Word: sects
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Once again, as they had for 700 years, the chosen priests of Japan's Nichiren Buddhist sect trouped to the temple of Hokkekyo to undergo 100 days of purification and study. At the temple gateway stood Chief Priest Nissei Nakakita, asking the novices for six times last year's entrance fee. For three months of contemplation and 700 duckings in the ice-cold waters of the temple pump, 58 novices paid the inflated rate. Outside "the door that is not opened" devoted followers waited eagerly for their cries as freezing water coursed down their naked bodies...
Like anybody else, the New York Times makes mistakes. A fortnight ago, it reported from Warsaw that the Mariavite Sect (a Polish offshoot of the Roman Catholic Church) "does not recognize the authority of the Pope and [its] clergy are not obliged to practice chastity." Last week the chaste Times coughed discreetly and admitted that "chastity" was not the right word: it should have been "celibacy...
Soul & Body. High point of The Apostolic Fathers is the "Letter to Diognetus." Written in the form of a letter to a pagan to describe "this new group or institute" which calls itself "Christian," its moving characterization of the sect is still a counsel of perfection. Excerpt: "Christians are not different from the rest of men in nationality, speech or customs; they do not live in states of their own, nor do they use a special language, nor adopt a peculiar way of life. Their teaching is not the kind of thing that could be discovered by the wisdom...
...Hindu reformist sect founded by Guru Nanak, a contemporary of Luther. *The Nawab Saheb of Junagadh once threw away 100,000 rupees on the wedding of his prize Airedale bitch, which wore ribbons to the ceremony; vows were read for her and her dog. *In 1802, after the Peace of Amiens, a group of British residents of Calcutta presented the temple of Kali with 5,000 rupees as a thank offering for victories over Napoleon. A century later Kali became a symbol of anti-British Indian nationalism, a place to which Mahatma Gandhi succeeded. That this substitution was only temporary...
...Washington, D.C. last week, 352 Unitarian ministers and laymen assembled for the eleventh General Conference of their tiny (69,000 members), creedless sect. Dressed according to their fancy, in everything from sporty tweeds to clerical collars, they met in the ivory-paneled auditorium of All Souls' Church for three busy days of resolution-passing...