Abstract
According to Focus on the Family, the American traditional family has been attacked by "secular humanists" so violently that it is on the verge of disintegration, especially through the generation gap in values and the high rate of employment of homemakers in the 1960s and 1970s. This "crisis," however, cannot be limited to the last few decades ; rather, we can see the generation gap through the whole of American history ; great number of American wives and mothers have been working outside home since before the Second World War.It seems to me that the "traditional family" as they called is based on the model of family which was (and is) dominant in the suburban communities, especially in 1950s.The traditional values on which the family stands are "traditional" only for conservative Christian Americans like Focus on the Family. The "traditional family" is not necessarily "traditional"; it is rather an ideal family intentionally recoveredand/or"invented"by a politico-religious purpose ; and, on a more unconscious level, itis a representation of desire to return to the ideal family. This sort of nostalgic desirefor the ideal family is also common to the members of New Religions in Japan, whichuse a rhetoric regarding their founders as the parents of not only all members of theircommunities but also human beings. Conservative Christian Americans insist that women should stay home as much aspossible. They try to revive the traditional values" here and now "in order to makeclear what the family should be. They attempt to"sanctify"the family by means of Judeo-Christian faith, and this "sanctification" corresponds with the "sanctification" of the United States as a "family" under the leadership of a father-president preservingthe spirits of the Founding Fathers. New Religions in Japan offer paradigms for humanrelationship based not on hierarchy but on equality to urban nuclear families which had lost the bond of local community and were isolated in the urbanized society. Theyfunction as models for the family and gave religious meaning to the parents-childrenand husband-wife relationships in the family. In other words, New Religions offer themeans to reconsecrate secularized family patterns.Thus, in spite of the historical and cultural differences, there are some importantcommonalties between Focus on the Family in the US and New Religions in Japan asthey regard family values. First, both of them present the model images of the familybased on traditional values to families which are wavering between tradition andmodernization (and secularization). Secondly, they regard the relationships in thefamily as the most important human relationships and attach greater importance to "harmony" and "togetherness" than individuality. Finally, the family is, for them first and foremost, the place of faith. Through the homologization of each family and thereligious community to which the family belongs, both Focus on the Family and New Religions "sanctify" each family as well as incorporating it into their value systems.
