c. 2004 Religion News Service
BARCELONA, Spain _ In 1893, in a Chicago hall crowded with mostly American and Protestant clergymen, a young swami from India stood in traditional dress and captured the imagination of the delegates with a dream of religious unity.
“If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything to the world, it is this,” said Swami Vivekananda, representing Hinduism. “It has proved to the world that holiness, purity and charity are not the exclusive possessions of any church.”
It has been a rocky century for religious harmony, but on Wednesday (July 7) more than 7,000 people of faith gathered from five continents to commemorate that vision during a week of shared prayers, panels and discussion at the fourth Parliament of the World’s Religions.
Key speakers will include Iranian Nobel Prize winner Shirin Ebadi; prominent theologian Hans Kung;, Ela Gandhi, a South African peace activist and granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi; primatologist and activist Jane Goodall; health expert and author Deepak Chopra; and Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi (known also as Amma) of India, known worldwide for her practice of warmly embracing each of her followers.
The Dalai Lama was scheduled to speak at the event’s opening plenary session Wednesday, but canceled at the last minute due to illness.
The Rev. William Lesher, chairman of the board of trustees for the Parliament’s council, stressed that the meeting “is not about the unity of world religions.” Instead, he said organizers hope attendees will “find points of convergence in their beliefs and values and turn those commonalities into real actions in their communities.”
Previous Parliaments were held in 1993 in Chicago and 1999 in Cape Town, South Africa.
A multitude of faith traditions are represented, from Anglican to Zoroastrian, and this year action is the common language. The Rev. Dirk Ficca, the event’s executive director, said this will “not be an assembly issuing a declaration on what the world should do,” unlike previous Parliaments that focused on creating consensus documents signed by the assembled leaders.
Instead, Ficca said the goal of the conference is to help all participants create and share commitments through a list of “simple and profound acts” to bring back to their home communities.
Ficca has faced his own interreligious challenges, causing a stir within the Presbyterian Church (USA) in 2001 with a rhetorical question _ “What’s the big deal about Jesus?” _ that sparked soul-searching within the church on what it means to proclaim salvation through Jesus Christ.
The Parliament’s shift in focus to real-world problems may be designed to help sidestep the many doctrinal differences and historical conflicts between religious groups. The Rev. Shanta Premawardhana, associate general secretary for the U.S.-based National Council of Churches, said the task of engaging in issues of justice and peace causes churches to “discover that we often have more in common than divides us.”
“The biggest challenge is teaching Christians that it is not only appropriate but consistent with our faith to build relations with people of other religions,” said Premawardhana, who will help lead a session on religiously motivated violence.
The other targets of the “simple and profound acts” will address international debt, the plight of refugees and universal access to clean water.
The conference differs substantially from other human rights summits because there is a daily call to prayer and a place for spiritual reflection on the issues. The Rev. Cinto Busquet, a Catholic priest who has worked on interreligious causes in Italy and Japan, said he is especially looking forward to the weeklong community’s coming together on “the spiritual dimension _ a meeting on the deepest layer of ourselves.”
The host country, Spain, shares a millennium of religious dialogue among Christians, Jews and Muslims, and a modern context for the issues at hand, including a wave of African Muslim refugees and the all-too-fresh memories of the March 11 train bombings in Madrid.
“It is both meaningful and symbolic for this gathering to be held in our city,” says Joan Clos, mayor of Barcelona, whose city serves as both a backdrop and a laboratory for the week’s events.
The Parliament is also part of Barcelona’s Universal Forum of Cultures, a 141-day international festival and conference with guiding themes of cultural diversity, sustainable development and conditions for peace.
Representatives from many of the world’s religions are not in attendance in Barcelona _ a fact that some see as its most serious failing. Evangelical and fundamentalist groups often shun open ecumenical events like the Parliament. As Michael Gottsegen, editor of the Jewish online journal eCLAL, notes, “If there is one major limitation to the Parliament, it is that it is perhaps too much a gathering of the like-minded.”
KRE/MO END ANTHONY
