2023 Volume 97 Issue 2 Pages 75-99
Under the system of international cooperation based on the Versailles and Washington regimes after World War I, movements in pursuit of peace and outlawry of war were being developed internationally, and a worldwide collective security system was being established. The Japanese religious convention commemorating the enthronement of Emperor Hirohito (Shōwa Tennō) in 1928 and the Japanese conference of religion and peace in 1931 were held under these circumstances.
In this paper, I analyzed these two events as case studies to examine peace activities by the Japanese religions and scholars of religion during the interwar period. Religious leaders and scholars of religion discussed ways to prevent and exterminate war and to send messages of international peace and repudiation of war both domestically and internationally. However, their views on “war and peace” varied, and there was some conflict and confusion among them. Nevertheless, the two events were an interreligious cooperation effort, and a project to appeal for peace that promoted the renunciation of war from the standpoint of religious persons while questioning the illegitimacy and guilt of war. They also had the potential to be linked to the international network of religious peace movements.
