Mark,
Your sincerity is quite remarkable and deserves recognition. It was always a fabric of your postings which is one reason I give your words such weight. It is also why I am so confident your power of propagation.
I thought very long and hard on this very topic well before it was known to me here. My initial exposure to this teaching was from my teacher. It was limited but potent but without mention of Nichiren defined as the source of the lotus itself. I spent many years pouring of the sutra, studying the writings and avoiding all other practices. I had prior developed a very deep and transcendental relationship with other practices. So accordingly I have a deep reverence for teachings, buddhist and non buddhist alike. I am particularly found of the one's that mark my familial heritage.
My teacher is the polar opposite. Laser focus on Nichiren and the practice. All else cast aside. At some point he cautioned me on my promotion of the provisional within my Nichiren dialog. This bothered me and I made mention of it. He didn't invalidate me but put it in perspective. He used the world familial. I spent years pondering this as it pertained to my own life. I had always had a underlying narrative and to a point it was inherited and I had taken it as an internal mission to understand it and right it in my lifetime. It was my karma and the imprint from it that was the obstacle. I had done great good to offset great evil in my own life and to the credit of all those I loved including those who hurt me.
However it also reminded me neither great good or great evil are the middle way. This is why he corrected me with a subtle and powerful reminder.
Some years later we reconnect and we get to the point of Nichiren as the true buddha and I am so grateful for Shakyamuni that it was potentially crushing. I say potentially because every time I questioned my teacher's wisdom I look deep within my own being and ask why should I doubt the sincerity of his compassionate intent without understanding what he means from more than my mind and my perspective. If he did not carry himself as he did for 45 years under the guidance of these teachings I would not know them. I would be in a dark hell where I could never actualize my compassion and desire for equanimity. So I didn't question his wisdom, I questioned my own.
This is why I simply refuse to say his way or my way. Like Nichiren and Dozenbo, Nichiren and Shakyamuni , Nichiren and Tentai, etc they all reveal development of function. The world today is not the world Nichiren experienced in Japan. Buddhism is in great decline and the world is suffering. I think all these teachings need to be regarded as buddhist refuge, provisional or otherwise, so the world has an example of what buddhism means beyond the evils paths. I don't believe it should resemble them. So I haven't been willing to accept a sectarian perspective while I still honor these teachings as taught. I don't recall correction from my teacher for anything outside a active conversation or experienced in the moment.
This is how I fear the internet dots and underlines the degenerate age, imho.