Editing Soka Gakkai (section)

==Perception==

===In Japan===
Today, Soka Gakkai is rarely criticized in mainstream news media. Since the Komeito Party joined the ruling government coalition in 1999, widespread criticism by the media of the Soka Gakkai has abated and the Soka Gakkai is gaining acceptance as part of the Japanese mainstream.<ref>Mette Fisker-Nielsen, pp. 65–66.</ref><ref name="Oxford University Press">{{cite book|last1=Metraux|first1=Daniel|author-link1=The Soka Gakkai and Human Security|editor1-last=Wellman|editor1-first=James K.|editor2-last=Lombardi|editor2-first=Clark B.|title=Religion and human security: a global perspective|date=2012|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York|isbn=978-0-19-982774-9|page=[https://archive.org/details/religionandh_xxxx_2012_000_10856028/page/n279 266]|url=https://archive.org/details/religionandh_xxxx_2012_000_10856028|url-access=registration}}</ref> There has been a "fractured view" of the Soka Gakkai in Japan. On the one hand, it is seen as a politically and socially engaged movement;<ref>{{cite book|last1=Seager|first1=Richard|title=Encountering the Dharma: Daisaku Ikeda, the Soka Gakkai, and the Globalization of Buddhist Humanism|date=2006|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-24577-8|quote=Since its founding in the 1930s, the Soka Gakkai has repeatedly found itself at the center of controversies, some linked to major struggles over the future of Japan, others to intense internal religious debates that erupted into public view. Over the course of its history, however, it has also grown into a large, politically active, and very well-established network of institutions, whose membership represents something on the order of a tenth of the Japanese population. One result is that there is a fractured view of the movement in Japan. On one hand, it is seen as a highly articulated, politically and socially engaged movement with an expressed message of human empowerment and global peace. On the other, it has been charged with an array of nefarious activities that range from fellow traveling with Communists and sedition to aspiring to world domination.|page=xii|url=https://archive.org/details/encounteringdhar0000seag}}</ref><ref>Takesato Watanabe, "The Movement and the Japanese Media" in David Machacek and Bryan Wilson (eds.), Global Citizens, Oxford University Press, 2000. "The Soka Gakkai is exceptional in that no other large Japanese religious organization engages in both social and political issues—from the promotion of human rights to the protection of the environment and abolition of nuclear weapons—as actively as it does." (p. 217)</ref> on the other, it is still viewed with suspicion by Japanese people.<ref name="wellman1">{{cite book|editor-last=Wellman|editor-first=James K. Jr.|title=Religion and Human Security: A Global Perspective|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York|isbn=978-0-19-982775-6|page=[https://archive.org/details/religionandh_xxxx_2012_000_10856028/page/n285 272]|editor2-last=Lombardi|editor2-first=Clark B.|date=2012-08-16|url=https://archive.org/details/religionandh_xxxx_2012_000_10856028|url-access=registration}} "When I conducted a survey of 235 Doshisha University students a few years ago asking their opinions about the Gakkai and how much they knew about its peace education programs, over 80 percent responded that they had a negative image of the movement and about 60 percent thought that its "peace movement" is little more than promotional propaganda. The few respondents with a positive image were either Soka Gakkai members, were related members, or were friends of members."</ref><ref>Phillip E. Hammond and David W. Machacek, "Soka Gakkai International" in J. Gordon Melton, Martin Baumann (eds.), Religions of the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices, ABC-CLIO, 2010, p. 2658.  "Daisaku Ikeda (b. 1928), Soka Gakkai's charismatic third president, led the international growth of the movement. Although Ikeda and his successor, Einosuke Akiya, have gone to great lengths to improve the movement's public image, suspicion remains. Soka Gakkai's political involvement through the organ of the Komeito, a political party founded by the Soka Gakkai, and the near godlike reverence that members have for President Ikeda have tended to perpetuate public distrust. Although it has been subjected to a generalized suspicion toward Eastern religious movements in the United States, Europe, and South America, the movement's history outside of Japan has been tranquil by comparison to its Japanese history."</ref>

====International perception====
Soka Gakkai is considered as a cult in several countries, including France and Belgium.

In 2015, Italian prime minister [[Matteo Renzi]] signed an agreement that recognizes the Soka Gakkai as a "Concordat" that grants the religions status in "a special 'club' of denominations consulted by the government in certain occasions, and, perhaps more importantly, to be partially financed by taxpayers' money." Eleven other religious denominations share this status.<ref name = berkley>{{cite web | url = http://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/essays/religion-in-the-italian-constitution | title = Religion in the Italian Constitution | publisher = Georgetown University | access-date = 10 August 2015 | archive-date = 26 November 2016 | archive-url = https://archive.today/20161126191359/http://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/essays/religion-in-the-italian-constitution }}</ref><ref name = italy>{{cite web | url =  http://www.governo.it/Presidenza/USRI/confessioni/intese_indice.html | title = Istituto Buddista Italiano Soka Gakkai | publisher = Governo Italiano | access-date = 14 August 2015}}</ref>