More than a decade has now passed since Falun Gong was suppressed by the Chinese government in July 1999. Until the suppression, Falun Gong's activities were largely confined to China itself. Any overseas presence that the movement had was, in a sense, accidental, the result of informal expansion amongst expatriate Chinese or, very rarely, amongst westerners who had come into contact with it through friends in China or overseas. The homeland of the movement was China, the cultural universe of Falun Gong doctrine was Chinese, and the language of the scriptures was Chinese. After 1999, however, this situation changed. Now based in the New York area, Falun Gong became a diasporic organization, a collection of co-religionists scattered around the globe who were prevented from returning to their homeland. This literal de-centring of the movement changed the status of the previously relatively insignificant number of overseas practitioners of Falun Gong. They have now become an international network of communities of loyal activists engaged in a range of activities such as lobbying for the Falun Gong cause with their host governments, keeping the message of the brutality of the suppression alive and at the forefront of the minds of the foreign media, as well, of course, as maintaining their cultivation practice.

Sekai Kyūsei Kyō [Church of World Messianity] (hereafter SKK) is well known as a Japanese new religion from which many offshoots have sprung. The religious organizations arising from SKK, and those religious organizations strongly affected by SKK, are often referred to as the ‘Sekai Kyūsei Kyō lineage (kei)’ organizations. The incidence of new groups branching off is common to both new and old religious organizations. To make an effective study of this process of schism it is very important to explore religions like SKK from which many offshoots have originated. This chapter will focus on SKK in South Korea, and will attempt to analyse the reasons for the formation of these offshoots from the perspective of management studies of religion.

Firstly, I will discuss ‘management studies of religion’, and give an overview of the current situation of Japanese religions in South Korea, and the development of SKK there. Then, I will explore the management system of the organization and the formation of offshoots from Kyūsei Kyō with particular reference to the ‘management of secrets’.

What is ‘management studies of religion’?

Briefly ‘management studies of religion’ in the context of this chapter is the study of the administration and operations of a religious system. I have chosen not to refer to the existing studies of religion or the sociology of religion. Rather, by fundamentally re-grasping the word, ‘management’, we can combine findings from management studies and religious studies, including how they interact with each other.

Post-war peace movements and religious groups

Religious groups expand their management and power in relation to the value consciousness of the general public. In the era when the borders of the Japanese nation state were firmly established, the strategies pursued by religious groups developed in relation to national values: either by going along with values promoted by the nation while evading state control, or by pursuing an independent course, and proclaiming their own religious values distinct from national values. This is an issue of the value strategies of religious groups. With the progress of globalization, however, value strategies once accepted in Japan are no longer accepted. This is a problem for religious groups, but it can also become an opportunity for them to develop new value strategies in the context of globalization. In the process of developing these value strategies, religious groups have addressed issues that are also now faced by secular organizations in the course of globalization. If we consider that many aspects of the management strategies of religious groups in Japan have developed ahead of similar developments in business enterprises, it is perhaps to be expected that the same can be observed with the value strategies of religious groups.

In this chapter, I will examine some characteristics of the peace movements associated with Japanese religious groups after WWII, focusing primarily on the World Conference on Religion and Peace (WCRP) as an example.

Religious organizations have long been at the forefront of the global movement of people and ideas (Rudolph and Piscatori 1997: 3). Missionary activity has preceded or accompanied trade and political domination across continents since well before the beginning of the Christian era, alongside less organized forms of dissemination of religious belief. Even today, religion is a key element in the development and intensification of globalization (Beyer 1994: 3).

The conceptualization of this process also has its own more recent intellectual history, which has become the object of academic scrutiny. The term ‘world religion’ only appeared in European writings towards the end of the nineteenth century, and initially in association with the universalizing claims of Christianity (Masuzawa 2005: 23). By the early twentieth century, the term was taking on an expanded meaning to include a number of other religions that are now widely listed under this heading.

The category of ‘world religion’ has oftentimes been conceptualized to mean large, established world religions with universal claims to relevance, in contrast to locally based religions. This assumed division has not gone unchallenged. Masuzawa (2005: 20-21) explains that this system of classification tends to operate within an Orientalist discourse, and elides specificities of locality and power relations among the so-called world religions. Another aspect of the dominant discourse of ‘world religions’ is that global relevance is seen as a marker of authenticity and status in the religious sphere.

From the second half of the nineteenth century to the end of WWII, the expansion of Japanese religions abroad depended firstly on the Japanese politics of expanding the frontiers of its empire throughout Asia and the Pacific Islands and secondly, on the emigration of labourers to places such as Hawaii, California, Brazil, Peru and others.

Analysing the diffusion of Japanese new religions in Brazil, Korea, Thailand and the United States, Shimazono (1991) focuses on two general variables: (1) the conditions of receiving societies (for example social and legal tolerance toward foreign religions, or the demand for new creeds as a result of socioeconomic change); and (2) specific features and appeal of expanding religions (for example straightforward magical practices, practical life ethics, systematic/logical statements, positive approach to religious pluralism).

In the following sections I expand Shimazono's approach to explain the missionary success of some Japanese religions abroad. I divide my argument into two large blocs based on data from the Brazilian context.

Concept of ‘modern new religion’

In this chapter I discuss the ways in which globalization and information processes have affected religious activities in Japan from two perspectives. Firstly, the response of modern new religions to globalization and information processes, and secondly the appearance of new types of religious groups that have formed on the basis of globalization and the information age.

I explain the concept of ‘modern new religion’ and the reason why I use this term instead of ‘new religion’, which is the term most commonly used to indicate new movements in modern Japan. I apply the term ‘modern new religion’ to new movements that have the following two characteristics: a deep connection with Japanese traditional religions in terms of ritual and teachings which were widely accepted in society before the modernization of Japan, and a new method of organization to correspond to social changes caused by the modernization process. Tenrikyō, Reiyūkai, Sōka Gakkai, Risshō Kōseikai, Sekai Kyūsei Kyō are typical examples of modern new religions. In fact, most groups usually referred to as ‘new religions’ are included in the category ‘modern new religion’.

One of the reasons I am advancing this idea is that some scholars of new religions have the view that a new type of new religion has appeared since the 1970s, and since the 1980s these have been called ‘new new religions’, ‘neo new religions’, and other similar terms (Inoue 1997).