The unhappy truth behind Happy Science
Happy Science â a fast growing new religious movement â has arrived in Uganda, among many other nations. We are indebted to Rodgers Atwebembeire, a graduate of African Bible University and a researcher for the Africa Centre for Apologetics Research (www.acfar.org) for writing this article.
On Rubaga Road, near the Hotel Sojovalo, is one of the first African outposts of a Japanese sect that expects to one day rule the world.
Happy Science entered Uganda in 2008. It has since spread beyond Kampala to Lira, Karuma, Tororo and Entebbe. It has recently been engaged in an aggressive and expensive promotional campaign heralding the appearance of its founder at Namboole Stadium.
That founder is Ryuho Okawa, a 55-year-old former businessman who was born as Takashi Nakagawa on Shikoku, the smallest of Japanâs main islands.
Wealth
Okawa claims that in 1981 he experienced âBuddha enlightenmentâ, which led him to organize the kofuku no kagaku (âscience of happinessâ) in October 1986, to offer âsalvation for all humankindâ. Okawa has gained a wide audience through publishing and films. Today he is one of Japanâs wealthiest men.
Happy Science is one of the new religions that have sprouted in Japan since World War II. It advertises itself as âa universal religion open to people of all religious, cultural and ethnic backgroundsâ.
But more than this, Okawa claims to be the most important person in the world today â El Cantare, the literal reincarnation of the original Buddha and âsupreme God of Earthâ. In 1991, the Associated Press quoted Okawa as boasting that âI came here as more than the Messiah ⌠This universe, this world, were based on my words and my teachingsâ.
Moreover Okawa has claimed, âIt is I who possess the highest authority on earth. It is I who have all authority from the beginning of the earth until the end. For I am not human, but am the law itselfâ.
How did Okawa come to such stunning delusions of grandeur? One reason is that he is a practising occultist â a spirit medium. And like Alice Lakwena, Credonia Mwerinde and Joseph Kony, he confounds and controls his followers by claiming to speak for the dead.
The Japan Times explains that before founding Happy Science, Okawa âwrote books in which he channelled the spirits of Muhammad, Christ, Buddha, and Confuciusâ, among others.
Strangely, these long-departed religious leaders and geniuses have, according to Okawa, much the same message: âJapan is the worldâs greatest power and should ditch its constitution, rearm and lead the worldâ.
Indeed, in 1991, the Associated Press described Okawaâs passionate sermon at a giant rally where he declared the Japanese as a âchosen peopleâ, who are destined to âdestroy the United States and the Soviet Unionâ, making China a âslaveâ and Korea a âprostituteâ.
Fantasies
But what does all this mean to Christians in Uganda [and elsewhere]? Scripture commands followers of Jesus to âtest the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the worldâ (1 John 4:1).
Christians will find the vast doctrine of Happy Science neither happy nor scientific. Itâs a bizarre, complex combination of New Age and eastern mysticism, mixed with Okawaâs sci-fi fantasies of lost civilisations and multi-dimensional beings.
And it conflicts violently with the Bible in almost every major category of belief. Okawa denies the Trinity, the unique deity and incarnation of Jesus Christ, Christâs atonement for sin and resurrection, and the doctrine of everlasting punishment.
In his books Okawa shamelessly makes Moses, Peter, Paul, and even Jesus, his spirit puppets to mouth his occultic messages.
At a time when many are seeking hope, longing for answers and hungry for something ânewâ, Ugandans need to know that Happy Science is a hollow substitute for the good news that âGod so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal lifeâ (John 3:16).
Curious churchgoers who are tempted by Okawaâs pride and pageantry should beware lest, âas the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christâ.
âNo wonderâ, the apostle Paul continues, âfor even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deedsâ (2 Corinthians 11:3, 14-15).