[For Tanaka t]he world was in the period of the Latter Days of the Law, and it was already fully evident that the only faith suitable for the times was that of the Lotus Sutra, that is, Nichiren Buddhism. But not, it should be understood, the religion of the Nichiren temples. What the times demanded, and what Tanaka had already called for, was a reformed Nichiren church. Now, for the first time, Tanaka suggested that the new faith should be Nichirenism (Nichiren shugi)—the principles of Nichiren Buddhism in the context of Japanese nationalism.

This phrase is of great importance, for it became the accepted identification for Tanaka’s religio-political theories. Nichiren shugi has a somewhat more “scientific” ring to it than the phrase generally used to designate the established Nichiren order, with its overtones of faith and piety, and it conveys fairly accurately Tanaka’s interpretations of the teachings of Nichiren in a context of nationalism. If the nuances are appreciated, Nihiren shugi can be said to epitomize Tanaka’s thought. The word appears constantly in all of his works after about 1906, and it continues in use today as the official definition of the religion of the Kokuchūkai. Nichirenism, then, was the means of binding Tanaka’s patriotism and religion into a logical entity. When Nichiren spoke of Japan’s role as the savior of the world (through assertive proselytization of the true faith), he was amplifying and clarifying goals and methods already set forth in the Nihongi; his call for an aggressive policy of expansion was a reverberation of the earlier rallying cry of Emperor Jimmu as he headed eastward to subdue the barbarians and spread the culture of the Yamato civilization.

These pronouncements of 1903-4, and especially the first use of ‘Nichirenism’ to define Tanaka’s thought, mark the dividing line, according to the late Satomi Kishio, son of Tanaka Chigaku by his second wife and head of the Satomi Research Institute, between his father’s career as an advocate of religion with strong nationalistic emphases and his career as a devotee of a nationalism rooted firmly in religious principles.