big move if they do - Christian cults have been a powerful force in East Asian societies since WWII, having been seeded as left behind anti-communist force by the CIA. Moonies in Korea, Falun Gong in China, Aum Shinrikyo in Japan. They take millions in donations and smartly reinvest in media and lobbying, including overseas. Doubt Japan can do it, suspect this story will just quietly go away
Falun Gong is staunchly anti-communist but I wouldn't call it a Christian cult. I got quite interested in them ~20 years ago and obtained their books to see what they were about. From what I recall it was almost all watered-down Tai Chi mixed in with constant emphasis on the founder's supremacy. Whereas Tai Chi regards the navel/core as the center of the body from which all bodily processes and martial art energy originates, and which can be trained through exercise, Falun Gong asserts that a symbiotic being called a 'Falun' is inserted in disciples by Li Hongzhi or his delegates, and practitioners are then taught exercises to 'maintain' it. Tai Chi practitioners I've met regard this as a perverse grift. Their literature had a lot of sci-elements reminiscent of scientology; perhaps the founder recognized a winning formula and adapted it to the Chinese market. I think he fled China and lives in NYC now.
Yeah, Aum borrowed a tiny (tiny) bit from Revelations, but it was overwhelmingly Buddhist rather than Christian. Their killing was initially justified through a corruption of the concept of phowa. "You will become enlightened through death."
I'm not sure what your argument is. At some point, you have to draw a line between a group claiming to be Christian and actually being Christian, and a group claiming to be Christian while not being so. Otherwise the descriptor "Christian" is not useful for categorisation purposes.
As I understood it, the Unification Church has historical ties with the Korean CIA. But I haven't heard about US CIA support for them, Falun Going, or Aum. Would love to learn more about it if you could point me to sources!
1930s Japan was a constant struggle between different factions including various high level assassinations and even false flag attacks against foreign powers.
It was basically a real life Metal Gear Solid videogame.
In the runup to WWII, reactionary portions of Japan's military attempted coups multiple times, with some successful assassinations. The origins of this trend date back to the unequal treaties Japan was forced to sign by Western powers at the start of its re-opening and industrialization: the nationalist right gradually developed more of a voice as time went on and developed an ideological basis for military expansion and deification of the emperor, which succeeded in directing Japan into the war, even though the coups themselves failed.
It really is incredible how successful Yamagami has been in his goals. Imagine telling anyone 5 years ago that a (generally - ignoring the last few months of his tensure) popular former G7 leader would (1) be assassinated in public, (2) have the assassination happen for a cause not directly related to them but (3) have the assassin be so successful in their goals, so successful in bringing attention to their cause, and so successful in striking the heart of the beast they wanted to target that they’ve arguably ended up with a lower disapproval rating than the man they killed (anecdotally from speaking to Japanese people - v disappointed that there’s not been formal polling on this).
There is a reason prosecutors keep delaying Yamagami’s trial. They’re scared that finding lay judges and a full panel of pro judges who would convict is going to be hard or impossible.
The problem is that you cannot legally ban cults without banning established religion or creating a state religion. In fact, the key difference between a cult and an established religion is public and government recognition.
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[ 6.7 ms ] story [ 462 ms ] threadThe Wikipedia page on Falun Gong is an interesting read.
Here is the wikipedia page on their term (poa) for killing people.
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%9D%E3%82%A2_(%E3%82%AA%...
They weren't relying on anything related to Christianity for any important justification.
(Not Christian.)
You really don't want to normalise assassination though, last time that happened in Japan it led to bad things.
It was basically a real life Metal Gear Solid videogame.
There is a reason prosecutors keep delaying Yamagami’s trial. They’re scared that finding lay judges and a full panel of pro judges who would convict is going to be hard or impossible.