Anti-Cult Measures at Universities in Japan: The Production of Knowledge on Religion as a Category

Abstract

The assassination of former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo in 2022 illustrated the complex relationship between the public and religion, specifically with ‘‘new’’ religions. This category is often associated with the term ‘‘cult’’, a label applied to religious groups considered hostile. The attack on Abe’s life reinvoked memories of violence and religion in the public sphere, such as the 1995 Aum Affair. These events led to the university’s role in protecting and guiding Japan’s youth to become part of this debate. It considers universities as central actors to investigate their responses to the phenomenon of religion and new religions through anti-cult measures. These measures can be defined as warnings against cult recruitment in the university sphere. I draw on the framework of moral panic and the concept of moral entrepreneurs to demonstrate how universities select and represent information on religion as a category in their anti-cult measures. The study reveals that this is done through the primary mechanism of language. A fear-invoking lexicon is leveraged together with terminology that underscores a binary between ‘‘accepted’’ and ‘‘unaccepted’’ religions.