Abstract

This article considers the nature of online religion by examining the websites and religious counseling activities conducted by new Japanese religions. Beginning with an overview of the widespread use of the Internet in Japan and its use in religion, the article examines the cultural and social factors that keep the religious use of the Internet from becoming as pervasive in Japan as it is in the U.S. The article then describes a website with elements of online religion and the Internet-based religious counseling services being provided by ministers of the new Shintō-derived religions of Konkōkyō and Tenrikyō. These activities have successfully given some people who need religious assistance access to religious teaching. In concluding, the article examines the reasons for the success of these efforts, as well as the reasons why they have not expanded in scope, in light of the cultural and organizational advantages and disadvantages that affect Internet use.

Internet Use

Internet Use in Japan

In Japan, Internet use began to grow in 1995 and has continued to expand rapidly over the past decade. The number of Internet users in the world reached 45 million in 1996 (Castells, 2001), 376 million in 2000 (Castells, 2001), and grew to over 500 million in 2002 (Nielsen/Net Ratings, 2003; Wellman & Haythornthwaite, 2002).

Use of the Internet in Japan, much like in Western countries, made a significant leap forward with the release of Windows 95 in 1995. A 2005 white paper on information and communications in Japan (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 2005) estimated that the number of Japanese Internet users in 1997 was 11.55 million, a penetration rate of 9.2%. By 2003, however, the penetration rate had risen to 60.6%, breaking the 60% mark for the first time. By the end of 2005, the number of Internet users was estimated at 85.29 million, or a penetration rate of 66.8% (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 2006).

To understand Japanese Internet use more fully, it is useful to refer to the Japan Survey on Information Society (JIS).¹ Conducted three times, in 2001, 2002, and 2004, the JIS survey is one of the few comprehensive academic surveys addressing the Internet and society in Japan (Advanced Studies on Information Society and Conditions, 2001, 2002, 2004). The results of the 2004 survey² show that 66.3% of respondents either used email or browsed websites. The survey found that 63.6% of respondents were email users. Of these, 38.8% accessed email via a computer and 55.3% used a mobile phone (see Table 1) (Advanced Studies on Information Society and Conditions, 2004). Regarding the browsing of websites, 46.2% of respondents look at websites: 20.6% of these used a mobile phone, while 29.7% used a computer. Fewer respondents browsed websites than used email and, in contrast with email usage, about 10% fewer browsed the Web from a mobile phone than from a computer (Advanced Studies on Information Society and Conditions, 2004).

Differences Between Religious Internet Use in the U.S. and Japan

While more than 60% of the Japanese population has Internet access, very few people use the Internet for religious purposes. According to a Japanese survey of Internet use, only 2.5% of Internet users had used their computer to access a religious website in the past month (Communication Research Laboratory, 2002). This is considerably lower than the 68.2% who accessed search engines, the 40.6% who accessed news sites, and the 13.6% accessed fortune-telling sites. Although this survey was conducted some five years ago, there is no reason to expect a dramatic increase in the number of people who have accessed religious websites since it was conducted.³

In the U.S., where the Internet first became widespread, a large number of people use it for religious purposes. According to a report by the Pew Internet and American Life Study, "25% of Internet users have gotten religious or spiritual information online at one point or another" (Larsen, 2001, p. 2). Also, according to Hoover, Clark, and Rainie (2004), "64% of the nation’s 128 million Internet users have done things online that relate to religious or spiritual matters." Although this number includes individuals who have only exchanged online greeting cards related to religious holidays, more than half of these people consider themselves to be spiritual or religious.⁴

Clearly, there is a significant difference in the religious use of the Internet in the U.S. and Japan, although the Internet itself is popular in both countries. There are several possible explanations for this difference. One explanation might be that there is little overlap between the populations of Internet users and of devoutly religious people in Japan, whereas there is a significant overlap in these populations in the U.S.

One explanation for this may be that Christianity in the U.S. is pervasive among all age groups. For example, Davis, Smith, and Marsden (2005) claimed in their report which was based on the 1998 General Social Survey (GSS) that 89% of respondents indicated that they either "agree" or "strongly agree" with the statement "I believe in a God who watches over me," with very little distinction based on age. It is certainly worth noticing that among respondents in their 20s, the rate of agreement was 85.8% (Davis, Smith, & Marsden, 2005, n.p.). From this we can draw the conclusion that many in the Internet-using population are also people of faith.

In Japan, on the other hand, people who are religious are generally older. Figure 1 shows the distribution of Internet users in JIS 2004 (Advanced Studies on Information Society and Conditions, 2004) and of believers in ISSP 2003 (International Social Survey Program),⁵ by age.

One can observe that the percentage of believers increases as age increases. Only 21% of respondents in their 20s and 30s were believers. Among respondents in their 40s and 50s, the percentage of believers was about 35%, similar to the 35% average for all respondents. For people in their 50s and older, the percentage exceeds 50%.

While more than 90% of users in their 20s use a mobile phone for Internet access and three out of four respondents in their 40s access the Internet via mobile phone, the rate of mobile phone access drops to 40% for people in their 50s and older. Similarly, access via computer is about 60% among respondents in their 20s, 30s, and 40s but falls sharply among those in their 50s and older. Access via both mobile phone and computer begins to decline among people in their 50s, with the trend becoming more marked in the higher age groups. Only a very small percentage of people in their 70s reported accessing the Internet via either mobile phone or computer.

Thus, as shown in Figure 1 and described above, the population with religious faith in Japan tends to be older and is not comprised of Internet users, in the main. This explains the limited religious use of the Internet in Japan.

Negative Image of Religion

It is important to describe the status of religion in Japan before examining the religious use of the Internet in detail, because we will find another explanation for why the Internet is used so little for religious purposes in Japan.

The Japanese are often described as not being very religious. The population of Japan is 120 million, yet less than 1% (or some 1 million of those) are reportedly believers in Christianity. Furthermore, in public opinion polls, when the question is asked, "Do you believe in a religion?," only 30% of the respondents answer "yes." However, many Japanese have Shintō and/or Buddhist altars in their homes. Between 60% and 70% of the population visit the graves of their ancestors several times a year (NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute, 2004), and 93.73 million people visited Shintō shrines during the first three days of the New Year in 2006 (National Police Agency, 2006). These statistics do not support the argument that the Japanese people are simply irreligious.⁶

One of the reasons why people who engage in religious activities do not claim to believe in a religion may be the pervasively negative image of the word "religion" in Japan. Many Japanese have an image of religion and religious groups as frightening institutions that will cheat them out of money. In particular, they have strongly negative feelings with regard to the so-called new religions that came into being in Japan after the Second World War. This image was triggered by the subway sarin gas attack perpetrated by the religious movement Aum Shinrikyo on March 20, 1995. In five simultaneous coordinated attacks, the conspirators released sarin gas on several lines of the Tokyo subway, killing 12 people and injuring some 6,000 more. This was the most serious attack that had occurred in Japan since the end of the Second World War. The name AUM Shinrikyo derives from the Hindu syllable "aum" (pronounced "ohm"), meaning "powers of creation and destruction of a universe," and the Japanese words "shinri" ("truth") and "kyo" ("teaching," "doctrine"). The movement was founded by a Japanese named Shoko Asahara, who was sentenced to death by hanging on February 27, 2004 because of this attack.⁷ Immediately after this incident, there was a tendency, particularly among people with no religious affiliation, to equate new religions with cults and to perceive them as potentially dangerous.

This brief overview of the status of Japanese religion supports the explanation that a narrow and generally negative view of religion causes there to be little religious use of the Internet. This narrow perception of religion on the part of the Japanese causes them to perceive their own thoughts and behaviors, even if they are religious, as unrelated to religion. As a result, they do not say that they have accessed the Internet for religious information, even if they have done so. Funerals provide one example. When a family member dies, many Japanese families arrange for a priest to come from the local Buddhist temple with which they have been associated for generations, to perform the funeral and to recite Buddhist sutras. But many of those who attend such funerals, when asked if they have participated in any religious activity recently, will answer "no," because they consider this experience to be non-religious.

Weddings provide another example. It is estimated that about 70% of weddings are Christian-style ceremonies,⁸ while 20% are Shintō-style ceremonies.⁹ Few of those who attend wedding ceremonies based on these religions would think of themselves as having behaved in a religious manner. Therefore, even someone who had consulted a website to arrange a funeral or to prepare for a wedding would not necessarily report having viewed a website to obtain religious information. It may be concluded from what has been said above, then, that both a negative image of religion and a more narrow understanding of what counts as "religious" are responsible for the low response rate with regard to religious use of the Internet in Japan.

Religious Websites in Japan

Religion-Online and Online-Religion

There are many different types of religious activities on the Internet, although only a small number of people engage in them. Even if we limit our consideration to websites, there is an extremely wide range of sites available, ranging from those that merely inform people of the existence of religious groups to those that lead people to a life of faith over the Internet. These can be categorized into two main types: religion-online and online-religion (Helland, 2000). Religion-online refers to the provision of various kinds of religious information and services, such as introductions to religious groups, explanations of their doctrines, information about worship service times, and introductions to published materials. Online-religion, by contrast, refers to participation in religious practices, such as prayer or meditation, over the Internet.

In religion-online, institutionalized religious organizations use the Internet as a conventional medium for communicating with large numbers of people. As is the case with televangelism, the religious group disseminating the information is unilaterally transmitting information. In online-religion, by contrast,

Individuals are interacting with the religious beliefs systems presented on the Internet; they are contributing personal beliefs and receiving personal feedback. It is a dialectical process; the beliefs are developing and altering, adapting and fluctuating in the direction the participants wish to take them. (Helland, 2000, p. 214)

The first thing that one notices is that communication on the Internet is not unilateral but reciprocal. If information is exchanged in an unstructured, open, and non-hierarchical manner—all of which are possible with the Internet—in addition to the benefits of reciprocal or mutual interaction, online-communication may enable the creation of a new type of religion.

However, almost all websites do not exist solely on the Internet but also make some reference to the real world. Therefore, there are few websites on which the true advantages of the Internet are employed fully and efficiently. The same may be said, no doubt, of Japanese religious websites. We can be fairly certain that few Japanese religious websites are online-religions that exist solely online and have the advantage of efficient and reciprocal information exchange. However, as Young (2005) points out, religion-online and online-religion are not concepts with clear-cut distinctions. Rather, they have indistinct boundaries, with some overlap. Therefore, with regard to the reciprocal exchange of information, let us consider some Japanese websites that exhibit elements of online-religion. The sites described below are (1) a collection of links to religious information, (2) Shintō sites, (3) Buddhist sites, and (4) sites on spirituality.¹⁰

Archive for Religious Information (ARI)

A web site named “The Archive for Religious Information (ARI)”¹¹ is the largest archive of links to religious information in Japan, containing listings for approximately 6,000 websites for religious orders and individuals.

The ARI was initiated in 1998 as a project of the Institute for Japanese Culture and Classics at Kokugakuin University. Initially, all listed sites were examined by the project researchers. However, the conventional method of allowing only the site managers to register sites placed an enormous burden on the site managers, inevitably resulting in a bias in the sites posted. Therefore, in keeping with this project and to avoid these difficulties, a new ARI was undertaken in June 2003, introducing a Content Management System (CMS) that allowed anyone who was registered with ARI to add to the archive. When it became possible for the general public and not just researchers in religion to add their own sites or others they were familiar with to the archive, the number of sites in the archive grew to more than 6,000. Meanwhile the number of hits increased as well, to about 15,000 a month.

The ARI offers reciprocal interaction between the sites and the registered users. However, most of the sites posted to the ARI would be categorized as religion-online. The vast majority of the websites of the Christian, Buddhist, Shintō, and new religions unilaterally provide information on the group's history, its teachings, and its activities. Therefore, the ARI—a collection of links to such information—would also be categorized fundamentally as religion-online. The point that we wish to emphasize here is that the development of information technologies like CMS makes it possible to increase the availability of religion-online sites that do incorporate elements of reciprocity.

Shintō Shrine Sites¹²

When we examine the number of websites by religious denominations, it is clear that there are relatively few websites on the uniquely Japanese religion, Shintō. For example, of the sites contained in the ARI, 2,153 are on traditional Buddhism, 893 are on Christianity, and only 367 are on Shintō.¹³ Yahoo! Japan offers another example. Its "Lifestyle and Culture>Religion>Denominations" page, which contains about 3,000 sites on religion, has only 311 on Shintō, considerably fewer than the numbers for Buddhism (1,343) and Christianity (1,191).¹⁴ This is reflective of a trend that has continued since the beginning of the Internet boom in 1995.

Shintō websites are not only few in number: Even fewer of these sites take advantage of the unique qualities of the Internet to achieve reciprocity and serve as a means for the dissemination and publicization of religious information. Much of the content of Shintō sites consists of simple descriptions of a given shrine's history, deities, festivals, grounds, and buildings. Thus in terms of both quality and quantity, Shintō uses the Internet less than other religions.

This can be attributed to the fact that the world of Shintō is traditional, and those who manage the shrines are generally older and unable to keep up with rapid developments in information technology. Another important reason for the lack of Internet use is that some in the world of Shintō argue that shrines must not compromise their dignity by engaging with the Internet. They fear that, in an information society, information distorted by the media can sometimes be spread as though it were truth. Furthermore, praying within the sacred space that is a shrine is vital to Shintō religious practice, making virtual shrine visits and the bestowal of online talismans fallacious. In the view of these people, the superficial act of virtual shrine visits threatens to erode the dignity of this traditional shrine-oriented faith and to create misunderstandings.

While this way of thinking limits Internet use by many shrines, some have developed online activity. The site of the Keta Shrine in Ishikawa Prefecture, for example, is an example of online-religion. In the fall of 2003, this shrine established a website for PCs and mobile phones entitled "Kimochi Kirei Dokoro" (or "Clean Feeling Place") in order to meet the needs of young women nationwide who were praying for successful relationships. It is an attractive, colorful website featuring numerous photographs of young women.¹⁵ There are more than 150,000 registered users of the mobile phone site. Prayers are accepted free of charge via email sent either from a computer or mobile phone and are dedicated to the deities at the main hall. There are links to "Answered Prayers and Love Stories" and "The Personal Experiences of People who have Recovered from a Broken Heart." The narratives provided are posted on these pages after being presented in the main hall and submitted to the deities. Among them are postings such as one made by a woman who is worried about whether she should break up with her boyfriend. She writes: "Tomorrow I'm going to visit Keta Shrine to reveal my true self." There are other messages such as "God of Kimochi Kirei Dokoro, please grant my wish" and "I've been encouraged by everyone on this site."

This site is not being used as a way for the shrine to transmit or publicize information unilaterally, but as an online venue where visitors can interact with one another by posting messages. Thus it is is a valuable example of online-religion at a Shintō website.

Teranavi

The Teranavi (for "Temple Navigation") site is an example of a Web portal with contents related to Buddhism and having some reciprocity.¹⁶ In Japan, Buddhism is a religion with which the public is generally familiar. Many people invite Buddhist priests to preside over and give sermons at funerals and memorial services held on the anniversary of a person’s death. The Teranavi site offers a variety of sermons from various denominations and has a CMS-based structure, like the ARI, which enables people to read and listen to these sermons any time. There are also Buddhist sites that collect and post sermons for particular denominations, but since people who dislike religion tend to steer clear when content is limited to certain denominations, these sites try to avoid making denominational distinctions. Sermons on such topics as "Your First Relationship," "Living Alone," and "Buddhism for Young People" are posted not only as documents for visitors to read but also as audio files that visitors can listen to. Unfortunately, fewer than 100 sermons are currently available, but the most widely listened to and read sermons have more than 1,000 hits. It seems reasonable to conclude that a considerable number of people in Japan are interested in reading or listening to sermons over the Internet.

If these online sermons are being read or listened to by lay or non-religious people, they provide an especially important survey means in the field of religious studies. By selecting the sermons and homilies that people are interested in, researchers can analyze the content of a site through text mining and learn about trends in Japanese religious consciousness that are represented in these Buddhist sermons. Even if those who look at such sermons are religious professionals, this information can be useful for religious research. By analyzing the content of favorable sermons, one gains insight into the consciousness represented by Buddhist professionals. Further, researchers can also perform a survey of the responses made by lay or non-religious peoples to a questionnaire they complete after reading sermons on the site. In either case, popular online sermons with many hits may be a new research tool through which researchers can gain a better understanding of religious consciousness.

Spinavi¹⁷

Spinavi (Spiritual Navigator) is an online venue where people can discuss issues of spirituality. In recent years in Japan, as well as Western countries, the word 'spirituality' has been increasingly used by professionals in a wide range of fields, including medicine, clinical psychology, education, welfare, and self-help groups. In addition to professionals, there are many who say that they do not believe in religion, but that they do believe in a god(s), spirit(s), or unseen forces. There are also many who understand spirituality to mean divination, healing, or psychic abilities and are interested in these topics (Ito, Kashio & Yumiyama, 2004). Spinavi has 1,500 registered users and records about 100,000 hits each month.

More than 4,000 messages are posted on the site's forum, and threads are divided among 10 different topics including "Beauty, Health, and Healing," "Pilgrimages," "Self Reflection," and "Mysteries and Miracles." In addition to the forum, the site also offers a place where users can create their own spiritual blog and an area called MySpinavi Headline where these blogs are collected. Here, people post their own spiritual writings in a diary-like format. Some participants even ask for feedback from other forum participants, and there is evidence that, on some occasions, participants can be hurt by what appear to be casual postings by other participants (Watanabe, this issue). Meanwhile, other participants are more interested in writing their own life histories than entering into discussions with others. These people tend to prefer having their own blogs. Site managers select some of the best articles from among the blogs and post them at the top of the home page. Here one can find messages regarding issues and conveying feelings that many people are interested in or empathize with. Examples include subjects such as: "courage," "children who do not live to the age of five in Sierra Leone," "I punched someone for the first time," "I tried honestly admitting that I made a mistake," and "I suddenly feel like meeting you."

The sites described above thus all take on the characteristics of online-religion. However, they cannot be categorized as typical online-religion sites. The most typical example of Japanese online-religion sites may be the religious sites for counseling services described below. These services generally have websites but conduct their counseling chiefly via email. Insofar as these counseling services may later lead people to worship in a real-world church or have a real-world faith, they do not occur entirely online. At the time the counseling is taking place, however, it is an online-only religious activity.

Religious Counseling

Email Counseling

In the U.S., counseling by email or in chat rooms was first offered in the mid-1990s. Sampson, Kolodinsky, and Greeno (1997) estimated that there were at least 275 sites offering counseling services on the Internet in 1997. The Pew Internet and American Life Project reported that 59% of Internet users in the U.S. have sought information with regard to health care (Horrigan & Rainie, 2002). In another study by Cook and Doyle (2002), they found that it is also common for Americans to obtain mental health information on the Internet.¹⁸

Likewise, in Japan email counseling sites began to appear around 1995 or 1996, and in 1997 the Japan Online Counseling Association (JOCA) was established. In 2001, it began offering training courses for email counselors aimed at developing effective technology for counseling services and cultivating counselors with technological proficiency. Several public institutions also offer counseling services via email in areas such as child rearing and the handling of bullying. In addition, there are an enormous number of bulletin board systems (BBS), forums, and mailing lists where people can post messages about their own experiences and problems.

The existence of these kinds of institutions and sites first appeared when people began to use the medium of the Internet to post their own messages and offer advice to others naturally. One moderately sized survey found that in Japan, 37% of respondents had been encouraged by support provided by another person over the Internet.

Thus, the exchange of support and feedback regarding the important problems that people face—that is, the online discussion of emotional topics—has begun to extend into the deeper problems people are having in the various areas of their lives. Certainly, the followers of a particular denomination may express and discuss their religious concerns with others via email. But there is very little exchange of advice or discussion based on religious teachings between believers and non-believers. Below we consider two examples, both good illustrations of how religious professionals are attracting new believers through religious counseling online that then leads to the attendance of church worship services. We then consider the conditions that must be met for establishing an online-religion.

Konkōkyō Toritsugi-Mediation Via the Internet

Konkōkyō is a new religion—a derivative of Shintō—that was established in a farming village in Okayama Prefecture in 1859, at the end of the Edo period. The founder contracted a serious illness and was on the verge of death. Rather than blaming the deity Konjin (the malevolent golden god) for his "hardship (nangi)" in the form of this illness, the founder felt that he himself had created the causes of his own hardship, and prayed continuously, apologizing for his own irreverence. As a result, he received several divine messages or "revelations (oshirase)" from Konjin, and recovered from his illness. Such revelations from Konjin often came to the founder, and he began to live his life in accordance with them, that is, in accordance with the will of God. In addition to communicating revelations to other people who were dealing with various problems, the founder also began acting as a mediator and presenting people's petitions to God. Thus, the fundamental element of the Konkōkyō faith is "Toritsugi-mediation," the process of conveying the will of God to people who are struggling with various sufferings. This gives them the strength they need to live in keeping with the will of God as it is revealed to them. It not only helps people, but also God, insofar as it provides a means by which God can play his role of guiding human beings. The belief that "Toritsugi-mediation" helps both people and God is one of the unique components of Konkōkyō.

Devout believers can engage in "Toritsugi-mediation" and help people who are struggling, and it is offered at churches in many locations. The people who visit these churches meet one-on-one with a mediator, who is a priest of the church, to receive it. There are about 1,600 Konkōkyō churches in Japan and about 400,000 followers.¹⁹

A young Toritsugi mediator in his 30s created a website for his Konkōkyō church in 1999 and began offering Toritsugi-mediation via email through a "Toritsugi-mediation" link on the site.²⁰ This man himself had once been emotionally unstable, around the time he was trying to take his university entrance exams. In fact, he had tried to commit suicide at the age of 18, after adding a failed exam to his stack of problems. Later, through daily prayer to the god of Konkōkyō, he gradually regained his emotional stability. In the summer of that year he had a personal, mystical experience. He ultimately attended university and graduate school, but relapsed into extreme depression during graduate school. After his illness, he enrolled in a Konkōkyō missionary school (Konkōkyō Gakuin), and following in his father's footsteps, he set his sights on serving God as a mediator at the church. Around this time he began offering Toritsugi-mediation services at his church. At the same time he began to wonder if the Internet could be used by the church in some way. By the time he graduated from Konkōkyō Gakuin in 1999, the Konkōkyō headquarters had already created a website, and websites for several individual churches had been established as well. After looking at these websites, however, he felt that they lacked the kind of content that people completely unfamiliar with Konkōkyō would want to access. He did not initially intend to offer Toritsugi-mediation services online but began a process of trial and error as he sought out the possibilities afforded by the Internet.

In May 1999, this minister discovered the "Mental Health" category of the bulletin boards on Yahoo! Japan. There he found many people who were struggling with the same kinds of problems he had once faced. He saw postings with messages like, "I want to die," "I'm cutting my wrists," and "I was raped and am afraid of men"—messages of people and their families crying out from the midst of their hardships. Because he had experienced his own emotional struggles, these problems resonated with the minister. In a revelation from the god of Konkōkyō, he was told, "Japan is in a low, depressed place, and just as water flows to the lowest point, the hardships of the world are accumulating in this low-lying place." He realized for the first time that there was a place where people suffering hardships and difficulties could gather.

Upon realizing this, he began to write replies to the cries he encountered on the Internet. He was careful, however, not to use religious rhetoric in his messages, as religious statements are often derided by participants on these kinds of bulletin boards. He worked to convey the teachings of Konkōkyō that would help people who were suffering, using everyday language that even non-believers would understand rather than the specialized terminology of Konkōkyō. After about a month of this, however, he came to realize that there were limits to what he could say when speaking this way. People can surely receive temporary assistance even from non-religious counseling. However, he felt that the true salvation offered by Konkōkyō would not be found without Toritsugi-mediation, the religion's principle of salvation and everyday living according to Konkōkyō teachings. For genuine salvation to be offered, there was no way to avoid touching on faith-related issues. So, in July, he began building a website, and in September of 1999, he posted it.

With more than 300,000 hits, the site has provided Toritsugi-mediation via email to more than 500 people, and dozens of new believers have adopted the Konkōkyō faith. Some people, depressed to the point of being unable to leave their homes, have even come to worship at the church.

Advantages in the Case of Konkōkyō

There are several conditions particular to Konkōkyō that facilitated this young Toritsugi-mediator’s success when offering religious counseling services. The first is that Konkōkyō’s Toritsugi-mediation is essentially an exchange of language between a mediator and a believer. It is much more conducive to an email environment than the rituals employed by other religions, such as cold water ablutions under a waterfall or the chanting of Buddhist scriptures in a group setting.

The second is the revision of this denomination's doctrine. The fundamental Konkōkyō activity was originally Toritsugi-mediation in church. The religious activities of Konkōkyō are not limited only to Toritsugi-mediation, of course, but also include festivals and proselytizing through printed materials as well as lectures. In former doctrine, these activities were prescribed such that they were fundamentally derived from church-based Toritsugi-mediation. Therefore, Toritsugi-mediation via the Internet was hard to accept as an orthodox religious activity. However, doctrinal revisions adopted in 1998 made the Tenchi Kakitsuke (the Divine Reminder), instead of Toritsugi-mediation in church, the origin of the religion. The new doctrine prescribes that church activities, including Toritsugi-mediation, festivals, and printed materials, all derive from the Divine Reminder.²¹ Consequently, the religious activities of Konkōkyō can be interpreted as including Internet Toritsugi-mediation, although the possibilities for religious activities over the Internet were not explicitly recognized.

The third advantage is the independence of the Konkōkyō churches. Each church keeps independent financial accounts and can make decisions with regard to its own activities. Regarding Toritsugi-mediation, the responses provided by the mediators, of course, must be based upon the teachings of Konkōkyō, but these too are left to the discretion of individual mediators. Thus, Toritsugi-mediation via email enables mediators to respond to requests at their own discretion—often, immediately. By contrast, in many religious organizations where lower-order bodies of the organization have less independence than in Konkōkyō churches, it is difficult to answer email questions from believers or people outside the denomination. Since it is highly likely that responses to inquiries regarding doctrinal matters will be seen as the official view of the denomination, crafting responses takes time and requires great care. As a result, at worst, responses do not come; at best, the answers to seekers’ questions are bland and abstract.

Thus, Konkōkyō is characterized by a number of features that are especially well-suited to the efficient use of the Internet.

Tenrikyō "Counseling Room"

Tenrikyō is a new religion that was founded by a woman in Nara Prefecture in 1838. It was the largest new religion in Japan before World War II, and today, it has just under two million believers and 15,000 churches nationwide.²² The denomination's active efforts to go online started relatively early, and its website features an image of the headquarters (Jiba) that is updated every minute.

A Tenrikyō church reverend in his 60s created the website in 1999. He actively offers a counseling room for believers and non-believers alike. Before beginning this online counseling service, he had never even touched a computer. However, there is a good reason why an amateur computer user would suddenly decide to create a website. In Tenrikyō, adherents engage in proselytizing activities known as nioigake ("sprinkling the fragrance of the teachings"), interpreted as going door-to-door and handing out brochures about Tenrikyō. In Japan, in recent years, more and more people are placing "Do not leave materials" signs at their front doors, making it more difficult to conduct this kind of missionary work. As a result, this reverend thought, "If we can't go to them, let them come to us," and he began offering telephone sermons and then Internet-based counseling services (interview data from Tamura & Kaneko, 2005, n.p.).

Visitors to the website will see the title "Counseling Room" but will not find the word "Tenrikyō" anywhere. The reverend says that this is because "information about the church or one of its reverends is irrelevant to those who are visiting the site because they are having problems" (Tamura & Kaneko, 2005, n.p.). The website has been up for about seven years and has received more than 360,000 hits. The reverend originally created the website to provide crisis counseling, and each day he responds to five to ten inquiries. Counseling requests cover a number of areas, including illness, social entanglement, and unemployment. Excerpts have been compiled into an archive for reference, and these are available both in book form and online. The archive offers a wide range of specific cases, such as "Why can't I die even if I don't feel that there's any meaning to life or if I don't feel that my life has any value?," "I don't want my mother-in-law meddling in my child’s life!," "Domestic violence," and "How to overcome a marital crisis."

The reverend responds empathetically to inquiries and offers specific advice when necessary. He says that it is not difficult to spark an interest in Tenrikyō in those who approach him for counseling, and dozens of people who visited the site have ultimately become followers of Tenrikyō (Tamura & Kaneko, 2005, n.p.).

Religious Counseling and Email Counseling

Advantages of Email Counseling

The religious counseling services offered by both Konkōkyō and Tenrikyō have similar advantages as clinical psychological online therapy. Although there are numerous comparative studies of online and face-to-face therapy (Cook & Doyle, 2002; Leibert, Archer, Munson, & York, 2006; Young, 2005), these results lack consistency because the selection of clients for online therapy is not random and the number of clients is typically very small. It is certain, however, that email counseling offers some benefits over face-to-face counseling. It is not limited to a particular time or place, allows for synchronous and asynchronous communication, offers anonymity, and allows people to express themselves in writing (McKenna & Bargh, 2000; Rochlen, Zeck, & Speyer, 2004).

Because geographical distance is not an obstacle, counseling can be performed from any location. Thus, counselors can interact with depressed people who would prefer to avoid interpersonal relationships and provide counseling to hearing-impaired people. Also, because email, unlike the telephone, is not a medium that requires two people to talk at the same time, a client can send an inquiry at any time, regardless of the counselor's schedule, and counselors can either respond right away or wait a little while before responding. Because the anonymous nature of the Internet conceals the identity of the client, problems that are difficult to discuss in person, such as questions related to death, sex, and financial issues, are often broached in the early stages of counseling. Also, clients tend to express themselves and their concerns more clearly when they have to write them down in an email message.

Shortcomings of Online Counseling and the Possibility for Religious Change

Although email counseling has numerous advantages, there are few examples of religious counseling over the Internet, even in the case of Konkōkyō and Tenrikyō. While online Toritsugi-mediation and counseling offer some advantages over real-world Toritsugi-mediation and counseling, they present disadvantages that may be even more significant.

The first and foremost disadvantage is that online counseling, religious or not, is entirely text based. Because both counselors and clients cannot read nonverbal cues, such as facial expressions and attitudes, the counselor is in danger of being unable to adequately ascertain the clients' thoughts (Cook & Doyle, 2002; Rochlen, Zeck, & Speyer, 2004). For this reason, a high level of counseling skill is required, as well as some computer skills (Rochlen, Zeck, & Speyer, 2004). It is likely that religious persons who have accumulated a great deal of experience over many years, like the Tenrikyō reverend mentioned above, will have heightened counseling skills. However, in many cases older people are less familiar with computers. This is the primary problem with online religious counseling. The Tenrikyō reverend is quite exceptional. He learned to use the computer through extraordinary effort. By contrast, young people who may be very familiar with computers may not have the requisite counseling skills. The Konkōkyō mediator was able to provide religious Toritsugi-mediation, because he had the unusual experience of having overcome his own emotional trauma. Many ministers today do not have both sets of skills. As online-religion expands, however, such skills will become more important.

The second disadvantage of online counseling is the time required. Even if a minister has the required skills, email counseling inevitably takes considerable time and effort. The minister must read the incoming messages carefully and be meticulous in crafting his replies. If he has no other economic base and makes a living by only providing counseling services, he will have to charge by the hour. In fact, many clinical counselors establish fees—for example, of $20 or $30 for three email exchanges a month. However, given constraints on their time, this will not allow the reverend, minister, or mediator to provide adequate help in order to save people religiously.

In Konkōkyō Toritsugi-mediation, more than 140 email exchanges were actually conducted in a year and a half, and in some cases more than 20 pages of text were exchanged. The Tenrikyō reverend was also involved in a two-year email exchange. This is only possible because they have other means by which they earn a living. In the case of the Konkōkyō church, if the conventional, real-world religious activities of the church that are necessary to earn a living are performed by other family members, the mediator is then able to spend all his time providing online counseling. Because this case is not unusual in religion, religious online counselors may, in fact, be in a better position to devote time to counseling services than are clinical online counselors.

At the same time, this problem may cause a change in religious activity. If counseling services spread over many churches, many will find that they lack adequate manpower. Some may have to cut back on other religious activities such as distribution of materials and holding meetings with believers. In this way, online religious counseling may cause new patterns of religious practice, that is, true online-religion, to emerge.

The third and last challenge presented by the online environment is the problem of believer affiliation. New Toritsugi-mediation or counsel seekers may send email messages from anywhere in the country or even from overseas. When a recipient of the counseling offered by Tenrikyō or Konkōkyō lives in a location that is distant from a church in which online religious counseling is conducted, and when he becomes a follower of that religion, it becomes necessary to worship periodically at the church. However, that may prove to be geographically difficult. In such cases, the Tenrikyō reverend and Konkōkyō mediator ask a church nearby to take him in, but churches differ in their views of online religious counseling, and some may not readily accept newcomers. To solve this problem, the Tenrikyō reverend has created an organization called "Tasukeai Net" (Support Network) and has recruited volunteers to provide support for such people. However, a larger organization is needed to respond to all of the inquiries.

Online-religion counseling requires Internet skills, time, and labor. These conditions also open up the possibility of creating a new form, or forms, in terms of both the religious group's activities and their organizational structure.

Online-Religion in Japanese Society and Culture

Little Religious Use of the Internet

Limited use of the Internet accounts for the small amount of online-religion in Japan. The primary reason for this dearth of Internet use for religious purposes, as described above, is the difference in age between those who use the Internet and those who tend to hold religious beliefs. The second greatest reason is a narrow view of religion that causes most Japanese to think that their religious thoughts and behaviors are unrelated to religion.

Finally, if one more reason is to be added, the "experientialism" of the new religions should be mentioned. Internet exchanges are primarily text-based interactions, but the new religions, which are more active in Japan today than Buddhism or Christianity, have a strong element of experientialism. Shimazono (1988) points out that the founders of and believers in religious organizations generally believe that experiences are important to an understanding of and belief in a religion, which he calls "experientialism." This is not to say that understanding the founder's teachings and reading scriptures are taken lightly, but religious behavior such as chanting scriptures en masse, proselytizing, and engaging in activities to help others are often deemed more important to a deepening of one's faith. Clearly, these kinds of religious activities do not translate easily into the text-based world of the Internet.

The Internet as a Place for Minorities

Another feature of the Internet is greatly useful and responsible for the success of online religious counseling given the socio-cultural situation in Japan: anonymity. Two interesting studies consider online-religion and anonymity.

McKenna and Bargh (1998) investigated newsgroups over the Internet. They included four mainstream newsgroups (culture, politics, economics, and television), four marginalized-conspicuous newsgroups (obesity, baldness, stuttering, and cerebral palsy), and four marginalized-concealable newsgroups (homosexuality, drugs, and so on). Members of the marginalized-concealable newsgroup posted more positive responses and fewer negative responses to each original post than the other two newsgroups. Furthermore, using structural equation modeling (SEM), the authors compared the posters and lurkers in the marginalized-concealable newsgroup and found that the posters, because of their greater group involvement, considered the group to be more important to their identity and felt greater self-acceptance and less social isolation than the lurkers. For people with culturally stigmatized identities, since self-disclosure is likely to induce friction with others, participating in such a newsgroup reduces their feelings of isolation and stress, helps them to have confidence in their identities, and helps them to come out to family and friends in real life.

In this research, religion is not included in the marginalized-concealable group. Whereas in countries with a Christian tradition, it may be difficult to consider those who believe in religion to be culturally stigmatized, religion is the most representative marginalized-concealable group in Japan.

Another illuminating study is O'Leary’s discussion of Neopagan rituals on the Internet (1996). Though he provides an interesting explanation of why sacred rituals are possible on the Internet, using virtual candles and bread, the following observation is of particular interest:

I explored the network further, looking for the ways in which the new medium was being used by less traditional religious groups, and found that groups stigmatized as "cults" were using the networks to present a different face to the public. (p. 794)

Cults, or groups of people whose beliefs depart from the Christian tradition, are often not thought of favorably (and are actually treated with hostility) in their geographical communities. Thus, their members take a risk if they choose to express their beliefs in the non-virtual world of everyday life. In the online world, however, they can express their beliefs openly and without fear of repercussions.

It is worth considering this point as it relates to Japan. As mentioned earlier, the percentage of people in Japan who claim to have religious beliefs is 30% at most, and only 10% state that they belong to a particular religious group. Many Japanese have an image of religion as frightening or as cheating them out of money. They often equate religion with cults (their use of the word "cult" is, of course, different from its use by academics). In this cultural context, it has become taboo to talk about one's beliefs in everyday life. In fact, it is often difficult to know another person’s religious beliefs even after becoming closely acquainted with him or her, and it is impossible to understand them at the time of an initial meeting. The Internet may, therefore, become a place where people can talk more freely about their beliefs. We may then reasonably predict that the anonymity inherent to the Internet will play an important role in the emergence of online-religion within the social and cultural context of Japan in the future.

Acknowledgment

This study was supported in part by a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (17330115). The authors wish to thank the members of Tenrikyō and Konkōkyō who agreed to be interviewed.

Notes

1. The JIS survey data can be accessed at the SRDQ English site (http://srdq.hus.osaka-u.ac.jp/en/). Users can access this database and perform frequencies, cross tabulations, correlation coefficient analyses, and multiple regression analyses and so on, from their web browsers.
2. This national survey was conducted among both male and female respondents ages 20 to 79 using the stratified multistage sampling method. The survey was conducted among 2,000 respondents, and 1,294 valid responses were collected (64.7%).
3. Because of the small numbers, questions about this topic would prove meaningless even if asked on questionnaires. For example, even the WIP 2002 does not ask about religious website viewing. In an online survey conducted in March 2003, 4.1% of respondents saw the Internet as an effective means of obtaining information on or exchanging ideas about faith and religion. This survey was conducted by a polling company using monitors among males and females aged 25 to 44. The number of respondents was 1,178 (Japan Science and Technology Agency, Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society, Research Group on Conversational Knowledge Process, 2003).
4. It may be worthwhile to define the word "religion." Fortune-telling is distinct from religion in Japanese data, and we identify "religion" with formal institutions and faith practices (Communication Research Laboratory, 2002). According to this definition, it is not appropriate for religious users to include spiritual users in the U.S. data. But since 32% of Internet users in the U.S. said that they read online news accounts about religious events/affairs, 17% searched for places in their communities where they could attend religious services, and 14% used email to plan a meeting for a religious group (Hoover, Clark, & Rainie, 2004), we can be fairly certain that fewer people use the internet for religious purpose in Japan.
5. We analyzed the ISSP 2003 data with the permission of Kazufumi Manabe, a representative of the ‘International Comparative Study on Value and Religious Consciousness in Men of Today’ research group, supported by a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (17203036).
6. For further discussion of Japanese religions, see Davis (1992), Kitagawa (1987), Reader (1991), and Tanabe (1999).
7. For more about Aum Shinrikyo, see Clarke (1999) and Maekawa (2001).
8. Many Japanese weddings are performed at chapels in hotels or special wedding facilities. Many couples who are not Christians have Christian-style ceremonies. About 50,000 couples per year get married at overseas chapels in locations like Hawaii, Guam, and Oceania. These chapels are neither financially supported by Christians nor used for Sunday worship services. These ceremonies may or may not be presided over by a minister or priest. Thus, it would be difficult to call these religiously-grounded ceremonies.
9. For more information regarding Japanese wedding ceremonies, see Ishii (2005).
10. Since religion is considered to be a formal institution in this article, it may be questioned whether we should include this site on spirituality as an example online-religion. However, because this site is an interesting example, the decision was made to include it.
11. This site (http://ari.shukyo-gaku.net/) is only in Japanese.
12. This section was written on the basis of Japanese newspaper articles by H. Kurosaki, dated March 12, 2005 and March 26, 2005.
13. Retrieved October 13, 2006 from http://ari.shukyo-gaku.net/
14. Retrieved October 13, 2006 from http://dir.yahoo.co.jp/Society_and_Culture/Religion/Faiths_and_Practices/
15. The site is only in Japanese, but one can get a feel for the design features, such as the photos and colors, by visiting http://www.keta.jp/kirei/.
16. This site (http://www.teranavi.net/) is only in Japanese.
17. This site (http://www.spinavi.net/) is only in Japanese.
18. This survey was conducted by Nakada Makoto (Tsukuba University) et al. in November, 2003 among 25- to 44-year-old registered survey monitors selected by a Japanese research company.
19. For more information on Konkōkyō, see Clarke (1999).
20. Kawabata and Kaneko (2002) previously introduced him in a Japanese article.
21. The Divine Reminder is a piece of paper written with an essential message of Konkōkyō, displayed at the front of every church, and its message is chanted by a believer every day.
22. For more information on Tenrikyō, see Reader, Andreasen, and Stefánsson (1993) and Clarke (1999).

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About the Authors

Akira Kawabata is Professor in the Graduate School of Human Sciences at Osaka University. He is the representative of the IT project in the Japanese Association for the Study of Religion and Society. His research interests include sociology of religion and social research methods.
Address: Osaka University, Human Sciences, 1-2, Yamadaoka, Suita city, Osaka, Japan, 565-0871

Takanori Tamura completed his Ph.D. in the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences at University of Tsukuba and is a lecturer in Kanto Gakuin University and St. Margaret's College. His research focuses on socio-information studies and Internet and religion. His foremost concern is the interaction of cultural attitudes and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), especially human interaction through ICTs.
Address: College of Economics, Kanto Gakuin University, 1-50-1, Mustsu’ura’higashi, Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama city, Kanagawa, Japan, 236-8501