|
NEWSLETTER
MONTHLY UPDATE
July, 2002
by Dave Randle
The United Religions Initiative
An Opportunity For IPCNSR To Further Interfaith Collaboration
I direct the WHALE Center, an
interfaith organization that includes the Utah United Religions Initiative.
This group served as host for the AAPC International Meeting last month.
One of our responsibilities was to host the AAPC interfaith
service which included participation from Muslims, Protestants, Buddhists,
Sikhs, Christian Scientists, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,
Catholics, and interfaith clergy.
Our featured speaker was Bishop William Swing, founder of the
United Religions Initiative and Episcopal Bishop of the California Diocese.
Quoting from Isaiah, Bill Swing encouraged us to widen our tent to be more
inclusive of others. He warned that religions of the world simply have to
grow up.
During the service we presented both Bishop Swing and AAPC
with a special Olympic Truce Peace Pole that also contained the message May
Peace Prevail Among Religions. Next time you visit the AAPC office, please
ask to see this special Peace Pole.
Bill Swing encouraged AAPC to engage in the common work of
the United Religions and to use our pastoral skills to help achieve its purpose.
The purpose of the United Religions Initiative is to promote
daily interfaith cooperation, to end religiously motivated violence, and build
cultures of peace, justice, and healing for the Earth.
Given the events in the world today that involve religious
violence, I think that this work is needed now more than ever.
Today we live in a world where Jews fight Muslims in
Palestine and Israel, HIndus and Muslims fight each other in Pakistan and India,
Catholics and Protestants battle in Ireland, Hindus kill Sikhs and Christians in
India and Buddhists and Muslims fight in Shri Lanka.
Years ago Mark Twain told a story that he had read in the
paper of a man who found a stray dog who was quite mean and vicious. The
man put the dog in a cage, gave it food and water, loved it and cared for it and
soon it became tame. This gave the man the idea of adding to the cage of
the tame dog, a cat, and when it seemed tame with the dog, he added additional
animals, a chicken, a pig, a horse, a cow, and a pig. All of these animals
learned to live in peace and harmony with one another.
So this gave Mark Twain an idea that he would conduct a
similar experiment. He said, "First I caught an Irish Catholic and when he
seemed tame, I added a Scotch Presbyterian, a Buddhist monk, a Hindu, and
finally a Methodist from the wilds of Arkansas." Twain reported that he
went to bed that night and when he awoke not a specimen was alive. They
had apparently got into a theological argument and taken the matter to a higher
court.
Mark Twain's insight seems a useful warning for us today,
that we need to focus on interfaith cooperation rather than differences of our
faith traditions. We need to pay more attention to the purpose of URI.
So what are some of the things that we might do to begin end
religiously motivated violence and to build cultures of peace, justice, and the
healing of the Earth. I would like to suggest a few possibilities.
1. Inspiring Interfaith Cooperation
German Theologian, Hans Kung gave voice to the ever
increasing call for interfaith cooperation when he wrote, "there can be no peace
in the world until there is peace among religions, there can be no peace among
religions until there is dialogue among religions." Interfaith dialogue
and cooperation takes many forms and means many things to people around the
world. It may be as simple an act as sharing lessons from your sacred
texts with members of another faith. It may be as joyful and yet
challenging as a marriage among people of differing traditions or religions.
Or it may be the intentional cooperation among people of differing religions and
faiths to bring an end to war, abuse and hostility in their community.
Last June our local Utah URI hosted the North American United
Religions Initiative Conference that attracted over 200 persons from across
North America with observers from 15 nations from Africa, Europe, Asia, South
American, and Australia. Five of our Olympic Chaplains served as Chaplains
for this event. These five days created many spin off projects that are
still going strong all over North America. IPCNSR has an opportunity to
join URI to find ways to expand this dialogue and continue interfaith
cooperation.
2. Ending Religiously Motivated Violence
Tragically, we live in a world plagued by killing in the name
of God, widespread religious oppression and intolerance. Members of a minority
religion may find their houses of worship desecrated or destroyed. They
may experience discrimination in employment or in educational opportunities for
their children. Every day people are being prejudged, tortured and abused
because of their religious preferences and expressions.
And yet, at the same time people all over the world are
working in quietly heroic ways to overcome prejudice and to create new
relationships of mutual understanding and respect with their neighbors of
different faiths.
Here in Salt Lake after 9/11 an ethnic restaurant was
attacked. People responded by giving their business to this establishment
the next day to make it the biggest day of business the owner had ever had.
After 9/11 the Muslim Community, a member of Utah URI, asked
us to work with them to respond to the fear that their children were having in
going to school and the violence being threatened against them.
Utah URI responded with a call to Compassion and a Press
Conference at the Muslim Mosque. Clergy and Lay people alike from many
traditions signed the statement and stood in solidarity with our Muslim brothers
and Sisters. The event was covered by four TV stations, both major Utah
papers, and two radio stations.
IPCNSR has the opportunity to seek out ways we can be in
solidarity with others.
3. Creating Cultures of Peace
Many of us have experienced violence among people of
different religions,
locally in our own communities and globally. We have also witnessed
life-giving acts of mercy, charity, and forgiveness that reached across
religious boundaries. What if we, as a global community, through our
individual and collective actions, were able to shift the balance toward
reconciliation and peaceful living? What if we were to consciously and
collectively focus on ideas, practices and ways of being that create cultures
of peace in a positive way?
Peace is multi dimensional and includes inner peace,
interpersonal peace,
intergroup peace, and international peace.
Each faith tradition has spiritual disciplines to offer in
one or more of these dimensions.
Our Utah URI joined forces with the U.N. URI in New York to
create the
Olympic Truce Peace Pole Project.
The Olympic Truce has its origins in 900 B.C. where three kings came together
to find a way to celebrate the Olympic Games without violence or threat of
violence. They made each athlete swear a sacred truce that was represented
by the sacred Olympic flame that there would be no fighting or war, or even
the carrying of weapons for a period of seven days before to seven days after
the Olympic Games. The Truce was revived for the Modern Olympics in
1993
and has continued as a U.N. resolution every year since that time for each
Olympic Games.
The Olympic Truce was also supported at the recent U.N. Millennium Summit.
The Millennium Declaration specifically states that, "We urge
Member States to observe the Olympic Truce, individually and collectively, now
and in the future, and to support the International Olympic Committee in its
efforts to promote peace and human understanding through sport and the Olympic
Ideal."
During the Olympic Games in Salt Lake Our Utah URI and the U.N. URI presented
one Olympic Truce peace pole for each country that was displayed through out the
games in front of City Hall followed by a dedication service we did with
the Salt Lake Mayor and the World Peace Prayer Society and refugee children
from 75 nations in the world who are now living in Salt Lake as a result of
war and conflict in their former homelands.
We are now working to provide programs for congregations and the community in
support of conflict resolution and all of the dimensions of peace.
4. Healing the Earth
There is an Apocryphal story that when God was preparing to
bring the Children out of Israel, he first came to Moses and said, "I have some
good
news and bad news. The Good News is that I am going to cause a famine, a
plaque of locusts, and
the Nile River to turn to blood." Moses then asked what is the bad
news.
God replied, "You will have to write the environmental impact statement."
Seriously, the environment has become an increasing concern of faith traditions
all around the world, with the National Council of Churches, the
Jewish Faith, the Catholic faith, and Evangelical Christians all coming together
to form the Religious Partnership on the Environment in the U.S.
while other faith traditions around the world have take their own initiative
on this issue.
To respond to this issue we have worked with the Salt Lake
Olympic Committee
to host a two day international Seminar titled Social Values, Environment, &
Sustainable Development. Leadership for this conference included a clergy
panel that included myself as Environmental Justice Coordinator for the Rocky
Mountain Conference United Methodist Church and Director of the UCC WHALE
Center, Rev. Alan Merson, a Unitarian minister and former director of the
U.S. EPA for Region 8, Rev. Dr. Paula Nesbitt, an episcopal priest and director
of the Carl Williams Institute for Ethics and Values at Denver
University, Rev. Dr. Don Conroy, a catholic priest and director of the North
American Coalition on Religion and Ecology, and Rev. Dr. Gary Herbertson, an
ordained United Methodist Minister and director of The Agenda 21 program on the
Queen Mary in Long Beach Calif. The panel was moderated by Mr. Michael
Zimmerman, former chief justice of the Utah Supreme Court.
Participants included members of faith communities,
environmental organizations, representatives from government agencies, and
business and
industry and new partnerships have now been formed for further action.
Following this interfaith event, we developed a new Earth and
Faith Leadership Development Program in cooperation with the United Nations
Environment Program. This interfaith event was attended by teams from
several faith organizations and faith related universities from across the
country and held at the Olympic Village.
The UNEP book Earth and Faith provides both an overview of the religious
perspectives from the major religions of the world and the global
environmental agenda. The book further calls for specific actions such as
Earth Celebrations and other education and action items.
In the words of the Millennium Declaration, "We must spare no effort to free all
of humanity, and above all our children and grandchildren, from the
threat of living on a planet irredeemably spoiled by human activities, and whose
resources would not longer be sufficient for their needs."
Future Utah URI Activities
This was the background from which our Utah URI hosted the AAPC Conference
Healing the Soul: Stories of Hope that featured Bill Swing, founder of URI,
Helen Prejean, Matthew Fox, the Circle of Women, and Richard Jordan from the
United Nations Environment Programme.
At the AAPC Conference we also helped to bring to this meeting Rev. MacDonald
Semberka from Malawi, Africa. Following the Conference members of
Utah URI met with MacDonald to listen to his stories of the pastoral care
challenges
of hunger and starvation along with extreme poverty and HIV in his country.
Our group has since set up a web site to raise funds for the
Malawi URI groups through the Dollar Drive Commission program (See
http://URIMalawi.dollardrive.com ).
We are also working to deliver them a container of food
(80,000 meals) from
a
donation that our group obtained.
In late August we will participate in the Global URI Summit in Rio de Janeiro
where faith community leaders from all over the world will attend. We are
hopeful that IPCNSR President Jim Farris will be one of them.
Mark Twain said it this way, "Travel is hazardous to
prejudice, bigotry and narrow mindedness." For when we travel or are
visited by those who travel and are introduced to other ways of doing things,
our own preconceived notions of only "one true way" of doing things is thrown
out the window.
I believe that IPCNSR needs to create more diversity in what we do as an
organization.
Diversity is healthy. A town that only has one major
employer is much more
vulnerable to economic disaster than one that has many sources. A person
who uses a number of methods to stay healthy such as good nutrition, exercise,
stress management, good health screening, etc. is far more likely to prevent
disease than a person who uses only one of these methods. A farmer who
grows a variety of crops is much less vulnerable to disaster than a single crop
farm is. In nature an eco-system with a variety of plant and animal life
is
far more likely to sustain itself than one with limited diversity.
A Community that allows for a variety of viewpoints, forms of
worship, mission activities, and educational programs is far more likely to grow
and
sustain itself than a community where everyone thinks the same way and does
things year after year the same way with little variety or diversity to
attract persons with different viewpoints.
I as one member of IPCNSR would like to see our organization engage in more
hands on activities such as our Utah URI has been engaged in. I think that
IPCNSR becomes a cooperation circle in the URI we will expand our ability to
network and do the work that we all care so much about. Creating this
kind
of diversity with others will help grow IPCNSR and help us to live out more
fully the "golden rule principle" found in most of the world's major faith
traditions.
I look forward to dialogue with all of you on the idea of IPCNSR being part of
URI.
THE GOLDEN RULE PRINCIPLE
The golden rule as endorsed by all the great world religions is best interpreted as saying: "Treat others only in ways that you're willing to
be treated in the same exact situation." To apply it, you'd imagine yourself
in
the exact place of the other person on the receiving end of the action. If
you act in a given way toward another, and yet are unwilling to be treated
that way in the same circumstances, then you violate the rule.
The golden rule, with roots in a wide range of world
cultures, is well suited
to be a standard to which different cultures could appeal in conflicts. As
the world becomes more and more a single interacting global community, the
need for such a common standard is becoming more urgent.
The Golden Rule Principle:
Christianity: "So in everything, do to others, what you would have them do
to you, for this sums up the law and the prophets" -- MT 7:12
Buddhism: Treat not others in ways that yourself would find
hurtful.--Udana-Varga 5.18
Baha'i: Lay not on any soul a load that you would not wish to be laid upon
you, and desire not for anyone the things you would not desire for yourself.
-- Baha'u'llah Gleanings
Confucianism: One word which sums up the basis for all
good...loving
kindness. Do not do to others what you would not want done to yourself. --
Confucius Analects 15:23
Hinduism: This is the sum of duty: do not do to others what
would cause pain
if done to you. -- Mahabharata 5:1517
Islam: Not one of you truly believes until you wish for
others what you wish
for yourself. -- The Prophet Mohammed, Hadith
Judaism: What is hateful to you do not do to your neighbor. This is the
whole torah; all the rest is commentary. -- Hillel, Talmad, Shabbat 31a
Native Spirituality: We are as much alive as we keep the earth alive.
-- Chief Dan George
Janism: One should treat all creatures in the world as one would like to be
treated. -- Mahavira, Sutravitanga
Sikhism: I am no stranger to no one; and no one is a stranger to me.
Indeed
I am a friend to all. -- Guru Granth Sahib, pg.1299
Taoism: Regard your neighbor's gain as your own gain, and your neighbors
loss as your own loss.-- T'ai Shang Kan Ying P'ien, 213-218
Unitarianism: We affirm and promote respect for the interdependent of all
existence of which we are a part. -- Unitarian principle
Zoroastrianism: Do not unto others what is injurious to yourself. --
Shayast-na-Shayast 13.29
|
