Global Buddhism: Laicization or Decline

I would like to offer a commentary on the following article in Buddhist Door Global, which is an analysis of a 32-page feature article in Weekly Toyo Keiazi (Japanese only) which argues that Buddhism in Japan is destined to decline and disappear over the next twenty years. The Weekly Toyo reports that the majority of Japanese don’t express an interest in active participation or support for Buddhism, as well as other religions in Japan. “Participation and support” is defined as lay participation and support for traditional Buddhist institutions and hierarchies. This decline in lay ‘participation’ rates in Japan accelerated during the Pandemic, as we saw also in the West. The analysis looks specifically at the attendance of the laity at shrines, laity support for Buddhist temples and priests, laity requests for funerary services:

“For the past few decades, the temples’ reliance on funerals to keep afloat had fed into negative stereotypes of Buddhism as unconcerned with the real lives of real people: the Japan Buddhist Federation and Daiwa Securities, once jointly conducted a survey that exposed “how infrequently priests are called upon to cater to parishioners’ spiritual needs.”

My take is that what is happening in Japan is more precisely defined as the decline in institutional Buddhism. I see this trend echoed as well in the decline in ‘Church’ institutions in many religions, east and west. Those who are most invested in institutional Buddhism—the priests and religious hierarchy who are the beneficiaries of laity support; the military and political officials who use religious institutions to justify and consolidate their power with the populace, are those who are most threatened by this decline in institutional religion.

What I see in these trends is that those religions which resist laicization, that is, the transference of religious authority from the ordained to the laity, will suffer the greatest declines in participation and support. The emerging trend is a decrease in lay support for priests and ordained hierarchy having a monopoly on spiritual power as teachers, church leaders, and ritual practitioners. It’s a decline in priestly power, not necessarily a decline in popular interest in spiritual matters. Where Buddhism continues to spread and grow is where the laity are trained in meditation techniques and scholarly interpretation of Buddhist scriptures, roles usually reserved for the ordained class.

Furthermore, laicization also implies that religious organizations take an interest in the social, cultural and political issues that most affect the laity, i.e. “the real lives of real people”, that is secular issues. Thus laicization also implies secularization, that is, a concern for the secular lives of the laity. Those religious organizations that don’t take a serious interest in secular issues will face further decline.

The article characterizes the recent interest of Buddhist organizations in science and technology, artificial intelligence, robots, manga and anime as “gimmicks” used to attract the laity to temples and coax their financial support. I don’t see these as “gimmicks”; I see them as fumbling attempts to address contemporary issues that affect the lives of people in highly technologically advanced societies such as Japan, Korea and China. The laity look to Buddhism to help them make sense of these technological challenges and craft an ethical response that affirms human life and ecological integrity. Religious institutions that fail to meet this technological challenge, and cling to religious orthodoxy, will continue to decline.

Buddhist Door Global: Weekly Toyo Keizai: Buddhism Facing a “Life or Death Struggle” in Japan

• By Raymond Lam 
• June 16, 2023 

Is organized religion in Japan, including the country’s most venerable Buddhist institutions, on a path from which there is no return? A respected business weekly in circulation since 1895, the Weekly Toyo Keizai (Shūkan Tōyō Keizai), has published a leading article, titled “Religion’s Crisis of Disappearing” (宗教消滅危機), on the fading role of religions in Japan and their potential demise—or at least irrelevance—in the future. The article is dated 10 June.

This comprehensive, 32-page feature in the business weekly, which is aimed at executives, entrepreneurs, and investors, outlines how a “life or death struggle” is unfolding among the Buddhist community. Written by reporter Daiki Nonaka, the article lays the blame on a nexus of complex and potentially irretrievable problems: Japan’s declining birth rate and the double blow of an aging population, the depopulation of traditionally religious areas, the simplification of funerary rites (accelerated in the wake of the pandemic), and public scandals surrounding both traditional temples and lay religious groups.

Written in two parts—although the online version of the Weekly Toyo Keizai’s article is divided into three sections—each segment which is split into sub-sections, focuses on different factors for the long-term decline of organized religion in Japan. Part One outlines the depopulation of traditional areas of religiosity and scandals around older establishments, such as the embezzlement of temple funds. Furthermore, striking statistics around the collapse of favor for elaborate funerals, coupled with increasing competition among the funerary industry, has meant less business for temples. Part Two looks at the decline of so-called “new religions,” with separate parts devoted to the Buddhist lay organization Soka Gakkai, the Unification Church—which itself came under scrutiny following the assassination of ex-PM Shinzo Abe on 8 July 2022—the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Happy Science. (Japan Today)

Please read the rest of the article at Buddhist Door Global.