Bulletin > Volume 12 Shinshū and Folk Religion: Toward a Post-Modern Shinshū "Theology"

Sasaki Shōten

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In the 1984 issue of the Bulletin of the Dendō-in (Pastoral Institute) of the Nishi Hongan-ji branch of Shinshū, the present author published a report of the results of a collective research program on the practices of the Shinshū believers in Japan. He also suggested there some conclusions one ought to draw as to doctrine and pastoral policies. This report provoked strong reactions among the scholars of the sect. Three years later he came back to the topic in an article published in the Chūgai Nippō, a religious newspaper. The article is based on a special lecture delivered at the Center for Religious Education of the Sōtō branch of Zen Buddhism, October 1986. The following is a somewhat abridged translation of that text.