James Hilgendorf

Maybe We Need a New Religion James Hilgendorf

Sometime ago, it was reported that a young ten-or-eleven year old boy, after being exposed to continuing newspaper and television reports about the fighting going on all over the Middle East, involving Christians, Muslims and Jews, remarked: "Maybe we need a new religion." The premise of this book is that the beginnings of such a religion have already appeared among us - among followers of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and those with no religious affiliation at all. It is a religion, above all, that recognizes and supports the sanctity of life itself. Today, this religion is being most prominently spearheaded by the SGI, or Soka Gakkai International, a Buddhist lay organization with 12,000,000 members in 192 countries and territories around the globe. You may never have heard of the Soka Gakkai, but the Buddhism of the SGI is on the threshold of becoming the next great world religion. The author's personal journey of discovery forms a part of the book. It is a story also of the SGI, and of the still unfulfilled Dream of America, and of a new global civilization that is dawning all over the world. It is a story written in eternity - the eternity of here and now and forever.