Relationship between the Federation of Boy Scouts in Japan and Religious Boy Scouts: Focusing on Konkokyo, Honganji, and Ohtani Sects

Abstract

  This study aimed to clarify an aspect of the role of religion in prewar social education organizations by identifying the relationship between the Federation of Boy Scouts in Japan and Boy Scouts troops affiliated with religious groups. While focusing on the relationship between the Boy Scout troops in Konkokyo, Honganji-ha, and Ohtani-ha sects and the Federation of Boy Scouts in Japan, this study examined the consistency between religion and emperor ideology and found the following findings. First, the Boy Scouts in Europe and the United States of America were based on Christian ideology; however, during the process of organizing the Boy Scouts in Japan, sectarianism was eliminated. Second, religious organizations adopted the methods of the Boy Scouts to improve traditional religious education and sought to organize themselves in their own way such as altering Scout Promise and Law. Third, the Boy Scouts encouraged all participants to clarify their faith and belong to a religious order as part of their educational policy. However, the Boy Scout troops that systematically belonged to a religious sect depended on the existence of the Federation of Boy Scouts in Japan, a national organization, and threatened the absoluteness of the emperor’s ideology. Thus, the relationship between the emperor system ideology and religion created tension in the Federation of Boy Scouts in Japan.