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Chapter Five Shin Buddhist Doctrine Reconstructed hanges in organizational style and rituals correspond to the rethinking of Shinran’s teaching in North America. The reinterpretation of Shin doctrine was triggered by theological challenges from Christianity, interaction with Buddhists from other traditions, and democratic principles in the United States. In the prewar period, the two branches of the Honganji sent scholar-priests (gakusō) to various academic institutions in the United States and Western Europe. Several Nishi Honganji kaikyōshi also attended American universities and received Master of Arts degrees.1 These priests, however, were unconcerned with the adaptation of Shin doctrine to a new environment. Therefore, the primary focus of this study is the intellectual activities conducted outside research institutions, namely , the work of Dr. Takeichi Takahashi, Reverend Itsuzō Kyōgoku, and Bishop Emyō Imamura. Their pursuits appear unrelated, as they were geographically separate and there is no evidence of correspondence among them. It is also dubious whether these men consciously reinterpreted Shin doctrine by responding to or initiating changes in organizational structure and rituals. But an examination of their modes of thinking, taken all together, suggests that there was a shift in doctrinal interpretation, since in their teaching and ministries they responded to Christianity, the basic teachings of the Buddha, and democratic principles. The sequence of this inquiry into the works of Takahashi, Kyōgoku, and Imamura is thematic. Takahashi studied Shin doctrine epistemologically, using John Dewey’s instrumentalism, while Kyōgoku took a more practical approach, considering the daily activities of the Issei and Nisei. Kyōgoku extended the notion of “experiment” proposed by Japan’s first religious philosopher, Manshi Kiyozawa (1863–1903), who was also a Higashi Honganji priest. Imamura, for his part, drew attention to the social dimension of Jōdō Shinshū and discussed democracy from a Buddhist perspective . Throughout the intellectual activities of these three individuals, pragmatism takes on a considerable role.2 110 C Shin Buddhist Doctrine Reconstructed 111 Along with the thematic arrangement, a caution is in order. In Shinranism in Mahayana Buddhism and the Modern World (1932; hereafter Shinranism ), Junjō Izumida and Takahashi are listed as coauthors. Izumida writes, “[Takahashi] advised me one day that he would like to write an English booklet on the True Sect in collaboration with me before his departure for the East, as a tribute to my past thirty years service for the American mission.”3 Noting the pragmatism that underpins this monograph, however, it is obvious that Takahashi was the primary author. The book is difficult to comprehend because of his use of abstract words and an unorganized style of writing, but he attempted to compare Shinran’s teaching with Western philosophy and Christian theology, and placed Shin doctrine within the Mahayana discourse by expounding on the significance of the Kyōgyōshinsh ō, Shinran’s magnum opus, and the Tannishō, the well-known Shin Buddhist text. Takahashi called Shinran’s teaching “Shinranism” and regarded it as a future-oriented, democratic religious outlook, though he does not thoroughly discuss what is meant by this. A problem plagues the case study of Kyōgoku. His materials, collected and explored for this study, were not written in the prewar period. He came to the United States in 1919 and stayed until his death in 1953. He began the tradition of bunsho dendō (literally, “propagation through sending letters”) after he had fallen ill and resigned as resident minister in September 1941. His new venture was interrupted by the war and internment , but after leaving the internment camp he resumed publishing the Buddhist journals Jikishin (Japanese) and Tri-Ratna (English). It is thought that more than five thousand copies of these journals circulated every month in more than ten countries, including Canada, South Korea, the Philippines, and countries in South America and Europe. The journals often included Kyōgoku’s sermons from the prewar period. So the present study considers the line of his thinking that appeared during the immediate postwar period as the consummation of Kyōgoku’s intellectual activity before World War II. Although this chapter makes a first attempt to introduce Takahashi’s and Kyōgoku’s scholarship and beliefs, other scholars have studied Imamura.4 Eileen Tamura discusses his achievements in relation to the ethnic identity of the Nisei in Hawaii, and Lori Pierce explores race and religion . The Japanese scholar Tomoe Moriya exclusively explores Imamura ’s intellectual activities and the management of the HHMH as a case study for the transformation of a Japanese religion in Hawaii...

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