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T H E M E
N e w R e l i g i o u s M o v e m e n t s
I I A S N E W S L E T T E R # 4 7 S p r i n g 0 0 8
Maintaining ‘Japaneseness’:
the strategy of the Church of World Messianity in Brazil
Japan’s two and half centuries of isolation ended in the middle of the 19th century. Since then,
knowledge and activities of Japanese culture, people and religion have spread across the world. The
first known incidence of the propagation of Japanese religions overseas was in the 1890s when several
schools of Japanese Buddhism began to be practiced in Hawaii on the basis of Japanese migration
and settlement there. Thus over a century has passed since Japanese religion began proselytising
outside Japan.
does not fall short of the expectation we
may have; the most successful Japanese
religions in foreign cultural contexts are
those in the third category.
‘A pure Japanese policy’
Each Japanese new religion in Brazil has
tried to fulfill its own aims in terms of prop-
agation. To understand the organisational
aspects of Japanese new religions in Bra-
zil, it is useful to refer to related and sug-
gestive results from the study of Japanese
business abroad. Hulbert and Brandt, who
study Brazilian companies controlled by
multinational corporations (MNCs) head-
quartered in Japan, the United States, and
Europe, reach the following conclusion: in
the Brazilian offices of Japanese MNCs,
presidents are more likely to be Japanese,
and control by Japanese headquarters is
stricter than that of American and Euro-
pean MNCs (Hulbert and Brandt 1980).
Japanese MNCs have tried to maintain
the identities of their group’s companies
abroad by installing expatriate Japanese
managers as executives in these compa-
nies and maintaining strict control by the
headquarters in Japan. This strategy may
be called a ‘pure Japanese policy’.
Has Messianity adopted a ‘pure Japanese
policy’? The Church of World Messian-
ity of Brazil, (about which I published an
ethnography entitled Japanese Prayer below
the Equator), is a Japanese new religion
that has proselytised in Brazil (Matsuoka
2007). The Church of World Messian-
ity, a religion founded by Okada Mokichi
(1882-1955), has spread to 78 countries.
In terms of the number of followers, sig-
nificant countries are: the US, Canada,
Brazil, Peru and Argentina in the Ameri-
cas, Korea, Thailand and Sri Lanka in Asia,
Angola in Africa and Portugal in Europe.
It has approximately 2 million followers
world wide. Brazil has the second largest
number of followers (400,000) following
Thailand (600,000).
I will take the case of Messianity in Brazil
in order to introduce some principles of
organisational structure in new religions.
Messianity was introduced to Brazil in
1955. The group increased the number of
its followers steadily and claims that it has
400,000 followers in 2008, and that over
95 percent of them are non-ethnic Japa-
nese Brazilians. Messianity is best known
for its religious activity Jhorei - transmis-
sion of the light of God by holding one’s
hand over the recipient. Messianity’s doc-
trine and practice is strongly influenced by
that of Shinto, a Japanese traditional reli-
gion. For this reason, it might be consid-
ered that Messianity is rather out of place
in the Brazilian cultural milieu and very dif-
ferent from traditional Brazilian religious
orientations, which tend towards spirit-
ism and Roman Catholicism. However
in terms of doctrine and practice, there
are some aspects that indicate continuity
between Messianity and several influen-
tial Brazilian religions. An example is the
belief in the existence of the world of spir-
its from whom human beings may receive
transcendental power, a notion Messianity
shares with Kardecismo, a French spirit-
ism that has spread throughout Brazil,
and also with the Brazil-born spiritism,
Umbanda.
As mentioned earlier, it has been observed
that the percentage of non-ethnic Japa-
nese followers in Seicho-No-Ie, PL, and
Messianity exceeds 95 percent. There are
also many non-ethnic Japanese members
of the clergy in these groups. The higher
the rank of clergy, however, the higher the
proportion of ethnic Japanese, and the
presidents of the Brazilian chapters of
all of these three groups are ethnic Japa-
nese sent by Japanese headquarters. From
this data then, we can surmise that these
groups have adopted the ‘pure Japanese
policy’ within Nakamaki’s typology, but
major differences in the policies of these
three groups must also be accounted for. I
will try to elucidate Messianity’s policy for
maintaining its identity by comparing it
with those of the two other groups.
Seicho-No-Ie, which has been propagated
in Brazil since the 1930s, has many ethnic
Japanese Brazilian clergy, and the president
is a second-generation Japanese Brazilian.
By contrast, all successive presidents of PL
have been Japanese who were sent to Bra-
zil by the Japanese headquarters. They stay
in Brazil for seven to nine years and then
return to Japan. During this time, some
learn Portuguese, some do not. Gener-
ally they are not committed to speaking
Portuguese with the Brazilian followers.
In terms of leadership, Messianity differs
from both of these groups. The Brazilian
president of Messianity, Reverend Tetsuo
Watanabe has been in Brazil for almost 40
years. Since Watanabe holds significant
positions in Messianity’s global organisa-
tion, he travels frequently between Japan
and Brazil. Therefore, he addresses fol-
lowers only at special events such as The
Festival of Heaven on Earth, but he speaks
Portuguese very well and his dynamic
preaching style is popular with followers.
His speeches are regularly summarised in
the Jornal Messiânico, Messianity’s month-
ly journal. In 1992, there were 14 Rever-
ends (the highest rank in the Messianity
hierarchy) under Watanabe, 13 of whom
were Japanese who immigrated to Brazil in
the 1960’s for proselytisation. After almost
40 years in the country, the Japanese cler-
gy have assimilated into Brazilian culture,
although they sometimes make statements
such as: “I am not accustomed to feijão
(Brazilian popular boiled bean dish),” or
“I hope to send my daughter to Japan to
receive a college education there.” One of
them told me “we [Japanese Reverends]
are already half Brazilian.” In this way it
can be seen that Messianity, which sends
Japanese religious leaders from Japan for
a lifetime posting in Brazil, differs from PL
which follows the more corporate model
of sending ‘Japanese expatriate managers’
for a fixed term to Brazil, after which they
return to Japan.
According to Maeyama, an anthropolo-
gist who researched Japanese religions
in Brazil, in 1967 Messianity had around
7,000 committed followers and 60 to 70
percent of them were non-ethnic Japanese
Brazilians. When this figure is expanded
to include frequentador, those who have
not yet formally joined Messianity but visit
the church, 90 percent were non-ethnic
Japanese Brazilians (Maeyama 1983). The
percentage of ethnic Japanese among the
followers of six groups of Japanese new
Hideaki Matsuoka
J
apanese religions have been propagated
in Brazil since 1908 when the first group
of Japanese immigrants arrived there. Cur-
rently there are approximately 60 branches
of Japanese religions in Brazil and more
than ten have been engaged in active pros-
elytisation (Matsuoka and Ronan, 2007).
Among these religions, Japanese new
religions have been the most successful
in acquiring followers, overshadowing the
traditional Japanese religions, Buddhism
and Shinto. The three major Japanese new
religions in Brazil by number of followers
are Seicho-No-Ie (‘The House of Growth’)
(800,000 followers), Perfect Liberty (Per-
fect Liberty Kyodan in Japanese, henceforth
termed ‘PL’) (70,000) and The Church of
World Messianity (Sekai Kyusei Kyo, hence-
forth termed ‘Messianity’) (400,000).
Although these numbers may be inflated,
it is safe to say that there are at least one
million followers of Japanese new religions
in Brazil. This fact may not seem remark-
able when the reader considers that there
are over 1.2 million ethnic Japanese-Bra-
zilians from the first to the fifth genera-
tion, or that São Paulo city has the largest
Japanese immigrant population as a city
in the world. But it is important to point
out that over 95 percent of the followers
of these religions are non-ethnic Japanese
Brazilians.
By comparing Japanese religions and
companies stationed abroad, Nakamaki
proposes three categories of foreign-based
Japanese religions (Nakamaki 1986). The
first category is religions whose headquar-
ters in Japan have neither eagerness nor
policies to propagate abroad. Missionar-
ies of this type of religion must proselytise
in foreign countries without suggestions
or financial support from Japanese head-
quarters. Examples include Shinto shrines
in Hawaii. The second category includes
religions that try to proselytise in foreign
countries but only adopt some superficial
aspects of the host culture and make every
effort to maintain their own Japanese ways,
rituals and beliefs abroad. Most schools of
Japanese Buddhism and Tenri Kym are typi-
cal religions in this category. The third cat-
egory includes religions that try to grasp
the foreign culture positively and some-
times transform their established rituals to
fit into the religious arena of the host soci-
ety. Seicho-No-Ie, PL, and Messianity fall
into this category. What happens in reality
Followers gathering in front of the shrine at Messianity’s sacred place.