A Positive Relationship Between Daisaku Ikeda’s Environmental Thoughts and the Growth of Korea Soka Gakkai International (KSGI)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

"All my comments are provided in the attached Word file."

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

comments: 

-Expand quantitative data: Provide annual membership figures, demographic data, and participation rates in environmental activities. => [Response] The data and expalnation concerned are added in the form of endnote.

-Strengthen causal analysis: Conduct statistical analysis to control for alternative explanatory factors and clarify the relative contribution of environmental thought versus other variables. => [Response] A statistical analysis is a significant method to strengthen the logical validity of this paper, as the reviewer suggests properly. But, it is something quantitative to be made in another paper. Its reference is added in the form of endnote.

-Include member perspectives: Conduct surveys or interviews with KSGI members to directly assess their environmental consciousness and motivations for joining. => [Repsonse] Three interview reports are added. 

-Provide critical balance: Include discussion of limitations, challenges, and critical perspectives on KSGI's environmental activism. => [Response] New sentences in red are added in accordance with this comment. 

-Clarify the source: Properly cite the "recent social survey" mentioned in line 353 or remove the reference.

     => [Response] It is revised. Thank you.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The author of the paper "A Positive Relationship Between Daisaku Ikeda’s Environmental Thoughts and the Growth of Korea Soka Gakkai International (KSGI)" gives a sociological background to the growth of KSGI based on theoretical and doctrinal basis. It is a commended academic endeavor that is relevant to the understanding of modern religious movements in Korea and has a potential to contribute to the scholarship of religious studies in modern Korea.

Before this article is published it is in need of revision mostly to make the argumentation that the author initially put forth much more convincing and more fully supported with concrete and directly relevant data. For instance, the author comes across as overly depending on Daisaku Ikeda's arguments when the author should take a more critical approach. Furthermore, the author needs to present the theoretical arguments in a more clearly articulated form.

More detailed suggests are added to the paper text in memo form.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

[Response to memos] 

All comments are reflected one by one. I as an author really appreciate your suggestions and requests.

One thing should be explained about your comment that (Figure 1) is based on the 25 years old data.

First, this paper focuses on the rapid growth of KSGI in the 2000s. Second, the only reliable governmental data to count the KSGI growth comes from the Index of Religions in Korea, not the National Demographic Census. As described in the endnote, there are serious limitations in collecting numerical data on KSGI in reality for many reasons. Thank you.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The argument itself is interested and enjoyed reading this paper. In light of this the above rating seems a bit harsh. However, more empirical evidence must be provided and a restructuring of paper to substantiate the argument better. If this is possible, and the argument can be more clearly shown, this indeed would be a very interesting paper. Please see the file attached for details.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

There are some typos and grammatical errors that will need correction.

Author Response

[Comments]:

L. 93 How does this empowerment of the individual make members behave more environmentally friendly? This is not clear.

L.193 Participatory obligatory to prevent killing. So does this mean KSGI is advocating for members to be vegan or vegetarian? Are higher proportions of KSGI members vegan or vegetarian in relation to climate change? How does such a dictum operate in practice?

200 Safeguarding the Earth’s well-being – how is that specifically practices by members or the organisation

205-6 Cultivate this ecological identity as necessary to global citizenship may be something Ikeda advocates; please show how this translate into action for members?

216-221 This paragraph is somewhat confusing – what does avoiding violent conflicts and coercion surrounding environmental disputes and policy specifically refer to? Please explain in more detail the points made in these sentences.

238 Soka University and Soka University in American are not founded by SGI but by Daisaku Ikeda.

284-293 Several conspicuous points are made in this paragraph including the idea that SGI members have a religious duty to correct ecological injustice, and that SGI Buddhism exist to correct the established order. Is this how KSGI operates, if so how do SGI members in Korea see and act upon this?

298 More details are required to make these points about the comparison with the Jogyo Order in relation to KSGI as this seems to be a key argument by the author as to why KSGI grew so rapidly. A graph showing the data is not sufficient to make the reader understand the reason for this growth in membership. It is also not clear how this growth specifically relates to the strong environmental discourse the author argues is present in KSGI. Providing more details of this context is necessary. I suggest expanding the paragraph starting from L. 319-328 to show in detail the points made.

331-2 This sentence is not very clear – did mainstream Korean Buddhist criticise ecological activism amongst their members?

345 Kanji is incorrect

346 Is there such a specific concept of gender equality, if so what does that mean for members? Although Ikeda stresses gender equality in his writings, how this is practiced in KSGI is a key issue to. From observations and talks with Korean women and men over some decades, they experienced KSGI to be rather patriarchal. For example, female employees working for KSGI used to be required to quit their job upon marriage. Perhaps such practices have changed? Then please explain how it is now gender equal.

357 Kanji is incorrect

369-70 This is the first we hear of any environmental activities KSGI do. This, in my opinion should have been central to the article, which could provide evidence for how Ikeda’s environmental thinking influences or attracts new members to KSGI. No evidence for this is presented in the paper. I would explore this in detail further

[Response]:

All comments are very helpful to make the thesis of this paper more clear and logical. We authors think that many sentences and even words are revised in accordance with the reviewer's comments and requests as faithfully as possible. Pleasec check out the revised contents and endnotes in red color. Thank you.

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

< !--StartFragment -->

The paper explores the relationship between Daisaku Ikeda's Buddhist green philosophy and the development of the Korea Soka Gakkai International (KSGI). It interprets Ikeda's environmental ideas—based on the Buddhist ideas of dependent origination, oneness of life, and the "greater self"—as spiritual as well as social ideology that has shaped the religious identity of KSGI members. Through a tracing of Ikeda's peace proposals from 1983 to 2022, the author argues that his vision of moral and spiritual harmony between man and nature has profoundly influenced Korea's Soka Gakkai movement, which grew into a socially engaged and nature-protecting religious movement independent of mainstream Korean Buddhism. The article situates this in a broader sociological frame of global citizenship, moral responsibility, and environmental justice in contemporary Buddhist activism.

The research draws on qualitative methods based in textual and thematic analysis. It offers close readings of Ikeda's peace proposals, exploring their socio-historical context and unearthing recurring themes of environmental ethics, interdependence, and sustainability. It does so by doing thematic coding, synthesizing core ideas on human–nature relations, ecological citizenship, and SGI's civic engagement and educational practices. The interpretation is contextualized and interpretive, connecting Ikeda's Buddhist eco-environmentalism to theoretical constructions within the sociology of religion and realized patterns of KSGI expansion in South Korea.

If you look at the scholarship that has been developed in recent times, the foundation upon which this paper is built is not new. There is existing research that specifically outlines how members of KSGI view ecological responsibility as part of their religious identity, and how that is becoming what the literature currently refers to as faith-based ecological citizenship. That previous book argues, based on empirical data, that Korean SGI members translate crises like climate change and even COVID-19 through Ikeda's vocabulary of interdependence, dignity of life, and world responsibility, and read environmental action as Buddhist practice rather than as secular green politics. It also argues that this “ecological citizenship” emerges from SGI’s own spiritual framing, not from state environmentalism or radical eco-activism. In other words, the idea that Ikeda’s environmental discourse is internalized among Korean SGI members as an ethical identity is not new in this paper; it’s already been described and, importantly, measured. The current manuscript repeats that framing, but it does not substantially extend it with new data.

In plain words: this article is strongest when it holds to the thesis that environmental discourse is not cosmetic but constitutive of KSGI — that it offers members a global ethic of agency and, in Korea, amounted to public legitimation under competitive religious market conditions.

That hypothesis, stated so roughly, is intriguing and not yet finally settled in the scholarship, so the ambition must be respected. But the performance only amounts to assertion. Because it relies on Ikeda’s published proposals and public SGI rhetoric, it reproduces SGI’s self-description rather than testing it. Meanwhile, the paper’s other big ingredients — KSGI’s production of ecological citizenship, the civic style of SGI’s lay Buddhist identity, the stress on global citizenship education, the alignment with UN language, the growth curve of KSGI in post-dictatorship Korea, and the link between political neutrality and credibility — are all already present in recent academic writing, including writing that is empirical and historically grounded. So if I score its originality, I'd say it's interpretively incremental but not methodologically or empirically novel.

It re-packages two vibrant debates — SGI environmental ethics and KSGI growth — and advances a cause-and-effect hypothesis between them, but it doesn't yet advance the evidence to make a skeptical reader believe that ecological theology, specifically, was what fueled KSGI's growth in Korea. Without interviews, media content analysis, internal Korean SGI training materials, or membership rolls that could make that causal pathway apparent, the research is more programmatic position paper than breakthrough.

< !--EndFragment -->

Author Response

[Comments]

If you look at the scholarship that has been developed in recent times, the foundation upon which this paper is built is not new. There is existing research that specifically outlines how members of KSGI view ecological responsibility as part of their religious identity, and how that is becoming what the literature currently refers to as faith-based ecological citizenship. That previous book argues, based on empirical data, that Korean SGI members translate crises like climate change and even COVID-19 through Ikeda's vocabulary of interdependence, dignity of life, and world responsibility, and read environmental action as Buddhist practice rather than as secular green politics. It also argues that this “ecological citizenship” emerges from SGI’s own spiritual framing, not from state environmentalism or radical eco-activism. In other words, the idea that Ikeda’s environmental discourse is internalized among Korean SGI members as an ethical identity is not new in this paper; it’s already been described and, importantly, measured. The current manuscript repeats that framing, but it does not substantially extend it with new data. 

=> [Response] There are explanations or arguments that overlap with the previous content, but they are very different in the following two points. First, there is no paper that Ikeda's environmental ideology has been identified through the proposition of peace. Second, there is still no academic discussion on how SGI's peace ideology is related to its growth. In this respect, I think the paper has new issues.

In plain words: this article is strongest when it holds to the thesis that environmental discourse is not cosmetic but constitutive of KSGI — that it offers members a global ethic of agency and, in Korea, amounted to public legitimation under competitive religious market conditions. That hypothesis, stated so roughly, is intriguing and not yet finally settled in the scholarship, so the ambition must be respected. But the performance only amounts to assertion. Because it relies on Ikeda’s published proposals and public SGI rhetoric, it reproduces SGI’s self-description rather than testing it.

Meanwhile, the paper’s other big ingredients — KSGI’s production of ecological citizenship, the civic style of SGI’s lay Buddhist identity, the stress on global citizenship education, the alignment with UN language, the growth curve of KSGI in post-dictatorship Korea, and the link between political neutrality and credibility — are all already present in recent academic writing, including writing that is empirical and historically grounded. So if I score its originality, I'd say it's interpretively incremental but not methodologically or empirically novel.

It re-packages two vibrant debates — SGI environmental ethics and KSGI growth — and advances a cause-and-effect hypothesis between them, but it doesn't yet advance the evidence to make a skeptical reader believe that ecological theology, specifically, was what fueled KSGI's growth in Korea. Without interviews, media content analysis, internal Korean SGI training materials, or membership rolls that could make that causal pathway apparent, the research is more programmatic position paper than breakthrough.

=> [Response] The reviewer's argument may be partially valid. However, the basic argument of this paper is to investigate what Ikeda's environmentalism is, and what meaning and theoretical potential is in terms of the sociology of religion. Proving that SGI's environmental ideology is a direct causal cause of its growth is a positive study and hence should be carried out in another study. As added in the text, at the stage of this paper, a simple and direct causality is not asserted. As the reviewer pointed out, I fully agree that more specific empirical and empirical investigations of believers should be added in the future. However, as explained additonally by the authors in the endnote, Korean governmental data on KSGI lack statistical reliability and are also omitted from the National Population and Housing Census. Thank you.