Faith in Buddhism worship and other devotional routines as corruptions of an ideal, rational form of Buddhism, while assimilating Victorian and other modern values and designating them as traditional Buddhist, often without awareness of their roots. In Japan, from the Meiji period onward, the Japanese heavily attacked Buddhism as a foreign and superstitious belief system. In response to this, Buddhist schools such as Zen developed a movement called "New Buddhism" ("Japanese: shin bukkyo"), emphasizing rationalism, modernism and warrior ideals. Still in Japanese Buddhism, in the twentieth century, a critical response to traditional Buddhism arose, led by the two academics Hakamaya Noriaki and Matsumoto
Faith in Buddhism in their own efforts to make merits as an energy to create the Pure Land from, inspiring the devotee to follow this example. On the other hand, it was taught that practitioners should solely rely on their devotion to the Buddhas in the Pure Land, in particular Amitābha, who would come to their rescue. In Japanese Pure Land Buddhism, the latter ideal became prevalent. But even in Japan, there was much debate as to what emphasis to give to the efforts of the devotee on the one hand, and the reliance on Amitābha Buddha and his vow on the other