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<p>This study examines the contemporary debate over proposals to revise the Japanese
"Peace Constitution" from the perspective of its meaning to the Soka Gakkai. To the
present, the LDP's chief target for revision has been the war- and military renunciation
clauses of Article 9. In connection with its argument that Article 9 undermines Japan's
national security, the LDP has made the specification of collective self-defense a
prime focus of its efforts to produce a draft for a new Japanese Constitution. During
the last decade the LDP's best chance to date to achieve this goal arose by the convergence
of a number of domestic and international circumstances. However, in the end, the
LDP was prevented from realizing its revision aims on account of opposition from its
coalition partner, the Komeito, which itself sought to preserve Article 9 at the behest
of its core constituent, the Soka Gakkai. After having been excommunicated from the
Nichiren Shoshu in 1991 Gakkai leaders prioritized activism on behalf of Article 9
as the pivotal component of an innovative hermeneutical strategy devised to evince
that the movement had retained its legitimacy through the split. By contextualizing
this hermeneutical strategy within the Soka Gakkai's overall historical development
and analyzing the streams of activity put into motion thereby until their eventual
intersection (via the Komeito) with the LDP's reform agenda, it has been revealed
that the chance to impact the Constitutional revision process has served a critical
function in enabling the Soka Gakkai to demonstrate its legitimacy as a wholly independent
lay religious movement, and thus to remain a viable factor within today's Japanese
religious landscape.</p>
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