinri-kyo

What is the "religion" at all for Japanese people? This was my big question eleven years ago when the famous new cult "Aum Shinri Kyo" emerged and attacked Japanese society. This cult became known by the subway nerve gas (sarin) attack in 1995. It started in 1984 as a Yoga group and was acknowledged as a religious organization in 1989. “Aum” is the most sacred syllable in Hinduism, symbolizing the infinite Brahman and the entire universe. Shinri means truth and Kyo means religion in Japanese. Their teaching is a mixture of ancient Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, etc. They also had an apocalypticism and predicted “Harmagedon.” At that time there was a boom of occultism in Japan and it was accepted by young Japanese as an occultist sect.

The Aum Shinri-kyo sect committed kidnap, murder, sarin and cyanide attacks, drug production, sending parcel bomb, production of firearms, and so on. The leader Shoko Asahara was sentenced to death in September this year.

2.1 Aum as a criminal gang

Mass media reported Aum Shinri-kyo as a criminal gang. Their crimes were unparalleled in terms of the scale and audacity. However they were haphazard and had no concrete object. They were going to create Harmagedon by themselves without any vision after that. I will not go into detail about this point.

2.2 Aum as a fraud

Another aspect of the Aum Shinri-kyo is a fraudulent religion. Actually, they collected large amount of money by fraud. In Japan, there has been a large number of such kind of money collecting sects. A famous lawyer Mr. Sakamoto, severe critic of the Aum Shinri-kyo, criticized its money collecting aspect. But it is only one aspect of this sect.

2.3 Aum emerged in our society

Both scientific rationality and irrational occultism are intermingled in the Aum sect. That reflects the cultural situation of Japan. The Aum is not outside the modern Japanese culture. The point is that a charismatic guru gathered fanatic followers who share the same illusion and committed massacres and other crimes with them. We would miss the essence of the Aum, if we were to see their activities as accidental crimes. The Aum grew not outside but inside the Japanese society. The darkness we see in the Aum is the darkness in ourselves.

2.4 The bias of mass media reporting the Aum

In the development of the Aum incident, I came to feel out of place with the reports on the Aum. The first point was the criticisms to the Aum were similar to the criticisms to the Christianity. The mass media criticized that the Aum made young people give up their home and live in their facilities. It is, however, quite similar to the young Catholic entering seminary or monastery. I noticed at that time that if we criticized the Aum together with the mass media, we would be caught up in their view on religions.

A religion should have a message to the society. Consequently, it has something different with the value system of the society, so that there is always a tension between the religion and the society. The Christianity also has a message which is not accepted by the Japanese society. We cannot fully agree with the mass media in criticizing the Aum.

3 Aum as a Religion

I am interested in the religious aspect of the Aum. It is needless to say that the Aum is a totally unreasonable and anti-human religion. The Aum trials revealed their irresponsibility and self-centeredness. We cannot, however, neglect the fact that it fascinated so many young people. We have to see why the Aum was so attractive. Various new age religious sects which came up in diverse forms reflect the modern society and culture and also have close relationship with the established religions including Christianity. A dark side of such sects should be considered as our own challenge.

3.1 The Aum and Christianity

Syncretic aspect of the Aum sect may be considered to be in line with Japanese traditional religions but the other aspects were quite contrary to those. The mass media and Japanese society criticized the Aum in terms of their own view of religions. We have to be critical to what they think of religions.

I was impressed that the Aum borrowed a number of concepts and methodology from Christianity, although superficially. I was surprised to find technical terms of religions like initiation became so popular in Japan due to the Aum. In the Aum sect, the initiation was something like a meditation of death and a pseudo-mystical experience using LSD. Outwardedly, however, it is quite close to the Christian initiation, i.e. baptism, in which we die in sacrament and rise again as a new human being.

The Aum urged, contrary to Buddhism or Shintoism in Japan, every believer to observe ascetic exercise and recommended forsaking the world and becoming a religious. It was an unusual religion from the viewpoint of the Japanese.

"TIME" magazine (April 3, 1995) published a long report on this sect, in which it quoted the words of an ex-member. He said, "They promise you heaven, but they make you live in hell." I was very much frustrated to read that. It is right to criticize the deceptiveness and foolishness of this sect. However to live a hellish life hoping for heaven is what the true religion should be like. Think of the life of St. Maximilian Kolbe, who was executed by starvation in a Nazi concentration camp in place of a married man. God promised him heaven but God made him live in hell.

3.2 What Japanese think of Religion?

This shows a great misconception in Japan about religions. For ordinary Japanese, a religion is something which gives you peace in heart and earthly happiness. That is the reason why many Japanese people, especially intellectuals, despise religions and are indifferent to religious faiths. As I described before, the Buddhism was deformed in Japan, or maybe in China, to a religion for earthly happiness, in contrast to the original Buddhism, which emphasized the emancipation from worldly attachments, i.e. salvation from the bondage of this world. In Japan, even the Christianity might well be accepted as a method to get a happy life by ordinary Japanese Christians.

3.3 Challenges to Christianity

The consideration of the Aum sect reminds us of the pathology of the modern Japanese society and its thirst for the genuine religiosity. Does the Christianity sincerely respond to such request? We have to show the real identity of Christianity.

4 Aum as a Corrupt Religion

So far I have described the Aum sect as an attractive religion. There is, however, another aspect: the Aum sect reflects the corrupt features of the established religions, including Christianity. For instance, it was often reported that the Aum sect swindled money from the faithful. Love of money is not alien from many religious organizations, even with good intentions.

A Japanese bishop wrote a critical article on the Aum sect in a diocesan news in 1995. I would like to note that every item in his article to criticize the Aum is relevant also to the Catholic Church. We have to examine ourselves upon our attitude in the society.

4.1 Dialog and Collaboration

He pointed out the lack of dialog in the Aum sect. One of the defects of the Aum and other fundamental sects is the lack of mutual respect and dialog. We should consider at the same time whether the Christianity failed in dialog and collaboration in the history. Until the second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church shut herself off from the world and one-sidedly criticized the modern culture rather than collaborating with people of good will. Do we still have such attitude? We should seriously examine ourselves.

4.2 Obedience and Independence

He also blamed the Aum sect for the absolute adoration and blind obedience to its leader, Shoko Asahara. Absolute obedience to the leader forbids the faithful to assume the attitude to think and act according to one’s conscience. This criticism is true. Religious leaders are sometimes attracted to such obedient followers. Unfortunately, even in current Catholic Church some priests do not like healthy critical spirit.

4.3 Eschatology and Hell

He (the bishop) continued to point out the eschatology of the Aum sect. In the turn of the history, eschatological messages aroused a great hope in scared people. It is often seen in past religious organizations that lead the faithful through the fear of the doomsday or the hell. The Aum is one of them and some trends in the Catholic Church also rely on the fear.

4.4 Formation of the Faithful

Blaise Pascal wrote, “The crime committed by those who believe in God could be more terrible than that by those who do not believe in God.” Since religious organizations are operated by the authority are apt to have insufficient check. People often think that the good purpose justifies the means. The Aum sect is a typical example. In order that an organization may function healthily, leaders are required to be self-restraint and the faithful to be fully matured. The formation of the faithful is very important in this respect. Religious leaders tend to show their power by making the members act as they like. On the other hand, the members or the faithful actually welcomes blind obedience to such leadership.

5 The Aum as a Pathology of the Society

The Aum event showed that the modern man, especially youngsters, feel a great craving for religions and that the established religions do not meet their desire. The Aum Shinri-kyo should be considered not in terms of its abnormality but why young serious people were charmed by it.

5.1 Crisis in Civilizations

One of the followers of the Aum said, “If our highly controlled hi-tech society speeds up further, our spirit will be oppressed and devastated and in the near future we may bring about a big catastrophe ourselves. I felt such crisis when I was a high school boy.” This feeling is understandable but we cannot understand that he thought that this crisis could be solved by following the Aum guru. There is a big contrast between his keen sensitivity and his hope for the instant salvation through the Aum.

5.2 Religion and Science

It was notable that the central young figures of the Aum sect had a high background of science and technology. People wondered why students of such high career entered the Aum. I presume that their understanding of science and technology had some weak point, i.e. they accepted scientific knowledge as given without thinking how it came out. That is common in our Japanese society. Such understanding of science can easily leads either to scientism, which think science tells everything, or to occultism like the Aum.

5.3 Religious Indifference and the Aum

Since 1970’s there has been a trend in young people in Japan to avoid serious thinking of such problems like the ideal or the moral. If a friend speaks of such topic, they think he should be an agent from a secret religious organization. For this reason current Japanese university students are indifferent to religious thinking. At the same time they are quite reluctant even to understand others. Such cynicism caused some reactions, one of which was the Aum sect. Seriously thinking students are prone to such fundamental sects like the Aum.

6 Conclusions

The Aum incident shows that the young people have deep religious desire and the established religions were not able to answer their desire. At the same time, it was made clear that the Japanese modern society does not understand the religion in the correct way. Consequently, most Japanese people are indifferent to religions. On the other hand, our criticism to the Aum urges our self-examination of the Christianity. This incident shows serious problems in the modern Japanese society. Ten years passed after the subway nerve-gas attack and this sect is still active under changed name Aleph. This problem should be considered from various view point.

Lord said to the disciples, “I tell you, then, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours.” (Mark 11:24)

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