K. M. University, India Christianity in the Land of Santhals: a study of Resistance and Acceptance in Historical Perspective(03U)

Miyanaga, Kuniko

The Reischauer Institute, Harvard University, Japan

Paradigm Change and Pluralism in Global Society(01H)

Western society has been behind the paradigm changes of our world. Are the responses from nation states in the non-West (including Japan) still effective in the 21st century? Taking Sekai Mahikari Bunmei Kyodan as my example, I would like to discuss possibilities of syntheses between tradition and global norms, and further suggest that they can be highly modern and still successful in global society.

Organized panel, Japanese
Miyanaga, Kuniko

The Reischauer Institute, Harvard University, Japan

Religious Education and Peace(03D)

*chairperson

Organized panel
Miyasaka, Kiyoshi

Keio University, Japan

The Organizational Process of Experiences of Shamanic Sickness – A Case Study of Ladakhi Shamans(08I)

In the study of so-called shamanic sickness, the way in which the patient's experience of this sickness can be influenced by interpretations made by figures of religious authority has not been discussed adequately. I argue that in the latter stage of shamanic sickness, a patient's experience of his sickness is heavily influenced by the way it is interpreted to him by figures of religious authority, and that it is this form of organizing experience which makes the practice of possession rituals possible. In my talk, I will draw on examples taken from shamans of the Tibetan Buddhist community in Ladakh, north India. In case of a shamanic sickness, the shaman in question may receive his diagnosis, instructions, and identification of his guardian spirits from senior shamans, a Rinpoche (high-ranking Buddhist monk) or other classes of Buddhist monks. The interpretations and instructions he receives from these figures greatly regulate the way a shaman understands his experiences afterwards.

Organized panel, Japanese
Miyata, Yoshiya

University of Tokyo, Japan

Origin-Religion Movement in China:The Case of Tao Yuna and World RedSwastika Society in Republican China(08I)

Organized panel

Mizugaki, Wataru

Kyoto University, Japan

The Role of the Wise in the Formation of Early Christian Thought(13N)

While the significance of the idea of wisdom in the early Christianity is well-known, the role of the wise in the formation of the Christian thought in the 2nd and 3rd centuries has received but scant attention. The apologists such as Justin, Alexandrian fathers such as Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian are worthy of the name of the wise who, in the Ciceronian sense, has knowledge of things divine and human. Their active role is to be seen in their efforts to give adequate expressions of the Christian Gospel in its encounter with the multi-cultural world.

Symposium, English
Mizugaki, Wataru

Kyoto University, Japan

Multicultural Situations and the Formation of Christianity in the Ancient Mediterranean World 2(14N)

The ancient Mediterranean World which had a own political and cultural unity was the place where Christianity was destined to form itself. The Roman Empire and the penetration of Hellenism offered a united common place to this world. This united structure of the ancient Mediterranean world stimulated the multi-cultural influx and risked even the foundation of this common world. In this paper we inquire into the multi-cultural situation of the ancient Mediterranean world and how it contributed to the formation of the rising Christianity. We will take up several concrete cases, for example, the confrontation of Christian monotheism with the polytheism of the ancient Mediterranean World, the role of the Wise in the formation of early Christian thought, and the problem of war for the Church.

Symposium, * Session Abstract, English
Mizutani, Makoto

Doshisha University, Japan

Schleiermacher and Religions(11Q)

Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768-1834), a German theorist of religion and Protestant theologian, studied religions and cultures in the modern world and their relationships from a deeper and wider viewpoint than any other of his contemporaries. His interests ranged from theology, theory of religion, and natural science theory to hermeneutics, education, aesthetics, and politics. In recent years, as the coexistence of diverse religious traditions has come to be taken for granted, his works are increasingly drawing attention as relevant and applicable contributions to finding solutions to the current set of problems facing the world. This panel presentation focuses on Schleiermacher as a pioneer in developing a modern theory of religion. I believe that Schleiermacher's theories on religion can contribute to establishing peace in the world, as his work on religion sought to provide a remedy to the lack of meaning experienced in the modern world and promoted a peaceful coexistence of the different religious traditions.

Organized panel, * Session Abstract, German
Mizutani, Makoto

Doshisha University, Japan

Schleiermacher and Religions(11Q)

*chairperson

Organized panel, German
Moberg, David O.

Marquette University, USA

Spirituality and Aging: Research and Implications(16J)

Increased attention to spirituality, which overlaps significantly with religion and is typically highest in old age, is a major recent trend in the sociology and psychology of religion. Spirituality is difficult to study because it infuses all human life and activity. Many research methods have been applied and many scales developed to measure aspects of it. In nations where Christianity is the dominant religion, it is significantly related to physical wellness, mental health, and other aspects of well-being, but practical applications of research findings are limited by complex cultural values, insufficient and deficient research, and ethical considerations. The unlimited opportunities for further research include the need to compare definitions and interpretations of "spirituality" in all of the diverse religious and ideological belief systems that claim to enhance it, and then to identify and evaluate relationships of each spirituality to quality of life.

Organized panel, English
Mochizuki, Kaie

Minobusan University, Japan

What the Harmonizing of the Madhyamika Idea with the Yogacara Idea in "the Great Madhyamaka" Means - Dilemma between Conflict and Harmony in the History of Indian Buddhism(07M)

The history of religion is a history of dilemma between conflict and harmony. It has two aspects, that is to say, a worldly level and a dogmatic level. For example, we can see the first as the process to harmonize religions with the social system and the second as a conflict between religious schools or within a religious school. Dipamkarasrijnana (Atisa, 982-1054) introduces dogmatic harmonization into Buddhism in order to overcome dogmatic conflicts within Buddhism. Following his teacher, Ratnakarasanti, he unites the idea of Madhyamika and that of Yogacara under the name of "the great Madhyamaka." I will attempt to make its philosophical background clear and consider its meaning to adopt it in a dogmatic level.

Organized panel, Japanese
Mohr, Michel

Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture, Japan

Toward the Rediscovery of Non-Sectarian Buddhism(02B)

The starting point of this panel is the thesis of Murakami Senshoo, who taught at Tokyo University since 1890. We will first examine Murakami's ideas, ""rediscovery"" pointing at our contemporary rediscovery of such ideas forgotten for almost a century, and explore similar trends. The crisis experienced by many Japanese Buddhists during the Meiji and Taisho eras can be understood as the result of tensions between the quest for universality and the attempt to preserve tradition. We will examine the case of Murakami Senshoo and his Bukkyoo tooitsuron (About the Unity of Buddhism) published between 1901 and 1905, and see how his ideas have been received. The panel will focus on the role of Buddhism in intellectual history during and after the Meiji era, including its interaction with the socio-historical context. The critical examination of this period will, or course, entail a larger questioning about the present state of Japanese Buddhism.

Organized panel, * Session Abstract, English
Mohr, Michel

Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture, Japan

Murakami Sensho and His Theory about the Fundamental Unity of Buddhism: A Genuine Attempt to Go Beyond the Sectarian Horizon?(02B)

This paper will investigate the motivation that led Murakami Senshoo to claim that "Buddhism Is One." At first, Murakami's reasoning seems simple: He states that since all Buddhist schools stem from the historical Buddha, sectarian differences are the result of later accretions and historical developments. However, his pseudo-historical reconstructions combined with blind faith in the Sino-Japanese tradition do not meet the standard of today's scholarship. His stance nevertheless represents an important stage in Japanese Buddhist studies, marked by the concerns of society at that time, including the importance given to the new idea of a "nation." We must therefore ask whether Murakami was really envisioning a fusion of all Buddhist schools returning to their primal unity, or whether this was a guise for other motivations. My paper will analyze the implications of the concept of "unity" or "unification" in relation with the increasingly common confusion between "universality" and "hegemony."

Organized panel, English
Mohr, Michel

Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture, Japan

Varieties of Tokugawa Religion(12P)

*respondent

Organized panel
Mohr, Michel

Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture, Japan

Aspects of Japanese Religiosity(14P)

*chairperson

Organized panel
Molnar, Attila K.

Eotvos University/Pazmany Peter University, Hungary

Conscience and the Utopia of Reason(10C)

The paper deals with the idea of conscience from the point of view of the rather wide-spread utopia of reason. It will try to show how this utopia emerged from the fusions and reinterpretations of the several debating notions of conscience. Traditionally, the ideal man and community were seen as not forced. The reason took over the role of love as a basis of ideal, free and cooperative community. The old dream was to live without politics, power, enforcement and institutional authority. This antinomian hope is connected to the possibility of human goodness. The love became reason. Love as well as reason imply equality and the lack of force. The reason took the utopical role (reason "is kingdom of God within man.") and function of love (good conscience) in religious and political thinking at the end of the 17th century, and this change was transmitted by the notion of conscience. Conscience was interpreted as rational or mystic (emotional), and it was connected to the millenarian utopia - sweet harmony of peace and love. By means of conscience used in casuistry, a Millenarian hope was fused with the rationalist view of man.

Organized panel, English
Momose, Hibiki

Hokkaido University of Education, Iwamizawa Campus, Japan

The Change of Ancestor Worship Ceremony in Hokkaido Ainu and the Cultural Reviving Movement(08O)

The ancestor worship of Hokkaido Ainu called 'sinnurappa' or 'icarpa' etc. had done several times in a year for their ancestors, or it held months after the funeral for the specific dead. And also the ancestor of the man who had carried out a ceremony was worshiped after it. Moreover, it was known as the only ceremony that woman was able to participate in the act, and there were strict regulations about the object and the participant. Worship is done partially of the funeral or the Bon festival in each house or is held at the large-scale ceremony like the one connected to 'Ethnic Hero' and the cultural revival movements today. In this announcement, the feature and the change in ancestor worship 'Iare' of the Chikabumi provinces in Asahikawa City are shown. Moreover, the tendency to the cultural revival movement and its influence on the ceremony are discussed.

Organized panel, Japanese
Mongoven, Ann

Indiana University, USA

(06I)

The paper will contrast the tendency to view the beginning and end of life as moments in American bioethical policy with the tendency to view them as biological and social processes in Japanese bioethical policy. Of course, the stark contrast is an oversimplistic heuristic device, since both views percolate within both cultural contexts--with associated internal tension. In fact, that tension and the limits of either view are at play in numerous debates about beginning and end of life issues, in both the U.S. and Japan. I will argue that both conceptions are fundamentally religious, and that both have insights and excesses. I will use the conceptual contrast to explore differently perceived challenges of abortion and organ donation policy in the U.S. and Japan.

Organized panel, English
Mongoven, Ann

Indiana University, USA

Playing God? Deceiving Darwin? Comparative Bioethical Conversations on New Biotechnologies(06I)

This panel considers several axes of intersection between religion, culture, and biomedical ethics. The panel will address general challenges of bioethical ethical discourse: what conceptual categories are helpful ones for considering bioethical challenges and to what extent are those categories universal in structure, culturally unique in substantive content, neither or both? For example, what is the relevance of conceptions of nature, or of human virtues? The panel will integrate consideration of such theoretical questions with analyses of the use (or proposed uses) of several kinds of medical technology, in diverse cultural contexts. These technologies include human enhancement technologies, artificial reproductive technologies, and organ transplantation techniques.

Organized panel, * Session Abstract, English
Mongoven, Ann

Indiana University, USA

Religions and Care in Medical Contexts: The Comparative Studies of Spiritual Care beyond Cultures(12J)

*respondent

Organized panel
Mongoven, Ann

Indiana University, USA

"Gift of Life" or "Relay of Life?": Religious Influence on Organ Donation/Transplantation Policy, U.S.-Japan.(13J)

This paper explores religious influence on perceptions of organ donation/transplantation in the U.S. and Japan. Religious influences may partially explain differences in attitudes/policies on definition of death, pediatric transplant, live organ donation, and the priority of transplant in modern medicine. The contrast between American and Japanese slogans to encourage organ donation provides a starting point for consideration: is organ donation a "gift of life" (U.S.) or a "relay of life" (Japan)? What religious imagery may be conjured by these slogans? Why was the Japanese slogan developed specifically in reaction against a direct translation of the American one? My analysis considers the bodies of organ donators and transplant recipients as religious symbols, in two different cultural contexts, and articulates related policy implications.

Organized panel
Mongoven, Ann

Indiana University, USA

Religion and Healing (2)(15J)

*chairperson

Organized panel
Monma, Sachio

Surugadai University, Japan

Discriminatory Description in Buddhist Scripture(08N)

A discriminatory description in the Buddhist sutra is enumerated in the problem when the religion and the discrimination problem in Japan are considered. It is because of the idea that a discriminatory description of the Buddhist sutra has had a deep influence on various discriminations in Japan. This respect is discussed in this presentation.

Roundtable session, Japanese
Moravcikova, Michaela

Institute for State Church Relations, Slovakia

Religious Pluralism and Freedom of Religion in Slovakia(*joint presentation with Jozefciakova, Silvia; co-author with Greskova, Lucia)(05E)

Up to 1989, when the political change occurred from the totalitarian regime of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic towards democracy, religion was, in spirit of the Marxist philosophy, regarded as an enemy of the developing socialist society. The census did not ascertain religious allegiance, and research into the religiosity could be done only by institutes of scientific communism. Slovakia is gradually seeing a maturing of the questions of religiosity and consciousness of religiosity, alongside with a return to roots, which were hindered or torn up in the period before 1989, personal decision making and self-assignment of individuals to religious communities, on the basis of position in life, experience and decision making, search for a spiritual environment, which each of us can change, up to a definitive rejection of a specific church in the area of internal consciousness of a membership declared in the census. General approach about religious pluralism in Slovakia, trying to explain what are the real problems linked with the religiosity in the Slovak society, and how the law faces them. (*Joint Presentation with Jozefciakova, Silvia; co-author with Greskova, Lucia)

Organized panel
Mori, Hazuki

International Christian University, Japan

The Trap of Fighting Fundamentalism – as Seen through the Case of the Jodo-shinsu Shinran-kai(01H)

Fundamentalism is a system that aims at the construction or reconstruction of the members' identities through conflict. This conflict is primarily a means to return to the fundamental. Since the beginning of modernity, the enemies of fundamentalism have been moral relativists. Fundamentalism functions as an antithesis of moral relativism, and, to a certain extent, has worked in this role. However, it is difficult for fundamentalism to overcome or go beyond this role as the antithesis of moral relativism. Therefore it cannot offer a solution to the difficulty of Globalization as it is. In my presentation, I would like to examine the case of the Jodo-shinshu Shinran-kai as an example of such a fundamentalism in Japan.

Organized panel, Japanese
Mori, Kenji

Ibaraki Christian University, Japan

Changes in Consciousness Concerning Ancestor Worship and the Grave System in Contemporary Japan(04J)

Graves (tombs) were considered to be the objects of ancestor worship rather than a device for the memorializing of the dead in Japan. The Civil Code of the Meiji era stipulates "The ownership of the genealogical records of the house, of the utensils of house-worship, and of the family graves, belongs to the head of the household." The present-day civil code states that "The ownership of the genealogical records of the house, of the utensils of house-worship and of the family graves should be succeeded, according to custom, by a person who presides over religious services for the ancestors." However, due to the changing family structure and a declining birth rate, it has gradually become difficult to produce an atotsugi (successor) for the family and the continuation of religious worship is threatened. I will examine the changes in consciousness towards ancestor worship and the grave system in contemporary Japan.

Symposium, English
Mori, Kenji

Ibaraki Christian University, Japan

National Consciousness Concerning a War Dead Memorial Service Institution(05J)

Yasukuni shrine and Ise-jingu Grand Shrine were two of the most important institutions that supported pre-war State Shintoism in Japan. Yasukuni shrine also served as the national war dead memorial service institution. Following the war, taking into consideration the separation of shrine and state, Yasukuni shrine became a privatized religious corporation. Subsequently, there no longer exists a state-sponsored war dead memorial service institution in Japan. In recent years, China and Korea criticized the Prime Minister's worship at Yasukuni shrine, and this led even to a debate within the national government on the possible establishment of a national cemetery as a war dead memorial service institution. A nation-wide survey regarding consciousness on the war dead memorial service institution has been conducted in 2003, and on the basis of this survey I wish to argue the points concerning a Japanese war dead memorial service.

Symposium, English
Mori, Koichi

Doshisha University, Japan

President Bush's War against Terrorism(12B)

President Bush understood 9.11 as an attack on "civilization" and "freedom." His understanding of 9.11 and the logic of justification of the Iraqi War is related to the American Independence, American understanding of civilizations, and American ideas of mission. American understanding of civilizations and history developed since the Spanish and American War (1898), which was the first step for the United States toward the positive strategy for the world by the abundance of the Monroe Doctrine. This understanding of world civilizations, that is, the evolutional understanding of civilizations, has not changed. By analyzing President Bush's discourses on war after 9.11, especially his address to the nation on the one-year anniversary of 9.11, and by comparing it to President Lincoln's (who was also a President at war) discourse, I would like to point out the problematic points of Bush's just-war theory.

Organized panel, English
Mori, Shintaro

Japan

The Self and the Other in Muslim-Arab Intellectuals' Discourses on the Arabic Language(10O)

In the Arab cultural renaissance, which was launched in the Arabic-speaking area of the Ottoman Empire in the late nineteenth century, the Arabic language was considered a unifying factor for Arabic-speaking people regardless of their religion, and as a boundary marker between the Self and the Other. In the politicization process of Arab nationalism in Greater Syria, which had been under direct Ottoman rule, Arab nationalists invoked the Turks, above all, as the Other. That is, Arab-Muslims regarded the Turks, who were primarily Muslims, as the Other. This presentation looks at discourses by several Muslim-Arab intellectuals on the Arabic language in terms of its role as a boundary marker of national identity, and examines the process through which the self-image of the Arab as a nation was formed at the same time as the construction of the image of the Turk as the Other.

Organized panel, English
Mori, Yuria

Waseda University, Japan

The Transmission of the Precepts of the Quanzheng School in Qing China(10H)

In the complete perfection, or the Quanzhen, school after the Qing dynasty, the transmission of the precepts has been regarded as one of the most important sets of ritual established by Wang Chang-yue (b. 1594- d. 1680). However, extant texts provide evidence showing that a part of the transmission was modified through the intervention of a cult to Lü Dongbin long after the death of Wang. This fact helps us reconsider the relationships among various factors of religious traditions in late imperial China.

Organized panel
Morii, Toshiharu

Nagoya University, Japan

Shamanism and Revelation - the Case of Tenrikyo -(07F)

Organized panel, Japanese

Morii, Toshiharu

Nagoya University, Japan