From December 3 - 9 of this year in Melbourne, Australia, the Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions (founded in 1993) convened its fourth global meeting. (Prior meetings have been Chicago 1993, Cape Town 1999, Barcelona 2004). This meeting (according to its own claims) convened approximately 5,000 people from approximately 200 faiths.
The meeting was somewhat of a who's who of the perpetually tiny group of interfaith celebrities including recognizable names like His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, Jimmy Carter, Hans Kung, Thich Nhat Hanh, Ravi Shankar and others. An enduring problem not only with meetings such as these, but with the enterprise as a whole is the way it seems to remain consigned to the fuzzy corner of the great newspaper of world affairs. If there is anything with a genuine edge in this noble work, it simply fails to translate. Even the most sympathetic will struggle to find reportage that owns the urgency and gravitas of daily news.
Interfaith activity in the modern period can be reckoned to be about 117 years old. The lightening bolt of enlightened Hinduism disturbed the Christian imperialism that defined the 1893 Chicago Parliament of Religions and with that the advance of greater interreligious understanding and mutual trust and sympathy has inched along anemically ever since. Flurries of new interfaith groups have arisen along with occasions of political or cultural dreams of peace, in the late 1940's, associated with the founding of the United Nations, in the 1970's as the peace dream of the "60's" began to settle and institutionalize, and in the 1990's/2000 dream and hope attending the "dawn of a new millennium." This Melbourne group is the heir of this century and the most recent global flutter of hope.
There are many reasons why an effort (and a major one) that has persisted this long has remained outside the stream and the edge of world affairs. One of them is the persistent ambivalence toward engagement, and the ironic "no-no" to "lead" aggressively in a world where humility and non-assertion is the virtue of choice. As such the wheel is ever reinvented, or perhaps the movement deliberately sees itself as a gentle stream meandering through a dappled wood.
But this much effort, investment, expense, and carbon outlay should evolve and begin to count. Interfaith organizations and activity have yet to become a sufficient object of its own reflection. The movement, as it is made up of spiritual and religious people and impulses does have a wealth of predecessory material from which to draw (namely the entire history of religion and spiritual enterprise itself). History, and even in many places in the world today, religious life itself is very dominant and very edgy.
There is an irony that the only permitted religiosity in these wonderful gatherings is a certain huggy and dreamy style of enthusiasm. But so much else that obtains in the drivenness of religion is forbidden in interfaith environments. This obligatory narrowing of the genuine fact of religious and spiritual experience will only serve to keep interfaith activity on the periphery without its deserved degree of impact.
For the interfaith movement to gain relevance, and for important occasions such as the recent Melbourne Parliament to translate meaningfully into world affairs, taboos for the many realities of religious commitment must be lifted from these conversations, enduring leadership complete with its energies and ambitions must be integrated, and strategic an progressive designs must be infused to bring this healthy impulse up to a meaningful and transformative presence in world affairs.
Comments
It is interesting that this gathering was left virtually unreported in Germany, even in religious magazines. So what impact does this meeting have on urgent issues in this world (terrorism, climate change, world economy)? Perhaps it was rightly left unreported since it did not touch the lives of the people.
Frank,
Thank you for this sober article. I wish you a blessed holiday season and all the best for the New Year.
Cordially,
Hans
Religion, or "culture" more broadly construed, is a counterpart to the government and the economy. Collusion between governments and corporate giants have excluded the role of culture in their dreams to remake the world centered on their own control of money and power. A movement such as this interfaith movement, needs to publicize the role of culture in building a better world, while giving government and the economy their respective proper roles. In the past, and still in many parts of the world, religion tries to make government and the economy subservient to itself. But in these places you find massive poverty and injustice. However, where governments and economic giants rule you find rampant immorality and oppression. I do not believe you can have a happy and strong middle-class without all three of the social sectors cooperating in more selfless ways for the sake of the whole.
My problem with the article is that the solution offered to the problem of interfaith irrelevance was vague. What does the phrase "strategic and progressive designs must be infused" mean?
As a strong proponent of interfaith work, the real problem is that the religious zealots do not participate. The fundamentalists of all religions who fail to respect others and think they are the only right ones need to be educated and elevated. However, they don't show up to engage in the dialogue that would achieve this. I offer no solution, not even a vague one.
I think you have hit the right problem--irrelevancy.
The guiding organizational leadership of the Parliament has failed to attract the people with power in religion and avoided addressing the larger problems of religious conflict from 9/11 to Sri Lanka and Kashmir. Even among the leadership it attracts, there is little modeling of dialogue and even less planning for follow-up.
The parlaiment is basically a good idea that has never taken off. It could do well (given some direction) and even with a limited people to people approach make some contributions to the interfaith community in which we live. The big meetings, however, rarely get beyond each groups finding a platform to expound its own views on self-selected topics.
This has been an essential event. After reading Dr. Kaufmann's article on interfaith movement, I once again came to the understanding how slow the mighty forces in the Almighty heavens are.
I admire your scholarship (albeit from a distance). Your diagnosis certainly rings true to me. One need only read your CV to see that much more can be accomplished in less time with far fewer resources than the Parliament might care to admit. Of course, to be fair, they have had to limp along without any help from Jane Bowman. (arguably Melbourne's best contribution so far) Cheers!
I enjoyed the article and its boldness ("inched along anemically") and agree with it. The Parliament type of event is conservative in the worst way (there is good conservatism!) because it denies the possibility that religious traditions might transcend their histories. The stance that all faiths respect all other faiths constricts the development of any faith. Development requires self-criticism and the desire to go beyond. But the qualification to be at Melbourne is "I'm OK, you're OK." So we have conservatives (I'm a happy Catholic) doing a liberal thing (I respect Judaism), or liberals (break down the walls between religions) doing a conservative thing (I respect your walls), and it goes nowhere. The Parliament is a room full of peaceful Erasmuses and, for better or worse, it was the angry, passionate Luther who changed history.
I would appreciate real life examples of from some edgy religious life that can lead in creating a more relevant future Parliament. The call is to bring the spiritual and religious down to earth. I am looking to you to transcend the general call for the lifting of taboos, the gaining a strong interfaith leadership, and a call for progressive designs. I would love for you to sprinkle the story with brief yet specific examples of what you have in mind. Please illuminate the earth into which the ivory tower is placed.
I was happy to see that Dr. Kaufmann admitted that "the only permitted religiosity in these wonderful gatherings is a certain huggy and dreamy style of enthusiasm," with all else forbiddne or blocked out.
In other words, what tends to happen at such events is some form of making a circle, holding hands, and singing Kumbaya." Is that a caricature or stereotype? Maybe so. Stereotyping is useful because it saves time.
What is really needed is a deep recognition of the harmfulness, vileness and inhumaneness of religion, of the ways that it contributes to human meanness and suffering, and impedes human development and human well being. To put it differently, religion is at least as much a harmful and even evil force in human affairs as it is a force for good.
If "religious leaders" were able and willing to admit that publicly, and then expend their energy and resources to rectifying and changing that (assuming it's possible) then the irrelevancy of such events might cease.
Frank - Thank You for the article. I've also been to many interfaith conferences, where I listened to lots of speeches, ate good food, and had some polite conversation. At the end, I stll feel fuzzy. We should choose at least one controversial topic per conference, and have trained facilitators guide some break-out sessions. For example: Why aren't more Muslims leaders investing more to convince the west that they do not support terrorism? Discuss from the viewpoint of average perceptions, not the enlightened ones. I'd like to hear more stories, like some of my own, where a person has a life-changing religious experience through a source outside of their own institution, and yet remains a loyal practitioner in their own institution.
Parliament Lost? Perhaps no wonder. From the perspective of an autocrat, the perfect parliament parlays forever and acts not once. If there is a superlative to an ineffective parliament, it would be this assembly in incessant talks about - itself.
Efficient parliamentary work is in exploring issues and in voting on them with authority. Most is done in committees that do not debate parliamentarism.
The 1893 and 1993 assemblies opened important doors but a parliament of religions today ought not talk religion. With authority of consensus and persistent pursuit of relevancy, however, its work could impact big biz and politics.
I learned a lot in a meeting of religious leaders in early 2009 in my adopted hometown where religious coexistence is acknowledged precondition for joint survival: Beirut, Lebanon.
The group, convened in the name of peace, agreed there would be no benefit talking about two things - religion and politics. It decided to discuss cooperation on practical
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