Request for Signatures
From Sekai Kyusei Kyo Su no Hikari Kyodan
President Keiichiro Narii
President of Izunome Group, Michio Shirasawa
Scholar of Hinduism, trustee of an organization related to MOA and not related by blood to Meishu-sama – Do we recognize Nobuyuki Watase, self-named “Nobuyuki Okada,” as Kyoshu – Spiritual Leader – of Sekai Kyusei Kyo?
WE DO NOT.
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We offer our sincere gratitude to you, the members, not only in Japan, but all over the world for your daily efforts in Meishu-sama’s divine work.
At the end of this past April, it has been made clear that the illegitimate Board of Executive Directors of Sekai Kyusei Kyo (hereafter “SKK”) umbrella corporation (Toho no Hikari/MOA and the executives under Mr. Kobayashi of Izunome Kyodan) have applied for approval of revisions to SKK’s bylaws from Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs with the authorization of Mr. Nobuyuki Watase, a scholar of Hinduism, Emeritus Professor of Research in Indian Philosophy at Tōkai University, and trustee of an organization related to Toho no Hikari backed by the executives who have named him the Fifth Kyoshu.
If all of you recall in your recent memory, last year, we sent in our signatures to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, absolutely set against revisions to the SKK bylaws.
Those contents were as follows:
It is believed that the likes of Mr. Nagasawa and Mr. Kobayashi have ignored the bylaws and church rules and are attempting to produce a Kyoshu that can be controlled at will. This is a crisis that will result in the collapse of the church and we simply cannot allow this kind of outrage. To the agency, we earnestly petition you to absolutely not recognize revisions to the bylaws with the approval of a person who self-proclaims himself as new Kyoshu.
The number of those who signed the petition reached more than 40,000. It is clear to anyone that many members want SKK to be guided in the right direction, and they feel how abnormal the ways of the current Toho no Hikari/MOA and the executives under Mr. Kobayashi are.
We believe that the signatures from all of you, the members, expressed, at the same time, your strong feelings that you would never recognize the following, wiretapping and secretly filming/photographing of Meishu-sama’s family – his grandson Kyoshu-sama and his wife – carried out by Toho no Hikari/MOA and the active approval of those actions by the Izunome Kyodan executives under Mr. Kobayashi, and the executives under Brazil’s Marco Resende, Africa’s Claudio Pinheiro, Italy and Portugal’s Carlos Luciow and America’s Marco Negrao. We believe this was also an expression of your sense of justice that a true follower of Meishu-sama would have. Even towards the authorities and society, Meishu-sama did what he believed to be right, to the point that he would take them to court. Meishu-sama taught that “we will completely and utterly wipe out the evil from the face of the earth.”
Here, once again, we would like to sincerely thank you, all the members, for being in thought together with us by signing the petition last year. Thank you very much.
Unfortunately, what was written in our petition to the Agency for Cultural Affairs last year with your signatures, is happening now. With the Certificate of Approval from the self-named new “Kyoshu,” Mr. Nobuyuki Watase, the illegitimate Board of Executive Directors of SKK umbrella corporation have applied for revisions to the church bylaws at the Agency for Cultural Affairs.
Toho no Hikari/MOA and the executives under Mr. Kobayashi are trying to make the government recognize this new “Kyoshu,” which can be nothing else other than their attempt to take complete control over SKK with the puppet Kyoshu.
We refuse to recognize Nobuyuki Watase as SKK’s Kyoshu, whose face we do not know even now.
It is believed that the response from the Agency for Cultural Affairs comes within three months. However, in order to clearly show our stance, Su no Hikari Kyodan, Izunome Group and Toho no Hikari Group are once again, asking for your understanding and cooperation. We are proceeding with a large-scale, world-wide signature-collecting campaign.
For us, what is the true meaning of the existence of Kyoshu of SKK? Is he/she a puppet, who can be easily selected, for that time’s executives? Can the Kyoshu of SKK be someone who has no blood relation to Meishu-sama?
In the Spiritual Lineage Regulations of SKK, needless to say, it states to the effect that the Kyoshu of SKK must be selected from the blood line of Meishu-sama.
Regardless, Toho no Hikari/MOA and the executives under Mr. Kobayashi have ended up revising the Spiritual Lineage Regulations to their own convenience so that even if a person is not blood-related to Meishu-sama, he/she can become Kyoshu as long as he/she has the endorsement of the Board of Executive Directors (of SKK).
Revisions to the Spiritual Lineage Regulations cannot take place without the approval of Yoichi Okada Kyoshu in the first place (Church Rule No. 14). They have thoroughly ignored the laws, including the Spiritual Lineage Regulations of SKK, and they have backed a puppet “Kyoshu” to use for themselves.
The fact that this self-named “Fifth Spiritual Leader, Kyoshu” Mr. Watase is a trustee of an organization related to Toho no Hikari, a non-profit foundation, MOA Health Science Foundation, tells the whole story.
Here in Japan, just days ago, we entered the imperial reign of Reiwa from Heisei. From Emperor Akihito, Emperor Naruhito has succeeded the imperial throne of Japan. The honorable position of Emperor of Japan is succeeded by blood relation, which all Japanese people know and at the same time, it is in clear writing in the Constitution of Japan.
If by chance, this article in the Constitution was revised, and suddenly if an outside intellectual who has no blood relationship to the Imperial Family became the Emperor, exactly who of the Japanese people would agree with this?
Then why would Toho no Hikari/MOA and the executives under Mr. Kobayashi come all this way and make themselves back a new “Kyoshu”?
The illegitimate Board of Executive Directors of SKK are insisting that they made a resolution to abolish the ties between the umbrella corporation and member organization Su no Hikari Kyodan last year, on January 30, and are insisting that they excluded Su no Hikari Kyodan from SKK.
As all of you know, after Meishu-sama passed away in 1955, SKK went through many church purifications and trials, and under Sandai-sama, established an agreement in 1997. After that, along with Sandai-sama’s abdication, Yoichi Okada was made Fourth Kyoshu, Spiritual Leader in 1998. With Kyoshu-sama as the central point, SKK set off on a new departure in 2000, with member organizations under an umbrella corporation structure. SKK umbrella corporation was to be made up of three member organizations (church corporations): Sekai Kyusei Kyo Izunome Kyodan, Toho no Hikari (MOA), and Sekai Kyusei Kyo Su no Hikari Kyodan. However, last year in 2018, Toho no Hikari/MOA and the executives of Izunome Kyodan under Mr. Kobayashi discarded the fundamental spirit of the 1997 agreement and abolished the ties between SKK umbrella corporation and one of the three member organizations constituting it, Su no Hikari Kyodan. In other words, they forced out Su no Hikari from SKK.
Toho no Hikari/MOA and the executives under Mr. Kobayashi made a great fuss about how Kyoshu-sama’s guidance violated Meishu-sama’s teachings and gave the reason that Su no Hikari Kyodan was using Kyoshu-sama’s messages as their foundation of faith to force them out.
However, as in SKK’s bylaws, “Kyoshu inherits and carries out the sacred work of the founder, and based on the teachings, unifies Sekai Kyusei Kyo” (Article 5) and in SKK’s Church Rules, “Kyoshu defines the foundation and general outline of the teachings of the church” (Church Rule No.9), the one who determines the teachings of SKK is SKK’s Kyoshu. It is impossible for Kyoshu-sama to violate the teachings of Meishu-sama.
Toho no Hikari/MOA and the executives under Mr. Kobayashi are insisting that “Kyoshu-sama’s guidance violate Meishu-sama’s teachings.” But that in itself means that they are ignoring the laws of SKK and this is an outrageous misconception on their part.
Being a member of SKK and a member organization of SKK’s umbrella corporation, to proceed with activities of faith based on Kyoshu-sama’s guidance is a responsibility determined in the bylaws and church rules. And Su no Hikari Kyodan who has exercised this responsibility, should naturally, not be expelled from SKK.
Should one not be in favor of the determined rules, that person should be the one who leaves. However, Toho no Hikari/MOA and the executives under Mr. Kobayashi who did not want to let go of the property and land of SKK, revised those very rules to their own convenience and attempted to expel Su no Hikari Kyodan who did follow the rules.
However, they must have fully known that their forceful ways were unreasonable. In order for them to justify the revision of rules, they resorted to the means of saying “it was Kyoshu-sama and Su no Hikari who broke the rules,” and “we had no other choice but to revise the rules.” For that, besides judging and speaking ill of people, they have run out of things to do – the lack of grace and lowliness seen in the letters they continue to send even now, which we could not even hold in our laughter – makes this very apparent.
Even at this time’s lawsuit that Su no Hikari Kyodan filed at the courts, we know that Toho no Hikari/MOA and the executives under Mr. Kobayashi, with their documents of completely fabricated lies about Kyoshu-sama are being turned into the courts without shame.
This kind of continuing excessiveness in their behavior, currently, has spread around the world and is likely the fundamental cause of SKK’s confusion, which there seems to be no indication of subsiding.
Toho no Hikari/MOA wished to make MOA’s activities, in which any hint of religion has been erased and God is hidden, the central activities of SKK. They also underhandedly harassed and attacked continuously for many years: Kyoshu-sama, who clearly brought to attention God’s existence; Rev. Tetsuo Watanabe, Izunome Kyodan’s President at the time who resolutely supported Kyoshu-sama; and also Su no Hikari Kyodan who acted in concert with Rev. Watanabe and walked together with Kyoshu-sama. And at last, with the passing of Rev. Watanabe in October of 2013, a big thorn from their side was removed. Toho no Hikari/MOA quickly united with Mr. Kobayashi and conspired with an eye towards excluding Su no Hikari Kyodan from SKK. It was because Su no Hikari Kyodan accepted the guidance of Kyoshu-sama, who succeeds the sacred work of Meishu-sama’s salvation of humanity.
In order for the decision to abolish the ties between Su no Hikari Kyodan and the umbrella organization to be effective legally, it is required for the name “Sekai Kyusei Kyo Su no Hikari Kyodan” to be removed from the umbrella corporation membership of SKK, as stipulated in the SKK bylaws, Article 27. However, in order to revise the bylaws, Kyoshu-sama’s approval is always necessary. In this way, it is stipulated in the SKK bylaws. It is only natural that the Agency of Cultural Affairs also would not recognize a revision in the bylaws without a Certificate of Approval from Kyoshu.
For that reason, twice last year on February 19 and February 27, the self-proclaimed acting Chair of the Board of Executive Directors (President), Mr. Yoshiyuki Nagasawa, attempted to obtain approval from Kyoshu-sama (Yoichi Okada, our current spiritual leader). However, Kyoshu-sama was very clear in his response in opposing Mr. Nagasawa by saying, “I cannot possibly recognize this denial of the current fundamental structure of the three organizations that together, make up the umbrella corporation. I do not approve.”
However, in order for Toho no Hikari/MOA and the executives under Mr. Kobayashi to implement revisions to the bylaws, and in order for them to oust Su no Hikari Kyodan from SKK, they needed, at any cost, a Kyoshu whom they could control at will. Simply put, obtaining a Certificate of Approval.
There, with legal defects in their procedures, in other words, ignoring the laws of SKK, they have one-sidedly been asserting that they nullified the leadership of Yoichi Okada, Kyoshu-sama, and are backing a puppet Kyoshu, Mr. Nobuyuki Watase.
In regard to the new Kyoshu that Toho no Hikari/MOA and the executives under Mr. Kobayashi back, they explain, “We decided to choose Mr. Watase as Kyoshu to avoid causing standstills in church administration” and “He will not be receiving any opportunities to stand in front of members at services, etc.”
That is to say, to them, “Kyoshu” is someone who “does not stand in front of members and exists only to avoid standstills in administrative affairs.”
For Toho no Hikari/MOA and the executives under Mr. Kobayashi, as long as they have a Kyoshu that produces, at their will, Certificates of Approval for revisions to the bylaws and church rules, and Certificate of Authorizations for appointments of executive board members, they are fine. That is what “Kyoshu” means to them.
Just because they cannot receive the approval of Kyoshu as they wish, exactly who would banish Kyoshu-sama, Meishu-sama’s own grandson, from SKK? They have made Mr. Watase, a trustee of an organization related to MOA “Kyoshu,” and with Mr. Watase’s “approval,” they are attempting to revise SKK’s bylaws. They, themselves, very likely no longer realize how far from Meishu-sama’s will they have gone.
To follow, wiretap, secretly film and photograph people, to bend the law, to think it is fine to do whatever act of dishonesty as long as people do not know – their posture is the most decisive evidence of one who does not believe in a living God.
They are actively spreading talk about how Kyoshu-sama’s guidance is deviating from Meishu-sama’s teachings. But do they not know that their own posture, in itself, is completely running counter to and deviating from Meishu-sama’s teachings? The teachings of Meishu-sama make sense when they are first practiced within our daily lives. Once one requests a detective agency to follow, wiretap and secretly film/photograph someone, they can no longer be considered a person of faith. These kinds of unspeakable matters were actually discussed in the executive board meetings of Toho no Hikari/MOA and were approved of. Mr. Masayoshi Kobayashi, Mr. Marco Resende, Mr. Claudio Pinheiro, Mr. Carlos Luciow, Mr. Marco Negrao, and the like approved of these matters, as if they were commonplace. We have no words to say. We hope that one day, they, who have fundamentally misunderstood the basics of faith, can repent and awaken.
As written in the characters of Kyoshu, it means “master of the teachings.” As the Emperor of Japan also takes upon the role of “symbol,” as established in the Constitution of Japan, the Kyoshu of SKK is also a symbol for the members, but not only that, as written in the church rules, the “Kyoshu defines the foundation and general outline of the teachings of the church.” The Kyoshu shows the path on which SKK should go forward on. For the church, Kyoshu-sama is a one and only, unique existence.
The first Kyoshu, Meishu-sama, was succeeded by Nidai-sama and then Sandai-sama. They stood in the forefront for us and as they walked together with the members, through their messages, hymns and their way of being, they always corrected our attitude toward Meishu-sama and helped us to deepen our faith.
Yoichi Okada, our current Kyoshu-sama, is the same. The name of Messiah – which anyone around the world recognized as Jesus Christ being the only one who was granted the name – Meishu-sama named his church by this name, built “Messiah Hall” and called for all the members to sing Handel’s piece “Hallelujah” chorus from Messiah. He also said that the object of our church’s faith is the God of Christianity, Jehovah. In the church publication, he used the Christian word eiko or “glory” for the name. In his own written works, he used the titles Tengoku no Fukuin and Tengoku no Fukuin-sho, both of which mean the “Gospel of Heaven,” clearly giving the Christian element to the titles. He left us teachings such as, “World Church of Messiah will work in concert with Christianity” and “World Church of Messiah will become very close to Christianity,” and frequently used the words “Hallelujah” and “Messiah” in his hymns. In the last years of his life, as he used the words from the Gospel of John of the New Testament “to be born anew,” he announced that he was “born anew as the Messiah.” Furthermore, he said Messiah meant “the second coming of Christ.” We could not at all understand what Meishu-sama meant by all of this. Yoichi Okada, our current Kyoshu-sama, was the one who put in the maximum effort to get us closer to this Meishu-sama’s will.
Toho no Hikari/MOA and the executives under Mr. Kobayashi are claiming that Kyoshu-sama making efforts to deepen his understanding of Christianity is the basic problem. However, if you see the examples given above, in order to become closer to Meishu-sama’s will, naturally, isn’t it our duty as a follower of Meishu-sama to make an effort to know about Christianity? Without that, how can we save humanity and all religions? Our current Kyoshu-sama is the one who made us realize this.
No matter what the persecution, criticisms and attacks he is met with, he stands at the head and is directly facing Meishu-sama for us. To us, this is what the Kyoshu of Sekai Kyusei Kyo is.
On the other hand, what is the case of the self-proclaimed “Fifth Spiritual Leader,” Mr. Nobuyuki Watase? We are in no way attempting to criticize Hinduism. Rather, it is an outstanding religion and we express our respect to it. However, for the one who stands in the position of Kyoshu at the center of SKK’s teachings, we cannot help but feel that a scholar of Hinduism is out of place. For someone like that to be “Kyoshu,” means it is no longer Sekai Kyusei Kyo.
An existence that does not even appear before the members, studying somewhere in a room the sutras of Hinduism, while giving his seal of approval as he is told by the executives. This Mr. Nobuyuki Watase is the present “Kyoshu of Sekai Kyusei Kyo.” If this is not an abnormal situation, what is? Just imagining if society knew about these facts, we are very embarrassed. What would Meishu-sama, Nidai-sama, Sandai-sama and the pioneer ministers who put their life on the line to build the foundation of the church think about this matter?
We absolutely do not recognize Mr. Nobuyuki Watase, a scholar of Hinduism and a trustee of an organization related to MOA with no blood relation to Meishu-sama as “Kyoshu of Sekai Kyusei Kyo.” This would effectively be the demise of Sekai Kyusei Kyo.
In the same way, we will absolutely not recognize any revisions to the bylaws approved by Mr. Nobuyuki Watase or self-named “Nobuyuki Okada, Fifth Spiritual Leader.” These revisions have spiritual, moral and legal issues.
We are carrying out a signature-collecting campaign to express this strong intention to the Agency for Cultural Affairs who are currently moving forward with deliberations. To all of you, members around the world, by all means, we wish to receive your concerted efforts.
Working as one with members all over the world, let us take on our signature-collecting campaign.
**Contact your local Johrei center to join this movement.
PDF version: 20190504 Request for Signatures
