wfn.org | Diversity of Sights and Sounds Mark Parliament of World Religions in

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@wfn.org>]

Cape Town

Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions
Mim Neal, 312 629 2990, mimneal@cpwr.org
John Dart, 818 363 3984, jdartnews@aol.com
http://www.cpwr.org

DIVERSITY’S SIGHTS AND SOUNDS
AT PARLIAMENT OF THE WORLD’S RELIGIONS

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA --  Sounds, sights and signs of what the religious
landscape will look like in the coming century abound at the 1999 Parliament
of the World’s Religions, the largest interfaith gathering of its kind.

A muezzin’s call to late afternoon prayer from a teal-domed mosque mixes with
the steady beat of drumming by yellow-robed Buddhist monk seated by the
roadside.  The Japanese monk, now on a pilgrimage to Guatama Buddha’s
birthplace at Lumbini on the India-Nepal border, says he has been chanting for
the success of the Parliament.

In terms of numbers, the non-legislative gathering of religious leaders and
practitioners is succeeding ­ slightly exceeding expectations by topping 6,000
registrants halfway through the eight-day Parliament ending Dec. 8.
Participants have come from some 90 nations, including more than 3,000 from
South Africa and 2,200 from the United States.  Other lands with more than 90
registrants each were Taiwan, South Korea, India, Great Britain and Canada.

Also successful, observers say, is the spirit of cooperation and mutual
respect, a major objective of this event.

Close to the mosque and the chanting Buddhist is the hillside Cape Technikon
campus and St. Mark’s Anglican Church from which organ music occasionally
emanates.  But the sandstone church also serves as a venue for some of the
more than 800 lectures, workshops and services at the half-dozen venues for
Parliament events in this coastal city.

Posted on one doorway at St. Mark’s was a notice about a “Sufi Service of
Universal Worship”  (rites of a mystical tradition within Islam) to be held in
the church.  Posted nearby on the church’s outside walls were signs
publicizing times and places for Sikh and Korean Buddhist meditations in other
buildings.

At the city’s Good Hope Centre, several evening plenary sessions celebrated
the spiritual diversity within urban areas of South Africa ­ Christian roots
from the colonial era, independent African churches as well as Muslim, Hindu,
Bahai and other communities.  One plenary speaker described the Jewish
community of 3,200 in Durban, a busy port city on the eastern coast of South
Africa.  Hall and lobby exhibits at the same auditorium ranged from Catholic,
Quaker and Christian Science booths to various Hindu movements and some
organizations typically found at New Age festivals.

Back at Cape Technikon in another example of religious-cultural diversity, a
dozen Japanese Taiko drummers performed in a noontime event in the campus
ampitheater.  The performers represent Shinji Shumekai, an arts-oriented,
spiritual body with some 150 members attending the Parliament.

A small African child who came upon the performance was heard to comment to
his mother, “Look, Mommy, they have drums like us.”

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