Dynamism and the Ageing of a Japanese ‘New’ Religion

Abstract

for their feedback and for inviting us to share our preliminary thoughts with their students at Tübingen. We would also like to express our gratitude to colleagues who helped us complete this work by sharing research materials and publications, replying to our questions, joining us during fieldwork visits and inviting us to present our project at their institutions:

Perspectives on the Japanese new religion Tenrikyō: From global expansion to the development of a distinct “Tenri culture”

“…280-285, 287-290. See alsoMorishita (2009) andKato (2021a), who critique Clarke's binary in discussion of Tenrikyō's history in Australia and France, respectively.15 In their study of the new religion Agonshū (founded 1954),Baffelli and Reader (2019) detect a gradual loss of dynamism…”

“…15 15 In their study of the new religion Agonshū (founded 1954), Baffelli and Reader (2019) detect a gradual loss of dynamism with the aging and eventual death of its founder, Kiriyama Seiyū, and argue “that the aging process of new religious leaders and their movements—and the death of such founders—tends to lead them toward an inward‐looking conservatism” (p. 3). While I do not espouse a standardized template corresponding to the lifecycle of new religions, they, like any organization, undergo change over time.…”