Fundamental
Evangelistic Association
selected
articles from:
©FOUNDATION
A MAGAZINE OF BIBLICAL FUNDAMENTALISM
Dennis W. Costella, Editor; Karel Beyer, Production Manager; Matt
Costella,
Copy Editor
M.H. Reynolds, Jr. (1919-1997), Founding Editor
United Religions Initiative 2000
©FOUNDATION Magazine, May-June 1997
SATAN’S SCHEME IS TO REPLACE THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, GOD’S COMING PERFECT
PRINCE OF PEACE, WITH AN ECUMENICAL TOWER OF BABEL. THE UNITED RELIGIONS INITIATIVE IS YET
ANOTHER VAIN ATTEMPT OF MAN TO BRING UNITY AND PEACE AMONG MEN AND RELIGIONS APART FROM
GOD’S WAY AS FOUND ONLY IN THE BIBLE.
The purpose of this report
is to provide believers with the facts concerning the United Religions Initiative 2000
(URI), Satan’s latest attempt to thwart God’s infallible, eternal, inerrant Word
and purposes concerning the past, present and future. At this point, little editorial
comment is needed. The information and documentation provided in the following pages speak
for themselves.
We begin with an extremely perceptive and revealing interview of Episcopal Bishop
William Swing, by Don Lattin, San Francisco Chronicle Religion Writer. Following
this interview, documents provided by United Religion Initiative 2000 provide indisputable
confirmation of its basis and goals. Swing is a dominant force behind URI 2000; Lattin is
no friend of biblical fundamentalism, but he is one of the few major religion writers on
the scene today with sufficient background knowledge and the ability to ask probing
questions in an interview such as the one to follow. The documentation in this report is
immediately available on our Bible Believers’ Resource Page web site, and
extra copies of this issue of Foundation magazine are being printed to provide additional
copies for all who want to know the Truth themselves and warn others of these satanic
deceptions.
The following information is quoted verbatim from Lattin’s interview of Swing as
found in the June 22, 1997, edition of the San Francisco Chronicle:
Bishop’s Idea For a Leap Of Faiths: The Episcopal leader
has an idea that may have found its time: to create in the Presidio a forum, like the
United Nations, where believers can talk.
by Don Lattin, Chronicle Religion Writer
©1997 San Francisco Chronicle
Sunday, June 22, 1997 · Page 3/Z1 of the San Francisco Chronicle--San
Francisco’s Episcopal bishop, William Swing, has traveled around the world chasing
his dream of a place in the Presidio where the world’s religions could come together
for peaceful dialogue and conflict resolution.
Tomorrow, the world comes to Swing, when 200 delegates from historic religious
traditions and new spiritual movements convene at Stanford University to begin working on
a charter for an international interfaith organization, tentatively called the United
Religions.
Sitting down together will be Christian ecumenical leaders, Black Muslims, American
Jews, Australian aborigines, California pagans, South African Hindus, Thai Buddhists,
British Baha’is, Catholic priests, Indian Sikhs and other leading lights from across
the spiritual spectrum.
Important details--such as how the United Religions will function, where it will be
located and who will pay for it--are to be worked out at a series of meetings between now
and June 26, 2000, when the interfaith organization is scheduled to be established in San
Francisco.
"Religion almost always comes packaged in a ‘winner-take- all’
wrapping," Swing, 62, said in a recent sermon. "Gentle Buddhists are hurling
grenades in Sri Lanka. Hindus and Sikhs are murdering Muslims in Jammu-Kashmir. Muslims
are killing Christians in the Sudan. Christians are killing Christians in Northern
Ireland. Bethlehem is under the paralysis of religious hostilities."
Swing envisions the world’s religions "coming together on a daily, permanent
basis, in pursuit of global good." And what better place to do it, he asks, than at
the Presidio, "where we could turn swords to ploughshares"?
Q: Can you explain the genesis of the United Religions Initiative?
A: In 1993, the United Nations told me they were coming to San Francisco and they would
bring 183 ambassadors from 183 nations. They wanted me to bring the religions of the world
to Grace Cathedral for an interfaith service. Before that, I really wasn’t thinking
about this at all. And I went to bed that night, and began to think about the contrast
between the nations of the world and the religions of the world, thinking that for 50
years, the nations have struggled for global good and that in the same 50 years, the
religions of the world hadn’t spoken to each other. I had a deep sense of conviction
that that has got to change. So I dedicated the rest of my life to be a catalyst for the
creation of something like the United Nations for all religions.
Q: This is not necessarily a new idea. What happened in the previous efforts, and why
did they fizzle out?
A: In 1893, with the Parliament of World Religions, it was so exciting to see religions
together for the first time that people began expansively to think about something like
this.
But there was no infrastructure, and there was no world consensus around that kind of
idea, so it died. Then, when the League of Nations began, people began to say, "Why
don’t we have a League of Religions?" All those efforts amounted to resolutions
that were quickly passed and forgotten. Nobody really worked at it. It’s been much
more a daydream than on-the-ground hard work, "Let’s see if we can make it
happen."
Q: How has your vision of the United Religions changed since you’ve traveled
around the world and held meetings on the concept?
A: Last summer, we made a big decision that we wouldn’t go just for the great
religions of the world; we would also go for modern spiritual movements. If you go with
the great religions, you have men only. If you go with modern spiritual movements, you
have women as well. We figured that’s an important step forward.
Then the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University in
Cleveland called us up and said that ours was the most important initiative they’d
seen. They had worked on 50 global initiatives around the world that will change the next
century and the next millennium and thought ours was far and away the most important. So
we’ve had design help at every step of the way. We’ve also had introductions to
people all over the world. In the last couple of weeks, we’ve had regional summits in
Oxford, New York, Buenos Aires, and as soon as this big summit is over this week, we go
right out to Cairo, Johannesburg, Nairobi, Belgium, Bombay and New Zealand. The world has
responded to this in ways that we thought would take many, many years.
Q: Are you still talking about having regular assemblies with formal votes, and that
sort of thing?
A: No. We backed away off that.
Q: So it’s not really going to be patterned after the United Nations?
A: Right. This summer, we’re going to start working on the creation of the
charter. The first couple of things we are going to be working on are our vision, mission
and values. Then we’ll work on priorities and organizational development.
Next, we’re going to work on how this is globalized. We’ve started thinking
about paralleling the United Nations as much as possible, but the more we’re into
this, the more we find out that’s really a competitive kind of model. If we’re
going to tap the source of religion, it’s not going to be about passing a resolution
with a 61 to 39 percent vote. We’re going to have to find a consensus.
One of the people I talked with was (the Swiss theologian) Hans Kung. He says that
there will be no peace among nations until there’s peace among religions, and there
will be no peace among religions until there’s dialogue among religions. Our job is
to start the dialogue aiming at peace among religions.
If we get into position papers on abortion or something like that, everybody’s
just going to divide up into camps and go at it. We’ve got to take several steps
behind that to find out the basic values that the religions of the world hold in common.
The great religions of the world could not create a United Religions if Rome invited
everybody to Rome. People would be suspicious. And if Islam invited everyone to Mecca, or
if the Jews invited everyone to Jerusalem, people would say, "Who’s controlling
this?"
What we’re trying to do is to find some common ground that would be created not by
Islam or by the Roman Catholics or anybody else, but by a world that is getting tired of
the religions killing each other. They would all bring the best they’ve got to the
table, and we could create a common ground so that we can enter into an exchange and a
conversation.
It’s not so much voting as it is conversation and dialogue that would take its own
natural course.
Q: And that solves the problem of deciding who really speaks for each religion and how
many representatives each should have.
A: Right. We decided that the problem of representation is an impossible one. But at
the same time, I think it’s possible to create tables of dialogue which ultimately
will get everybody talking.
Q: Are you concerned that this might just evolve into a talk fest? People will come to
San Francisco and talk, but religious wars will still rage all over the world. Are you
going to try to mediate religious disputes?
A: Maybe we have to take a deeper look at theology. I think that religions are based on
assumptions of truth being mediated from the creator to the created. Those truths are
divinely inspired and sacred for the people who hold them. I think all the religions of
the world have a blind spot. If there’s a United Religions pursuing a dialogue in
depth, it begins to ask larger questions and force religions to make larger statements.
Q: Isn’t a lot of the problem that many sacred scriptures are full of violent,
exclusionary rhetoric?
A: That’s right. And it’s taught all week long, every place we go. The
religions have to go back and read that one more time and ask if that is really what they
believe. If you’re sitting there with people from other religions at the table, you
might come up with other conclusions.
Q: When you sit down with a group as diverse as you’ve got here, you can’t
say things like, "Well, we all believe in the same God," or even, "We all
believe in God." You are including pagans, polytheistic traditions, non-theistic
traditions.
A: Right. You can’t say that. I’ve been working with people, religious
leaders around the world, and a lot of them have cautioned me to stay away from prayer and
theology. When we get to Stanford, I doubt if we’re going to spend a lot of time
talking about theology or prayer.
I think we’re going to be hunting for common values that spring from the theology,
but not the theology itself. Because I don’t think we’ll ever agree on the
theology.
Q: Another criticism you might hear of this process is that you’re just going to
create some kind of amorphous spiritual soup and compromise everyone’s beliefs.
A: Well, I would have to say what’s happened to me personally, in terms of being
exposed to the religious leaders of the world. I’ve spent a lot of time praying with
Brahmans, meditating with Hindus or being silent or chanting with Buddhists. I don’t
think that has made me a more watered-down Christian.
I feel I’ve been enormously enriched inwardly by exposure to these folks.
I’ve gone back and read our own scriptures, and it’s amazing how they begin to
read differently when you’re exposed to more truth from more people in other parts of
the world. I don’t think it’s going to be amorphous.
Q: How did you decide which 200 people would attend this conference?
A: We took the hundred religions, and mathematically, we said how many Hindus are
there? Well, there are 875 million Hindus. How many in Islam? About 900 million, close to
a billion. How many Christians? A billion or so.
Then we began to break that down and say, in terms of a ratio, how many is that--if
you’re going to deal with a hundred people? That would mean eight Hindus, nine
Muslims, and that sort of thing.
Then, on the other side, with the modern spiritual movements, we would say: "How
about spirituality and the economy, how about spirituality and healing, how about
spirituality and business, spirituality and arts? Let’s aim for five people in this,
and four people in this, and six people in that."
Q: How are you defining these spiritual movements?
A: I’ll give you an example. There’s a lady who deals with the Mountain
People Forum. She has three mountain ranges in the world she works with, the Appalachian,
Andes and the Himalayas, and deals with the medical, the educational and spiritual needs
of people in remote places. She said, "If there’s ever a United Religions,
I’d love to be affiliated with it, because we deal with the spiritual needs of people
who don’t get counted by anyone."
Q: Are you still hoping the United Religions can be in the Presidio?
A: Yes. If there’s ever going to be a United Religions in our time, it’s
going to have to be located in San Francisco. It’s a very uncompromising place.
We’re not going to be paid off by any religion, we’re not beholden to anybody.
The land--if we can get it--is fabulous. It’s very easy access, airports and that
sort of thing. And the citizenry of the Bay Area is sympathetic to spiritual matters,
without being possessive or controlling.
Q: What’s the scenario or the future possibilities at the Presidio?
A: We’re opening up dialogues with the Presidio Trust.
The United Religions would have to say, "Yes, we agree that we ought to be in San
Francisco, and we ought to be in the Presidio." I’d like to set the stage so
that it would be a very natural thing to do.
Q: You are thinking about having satellite centers around the world?
A: Right. We do have a center in Washington, we do have a center in Johannesburg, we do
have a center in Buenos Aires. And it will go on and on and on. We have people working for
us all over the world.
So we will have many, many centers. For the next four years, we will be meeting in the
San Francisco Bay Area to write the charter, and in the year 2000, on June 26, we want
people of all religions to walk down their village or their town or their city to be a
walking symbol of the religions together--and also to sign the charter at the end of the
day. So the charter will be "We, the people" rather than, "We, the
hierarchical folks at the top."
Several think-tanks have pointed to a spiritual bankruptcy at the bottom of capitalism,
saying that there will be people in the next century by the hundreds and millions who will
be spiritual immigrants, refugees, hunting for some place to invest their people’s
trust.
Q: People often invest that trust in religious fundamentalism. Aren’t those the
people who will reject you, and the ones who need to listen?
A: We’re not well enough known for people to reject us--which is kind of nice. We
are getting rejected by some folks in the print media and on radio stations. We’ve
been called the anti-Christ. But we’re leaving the front porch light on for everyone.
We had some interesting responses, say, from fundamentalist Muslims in Pakistan and
India--areas where we thought that the fundamentalists would say: "We want nothing to
with this." They said it would be a wonderful thing to be able to be at the table and
speak from the heart about their faith.
So what I’ve learned from that is: Just because somebody is a fundamentalist,
don’t think that they don’t want to be in a conversation with us.
Q: Is getting this going taking longer than you expected?
A: No. If you don’t mind, let me tell you a little story. I was in Rome a couple
of months ago, and I was listening to a discussion between the Catholics and the Orthodox.
And they said, "By the year 2000, let’s all celebrate Easter together, our
Lord’s Resurrection. We’ll do anything so that we can have the Resurrection
celebrated by everybody on the same day." And the other group said, "No
way."
They said, "No. 1, it would offend some of our faithful, and No. 2, we don’t
have communion together, and therefore we are at disunity, and we don’t know how to
give the world a symbol that we are after unity. We want to give the world a symbol that
we are at disunity." You ask yourself: "How long has this conversation gone
on?" And the answer to that is: since 1054. And you say, "If they can’t
even get together on Jesus’ Resurrection in a thousand years, are we going to bring a
United Religions together in five years?"
Q: It seems the closer you are, the more you have to argue about.
A: When I was in Jerusalem, I went to the Reform rabbis and said, "Will you come
to the table?" They said they’d love to come to the table. Then I went to the
Orthodox rabbis and said, "Will you come to the table?" And they said,
"We’d love to come to the table." Then they added, "Oh, by the way, if
the Reform are coming to the table, we’re not coming to the table."
Q: When you look at all the conflicts in the world around religion, you have to ask the
question, "Has organized religion done more harm than good?" What’s your
answer?
A: When you start working on United Religions, and you do look at the dark side of
religion, the question that you ask is a real question. Ultimately, you’ve got to
say: "What good is religion?" Religion is the carrier of sacred tradition. But
religions also have their own politics, their own control needs, their expansion, their
competitions and intramural fights.
An awful lot of harm has been done in the name of religion. There’s a lot of bad
religion out there. There are a lot of things that have to be healed in a lot of
people’s psyches. On the other hand, religions have taught people to pray, religions
have taught people to serve in communities. They work with young people and give them a
sense of right and wrong, of ethics.
There’s enormous quiet witness of people in San Francisco in terms of the
homeless, in AIDS wards and other acts of kindness that are religiously inspired.
There’s an undercurrent of quiet greatness out there.
And religions teach people to sing, from the heart. If religions did nothing but teach
people to sing, it would be a great thing. So, on the whole, I’d say religions have
done more good than harm.
TIMELINE FOR THE UNITED RELIGIONS INITIATIVE:
• February 1993--Episcopal Bishop William Swing is asked to host an
interfaith service at Grace Cathedral marking the 50th anniversary of the United Nations.
Swing envisions a United Religions patterned after the United Nations.
• June 1993--Swing holds a meeting in New York with leaders of
international interfaith groups.
• June 1995--Swing sponsors an Interfaith Youth Conference and publicly
announces the United Religions Initiative at the United Nations’ 50th anniversary
worship service in San Francisco.
• September 1995--Swing presents the initiative to the U.N.
Non-Governmental Organizations in New York.
• October 1995--Swing presents the United Religions concept in China, Hong
Kong and Taiwan.
• February 1996--Swing travels to meet religious leaders in India,
Pakistan, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Turkey, England, Switzerland and the Vatican.
• June 1996--In San Francisco, 55 representatives of the world’s
religions meet for talks on organizing a United Religions.
• July 1996 to May 1997--Regional discussions are held around the world
and over the Internet to build support for the initiative.
• June 23-27, 1997--Delegates from 100 historic religions and 100
spiritual movements to meet at Stanford University to begin work on a United Religions
charter.
• July 1997-May 1998--Conference participants return to their religious
communities to discuss the role they want to play in writing the charter.
• June 1998--Conference to begin to draw up the charter.
• July 1998-May 2000--Work to proceed on United Religions charter while
efforts are made to broaden participation in the initiative.
• June 26, 2000--United Religions charter to be signed, as a walking
pilgrimage for peace is conducted in villages, towns and cities throughout the world.
The following are official URI 2000 documents:
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
YOU ARE INVITED to join the United Religions Initiative to help to change the world.
This Initiative seeks to bring religions and spiritual traditions to a common table, a
permanent, daily, global assembly. There, respecting each other’s distinctness, they
will seek to make peace among religions so they might work together for the good of all
life and the healing of the world.
Already building on 100 years of interfaith effort, people of many faiths, from many
parts of the world have committed themselves to make the UR vision a reality. We share:
- a deep concern for global crises, such as war, poverty and the destruction of the
environment, that threaten life on this planet.
- dialogue on a daily basis and becoming a unified a belief that, by gathering in
prayerful voice for values and a global ethic, the world’s faith tradition s can be a
healing force in regard to these problems.
- a passion to pray and work for the day when the world’s religions gather to work
for peace, global ethics, and justice.
- a commitment to live as a member of the United Religions Initiative, building bridges of
interfaith understanding and cooperation, locally and globally.
Success requires the participation of leaders of the world’s historic religions,
and of newer spiritual movements. It requires the hearts and minds of the world’s
youth. It requires your help.
We hope you will join us. Together we can change the world.
For the People of the United Religions Initiative.
The Rt. Rev. William E. Swing
Bishop
Chancellor
Diocese of California
Mrs. Judith Hollister
Founder
Temple of Understanding
Dr. Robert Muller
UN Peace University
The United Religions Initiative
In June 1993, in preparation for an interfaith service to commemorate the 50th
anniversary of the signing of the United Nations Charter, a San Francisco group led by
Bishop William Swing, proposed the creation of a United Religions (UR). After consulting
with international interfaith leaders, the San Francisco group held "Rediscovering
Justice," a June 1995 conference for 200 young people, ages 18 to 25, from 40
different religions and denominations.
The conference participants, including keynote speakers such as Nobel Peace Laureates
Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Ms. Betty Williams, and prominent Muslim Dr. Javid
Izbal, and
international interfaith leaders, explored how the creation of a United Religions might
help the world’s religions world for global good. Engaging the world’s youth in
the development of this vision remains a priority for the United Religions Initiative.
One day after this conference, the UN 50th Anniversary Worship Service was hosted at
Grace Cathedral lead by Bishop Swing. It took two years of hard work to plan this one-hour
liturgy. At both the Youth Conference and the Worship Service, the United Religions idea
was made public.
After these events, it became clear that, to move the UR from vision to reality an
ever-expanding network of religious and interfaith leaders had to share in a process of
prayer dialogue and creative thinking about a UR. With this in mind, in September 1995,
Bishop Swing addressed a gathering of religious Non-Governmental Organizations at the UN.
The event was hosted by the Ven. Chung Ok Lee, a Won Buddhist priest and proponent of a
United Religions for over 20 years.
In October 1995, Bishop Swing visited religious leaders in China. From February through
April 1996, Bishop Swing traveled in India, the Middle East, and Europe, seeking
commitment from leaders of many world’s religions, including the Dalai Lama, the
Sankaracharya of Kancheepuram, Islam’s Grand Mufti in Cairo, Mother Theresa, and the
Archbishop of Canterbury, and with people active in interfaith work, including those at a
conference at the International Interfaith Centre in Oxford. In July and August 1996, the
Bishop visited with religious leaders in Japan and Korea.
From June 24 to 28, 1996, 55 leaders from many religions and a variety of global
organization gathered to create a plan of action to move toward a preliminary
Charter-Writing Conference in June 1997. The planning conference was designed and guided
by a team from the Social Innovations in Global Management Program in the Weatherhead
School of Management at the Case Western University in Cleveland, Ohio. The SIGMA Program
has worked with developing and established global social change organizations for nearly a
decade.
During the conference, each participant was asked to "put yourself 30 years into
the future. The year is 2026. Visualize the United Religions you feel the world is calling
for--a UR you, also, really want. Visualize it as if it exists now. As part of your
vision, imagine the variety and types of contributions the UR is making to the
world."
The discussions that flowed from this assignment reflected our deepest yearnings to
live in a safe world that more nearly reflects the divine love for every being; a world
where people respect and honor each other, serve the needy, and are caretakers of the
earth and all its life; a world where religion no longer leads to hatred and violence, but
to dialogue, the celebration on all diversity, and cooperative action for global good. The
conference didn’t end with dreaming. The participants were challenged to create a
plan of action to help by holding gatherings all over the world, in early 1997, to allow
people from different countries, cultures, religions, and educational, work, and economic
backgrounds to meet and help shape the vision of a United Religions. The voices, images,
and commitments-to-action from these gatherings and other outreach efforts over the next
year will inspire the charter-writing process to begin in San Francisco in June 1997.
Through our networking efforts, we hope to enroll people of all faiths throughout the
world to engage in prayer, dialogue, and cooperative action to build the grassroots
foundation of interfaith cooperation upon which a United Religions must be built. This
foundation will help make the United Religions a living, breathing reality even as we move
toward writing its charter.
CHARTERING THE UNITED RELIGIONS:
AN INVITATION TO CO-CREATE
The United Religions Initiative (URI) exists to bring a United Religions into being. So
who is the URI? And, as many ask, who is behind it? Who owns this effort? The best answer
may be contained in its initials "U"--You, "R"--Are,
"I"--the initiative! Those who started the URI realize that a viable United
Religions must be co-owned by the peoples and faiths of the world. How the United
Religions is created is therefore as crucial a question as what it will be. No one person
or group has the answer to either of these questions. This document is an invitation to
join in creating an inclusive process and innovative answers to these questions. This
document is an invitation to join in creating an inclusive process and innovative answers
to these questions, so that the United Religions might truly serve all life on earth, as
we enter a new millennium.
To be true to the inclusive spirit of the URI, we have begun to talk about Chartering,
as the organizing process that lies at the heart of the Initiative. The verb form,
chartering, is used to place emphasis on a process of organizing, and distinguish is from
the limited focus on writing an organizational charter. What follows are some beginning
thoughts of what chartering is and how it might be enacted in the creation of the United
Religions. Chartering is a process of global organizing that invites everyone with an
interest in the organization to participate in creating it. Chartering is a means for each
person to generate visions of the UR and empower actions in alignment with those visions
and also to make connections between these visions/actions and the collective
visions/actions of a network of regional and global United Religions efforts.
Chartering does not depend on reaching a consensus of vision as much as it creates an
ever widening, more inclusive set of global visions and relationships that enliven local
action on behalf of the emerging United Religions. In the process of visioning and acting,
the foundations of the United Religions are being laid so that by the time a charter (or
charters) are written, they are simply documenting what already, in many ways, has come to
be.
At a concrete level, chartering encompasses at least four types of activities:
1. Enrolling an expanding number and range of individual and
institutional stakeholders in the chartering process.
2. Visioning, including imagining what the U.R. can do (its purpose,
impact, etc.), what values it will uphold, and what form it will take.
3. Acting, including local actions and actions linked to regional or
global initiatives.
4. Writing charter elements, including globally distributed processes
of prewriting, drafting, reviewing and enlarging the charter or charters.
Over the next four years, there will be a variety of forums for engaging groups of
people in these individual and collective acts of enrolling, visioning, acting and
writing. Present plans include a series of Regional Summits in different parts of the
world, self-directed groups of interested stakeholders using the URI workbook, electronic
"conversations" via the URI Web Page and Global Summits held each June from 1997
to 2000.
The chartering process of the U.R. bay be envisioned as a spiral. At a macroscopic
level, each circle comprising the spiral would represent the annual series of activities
described above, which are intended to have a growing impact in the following outcome
areas:
- A growing number and diversity of stakeholders involved in the UR
chartering, including individuals and institutions, religions and secular participants,
leadership and grassroots representatives, etc.; indicative of -
- A growing commitment to creating a United Religions; through
- Growing actions on a local and global level that exemplify what the UR
is about; leading to -
- Growing expressions of globally-locally linked visions for the UR that
stir the world and inspire further rounds of all the above.
United Religions Initiative
Statement of Vision and Purpose
A Working Document
We, people of faith, called by our respective traditions to compassion in
response to the suffering of humanity and the crises which endanger our planet, wish to
create a permanent forum where the world’s religions and spiritual movements will
gather daily to engage in prayerful dialogue to make peace among religions, leading to
cooperative action for the sake of all.
We respect the uniqueness of each religion and faith tradition, value every voice, and
believe that our shared values can lead to cooperative action for the good of all.
We acknowledge that our religious life has often divided us and been used to justify
shedding blood rather than building community.
We affirm that, in spite of apparent differences of practise or belief, our faiths call
us to care for one another.
We believe that the wisdom of our religious and spiritual traditions must be shared for
the sake of all.
Therefore, as communities of faith and interdependent people rooted in our
faith, we now unite for the sake of peace and healing among religions, peoples and
nations, and for the wholeness of the earth.
We unite to pray for peace, to practice peacemaking, to be a force for healing, and to
provide a safe space for conflict resolution.
We unite to support freedom of religion or belief and the rights of all individuals, as
set forth in international law, and to witness together to the wondrous spirit of life
which embraces all our diversity.
We unite in cooperative action to bring the wisdom of our religious traditions to bear
on the economic, environmental and social crises that confront us at the dawn of the new
millennium.
We unite to be a voice of shared values in the international arenas of politics,
economics, and the media, and to serve as a forum for research and excellence on values in
action.
We unite to provide an opportunity for participation by all people, especially by those
whose voices are not often heard.
All members of the United Religions do solemnly vow to use our combined
resources only for nonviolent, compassionate action in our whole-hearted efforts to
manifest divine love among all life on earth.
URI Global Prayer/Meditation Link
* We people of faith, called by our respective traditions, will gather daily to engage
in prayerful dialogue to make peace among religions, leading to cooperative action for the
sake of all life and the earth.
* We unite to pray for peace, to practice peacemaking, to be a force for healing, and
to provide a safe space for conflict resolution.
The #1 commitment in the invitation to support the URI vision in the world is to pray
for the growth of the United Religions vision and the creation of a United Religions by
the year 2000.
With gratitude for both the vision of URI and for the creative process now in progress
to make real the URI dream, the Washington D.C. URI Committee extends the call to
inter-faith partners around the globe to join them in a daily link of meditation or prayer
for the growth of the United Religions vision and the creation of a United Religions by
the year 2000.
Please join this daily meditation/prayer link personally; encourage others to
participate; and send you and your community’s invocations, intercessions and
thanksgivings for our mutual inspiration and devotion.
"Supreme One, who has made of one blood all peoples to dwell upon the earth,
our thanks and praise for deepening the understanding of those of all races, languages,
customs and religions and for teaching us to accept each other in the light of your own
all-embracing love. Thank you also for the vision of all the human family united in caring
partnership and stewardship for the sake of all life and the earth."
"If you believe in the power of prayer--it will happen."
(Winston Ndungane, Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa)
--Washington, D.C. May 1997
Reactions From Religious Leaders:
United Religions International Tour
by Bishop William Swing
Having begun a trip in February 1996 around the world to speak with religious leaders,
I have some interesting and encouraging reactions to report. The first person I spoke with
set a pattern. He was the leader of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church in Kerala, India, The Most
Rev. Alexander Mar Thoma. On the one hand he was thrilled by the concept, and he listed
all of the ways his church is presently interacting with Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists. On
the other hand, the magnitude of the concept gave him pause, and he wondered what other
leaders were backing the idea. He invited me to come back and speak with him again when
there was more support.
Here I will quickly give the gist of comments by other leaders, religious and
otherwise.
Shankaracharya of Kancheepuram (Hindu): extremely excited about the
possibility of a United Religions and promised to have a delegation in San Francisco,
1997. Full endorsement:
Mother Teresa (Christian): thrilled by the prospect and promised to
get her female and male colleagues praying for the United Religions. Promised also to
speak to the Pope about it. Full endorsement.
Dr. Ramnik Shah (Baha’i): said that a United Religions is
entirely in keeping with the principles of the Baha’i tradition. Promised that they
would have a delegation in San Francisco in 1997.
Sikh leader of Bangla Saheb Gurudwara in Delhi (Sikh): endorsed the
concept of a United Religions and promised to have a delegation in San Francisco in 1997.
His Holiness, the Dalai Lama (Buddhist): kept saying,
"Excellent" when the United Religions initiative was presented. Lots of hard
questions about organization and representation. But he strongly supported. He quickly saw
the need for a United Religions in the face of rising militant fundamentalism. More
important in his mind, he saw the United Religions as a focus of the best of our past
traditions and the best representation for the hope of unity among various world peoples
and a place where we can act in concert.
General Sethna, Keki Gandhi, Mrs. Siloo Vatcha (Zoroastrians): handled
all my appointments and the press conferences in Delhi and Bombay. They and the Parsi
community were most enthusiastic about the United Religions.
The Coptic Pope, His Holiness, Shenouda III (Christian): having been a
President of the World Council of Churches, he was worried about gatherings of religions
which pass sweeping resolutions that do not have impact or have a negative impact on the
local religious congregations. Nevertheless, he wanted to make sure that the Coptic Church
was represented in the United Religions, He also quoted from the story of Jonah. When the
ship was sinking, everyone was encouraged to pray to their various gods in order to save
the ship.
Rabbi Mordechai Peron, former Chief Rabbi of the Israeili Army and presently
Head of the Spiritual Center of Culture and Education (Jewish): he said,
"You know, this United Religions could end up being bigger than you and I can
imagine." He saw the United Religions as being "...inevitable. It has to
happen."
Rabbi David Rosen of the Anti-Defamation League and President of the World
Conference on Religion and Peace (Jewish): one of the most knowledgeable and wise
interfaith people I have encountered. He had lots of questions and was an enormous help in
diagramming a world map of Judaism and figuring how to issue the invitations to the
Charter Writing in the just and proper way. Also, he was a great help in introducing me to
other world figures who could help in the creation of the United Religions. I definitely
hope he can be at the Charter-Writing Session and so invited him.
A. Wesley Ariarajah, Deputy General Secretary, World Council of Churches.
Geneva (Christian): the World Council of Churches had just started serious dialogue with
Muslims around the issue of religion and politics. So he was especially interested. He
quizzed to see if we intended to be just another international, interfaith group. He said
that he would brief the General Secretary, Conrad Riser, on our initiative before
commenting about how cooperative the World Council of Churches would be.
Professor Dr. Hans Kung, Tubingen (Christian): he was extremely
gracious and gave me most of the morning in his home. Obviously he was deeply into The
Declaration Toward a Global Ethic and a subsequent "Inter-Action Council"
created by Helmut Schmidt. He was intrigued, earnest about what needs clearer thinking in
the URI, and willing to stay in touch to see where we might intersect in the future. One
idea: with the creation of the United Nations, there was a Charter (1945) and The
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). Perhaps with the creation of a United
Religions there could be a Charter and a Declaration of Global Ethics.
Cardinal Arinze of Rome (Christian): emphatically he said that he did
not want my words to reflect that he was excited about the United Religions. He said that
a United Religions would give the appearance of synchretism and it would water down our
need to evangelize. It would force authentic religions to be on equal footing with
spurious religions. He pointed out that in the last 30 years the Roman Catholic church has
been deeply involved in interfaith dialogues with priests learning other languages and
other religions. They are doing enough now. When they work outside official channels, then
they utilize the World Conference on Religion and Peace. He said he would take the
Gamaliel approach to the United Religions (Acts 5:38-39). Leave these people alone. If it
comes from man, it will fail. If it comes from God, it can’t be stopped. [Foundation
editorial note: The response of this high-ranking Catholic leader on issues dealing with
ecumenicity is not surprising. The Vatican invariably looks with skepticism upon any
ecumenical endeavor of which it is not the architect and where the Holy See is not in the
driver’s seat. If indeed anything does come of this United Religions movement, it
will at that time catch the attention of the Roman Catholic hierarchy and will thereafter
be swallowed up by the same, the scarlet whore prophesied in the Revelation.]
Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald of Rome (Christian): he said that his
thoughts coincide with thoughts of Cardinal Arinze. He did add that he was satisfied with
all of the interfaith work that is going on at the local, grassroots level.
Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey (Christian): he spoke about how
much greater an investment he has had to make in interfaith work in his five years as
Archbishop. One of the strong points about a United Religions for him is the rapid
proliferation of interfaith demands and new groups. One central, coordinating group would
be a blessing. Although he had many questions and reasonable cautions, he was sincerely
involved in our dialogue and personally most supportive.
Bishop K.H. Ting, President of the Chinese Christian Council, and Dr. Wenzao
Han, General Secretary of the Amity Foundation (Christian): they were extremely
interested in the possibility of a United Religions and wanted Chinese religions to be
consulted.
The Rev. John Buehrens, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association
(Universalist): he figures that our UR vision is on the wrong track because we
intend to include spiritual movements. He suggests we become part of a Standing Committee
of the World Conference on Religion and Peace.
Of the more than 40 names listed by Bishop Swing in his URI 2000
contacts, most are very familiar to us. In behalf of Foundation magazine we have
covered their press conferences and interviewed many of them personally. Not one of the
professed Christian leaders would biblically qualify as a true believer. For example,
Bishop K.H. Ting (Ding), listed as President of the Chinese Christian Council, and Dr.
Wenzao Han, General Secretary of the Amity Foundation (both identified by Bishop Swing as
"Christian") are enemies of the Cross of Christ and betrayers of thousands of
true believers behind the Bamboo Curtain. Incidentally, there is still a Bamboo Curtain in
Red China and both Ting and Han are still deceiving millions in the free world with their
false claims of new freedoms of worship since the death of Mao Tse Tung.
--M. H. Reynolds, Editor, Foundation Magazine
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