wfn.org | Questions Remain After World Religions Summit

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September 2, 2000
Adventist Press Service (APD)
Christian B. Schaeffler, Editor-in-chief
CH-4003 Basel, Switzerland
Fax +41-61-261 61 18
APD@stanet.ch
http://www.stanet.ch/APD

Questions Remain After World Religions Summit:
World Peace Or One World Order? 

New York, NY, USA.      Meeting in New York August 
28-31, the Millennium World Peace Summit of 
Religious and Spiritual Leaders brought together 
over 1,000 leaders of many faiths to debate current 
challenges and to plan towards a proposed 
International Advisory Council of Religious and 
Spiritual Leaders that would provide a religious 
voice at the United Nations.

Though the Summit was truly a momentous event and 
provided a unique and historic opportunity for 
inter-faith dialogue, questions remain over the 
choice of delegates and the Summit's agenda and 
purpose.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in his address to 
the Summit on August 29 called for a recognition of 
the importance of religion and the need to defend 
religious freedoms.

"Religion helps us find our place in the cosmos; it 
knits families and communities together; it endows 
individuals with compassion and morality," said 
Annan. "Religious practices and beliefs are among 
the phenomena that define us as human. So let us 
today, from this great center of global community, 
reaffirm every man and woman's fundamental right to 
freedom of religion: to worship; to establish and 
maintain places of worship; to write, publish and 
teach; to celebrate holidays, to choose their own 
religious leaders, and to communicate with others at 
home and abroad. Where religions and their adherents 
are persecuted, defamed, assaulted or denied due 
process, we are all diminished, our societies 
undermined. There must be no room in the 21st 
century for religious bigotry and intolerance."

Similarly the Vatican representative, Cardinal 
Francis A. Arinze, president of the Pontifical 
Council for Interreligious Dialogue, pointed to the 
need to work together for religious harmony.

"Collaboration between people of all the religions 
of the world is needed for the proper motivation of 
hearts and consciences. Pope John Paul II gives a 
personal example as a promoter of reconciliation and 
harmony between peoples of different religions, 
cultures and languages. The promotion of peace is 
part and parcel of what it means to be a Catholic."

In a written statement, Pope John Paul II said that 
"It is a sign of hope when religious and spiritual 
leaders can say to the world with one voice that 
peace is possible, that peace is our sacred duty, 
that peace is the future willed by God. I assure all 
the participants that I am spiritually close to them 
as they seek to promote the good of the whole human 
family."

Many other speakers shared similar viewpoints on the 
need for tolerance, condemning anti-religious 
violence and persecution. Dr. Han Wenzao, president 
of the state-run China Christian Council spoke of 
the need for peace and understanding, even as the 
organization Human Rights Without Frontiers was 
reporting on a new government crackdown on 
Christians in China.

The "China question" was at the heart over the 
controversial decision by the Summit organizers not 
to invite the Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhist spiritual 
leader now in exile in India. The decision-made to 
avoid antagonizing the Beijing government-was 
eventually reversed after pressure from religious 
groups, at which point the Dalai Lama responded that 
he did not wish to attend in such a situation.

Other religious groups were absent from the Summit, 
including a number who did not receive any 
invitation. Significant among the uninvited were 
evangelical and Protestant churches, including the 
Southern Baptists, as well as the 11-million member 
Seventh-day Adventist Church, a well known Christian 
World Communion.

Some delegates questioned the composition of the 
Summit, and also its agenda and purpose, pointing to 
what seemed to be an imbalance in representation. 
Others took issue with the lack of true debate and 
discussion in terms of drafting statements and 
declarations, as well as the role and function of 
the proposed International Advisory Council of 
Religious and Spiritual Leaders to the United 
Nations.

Problems debated at the Summit included the impact 
of religion in the Balkan conflicts, Ethiopia and 
Eritrea, the Sudan, and Nigeria; inter-religious 
conflict in Central Asia; poverty and debt 
reduction; religion and the environment; and the 
role of religion in world affairs.

"This Summit of religious leaders, held before the 
Millennium Summit of world leaders next week, is a 
defining moment for the humanity of the world," 
commented Rabbi Arthur Schneier of the Appeal of 
Conscience Foundation.

"This is a key event in the United Nations decade of 
culture and dialogue between nations," added Russian 
mufti Ravil Gainutdin.

"It will be interesting to see in what way the UN 
can respond," said the Rev. Dr Hans Ucko, executive 
secretary of the World Council of Churches' (WCC) 
team on Interreligious Relations and Dialogue, on 
the final day of the Millennium World Peace Summit 
of Religious and Spiritual Leaders.

Ucko noted that holding the first two days of the 
gathering in the General Assembly Hall of the UN 
headquarters was a unique development. "We have 
prayed in their house. This shows the eagerness of 
the followers of the different religions to support 
the UN." But, despite the support given to the 
summit by UN secretary-general Kofi A. Annan, the 
attitude of the UN as a whole to the religious 
community remains uncertain, Ucko said.

The World Council of Churches had accepted an 
invitation for its general secretary, the Rev. Dr 
Konrad Raiser, to address the summit and had 
supplied names of people from its constituency who 
might be invited to participate. "We couldn't be 
absent from a gathering of this kind," Ucko said.

The Rev. Dr Konrad Raiser, general secretary of the 
World Council of Churches (WCC), told the gathering 
of religious leaders that he hoped they would "deny 
the sanction of religion to those who seek to make 
it a tool of violence".

"All true religion wills justice, peace and 
harmony," he said to an international interreligious 
audience which filled the UN General Assembly Hall. 
"Yet, as we engage here in dialogue, we are 
conscious of the facct that wars are being fought in 
many parts of the world appealing to the name of 
religion."

Raiser said summit participants were gathering at a 
time of movement away from "an age of secularism 
which tended to despise religion", and when people 
were again looking to religion as a source of 
spiritual values. But religion continues to suffer 
misuse by powerful people "whose interests have 
little to do with religion, faith or the 
spirituality of believers," he said.

In a passage that drew applause, he lamented "the 
lack of civil courage and statesmanship of many 
government leaders who have been more concerned 
about the preservation of national self-interests - 
and often their own personal privileges - than for 
the collective interests of the peoples of the 
United Nations".

"We must know and respect each other, and talk to 
each other," said Archbishop of Newark, Theodore E. 
McCarrick. "In our different religious traditions we 
have the answer to conflicts. We are brothers and 
sisters in God's human family. Religious leaders 
must be courageous, must speak out when it is 
difficult to do so, and must remain faithful to 
God."

Prepared in advance by the organizing committee and 
revised only slightly during the meeting, a summit 
declaration entitled "Commitment to Global Peace" 
appealed to people of all religious traditions "to 
cooperate in building peaceful societies, to seek 
mutual understanding through dialogue where there 
are differences, to refrain from violence, to 
practise compassion and to uphold the dignity of all 
life."

Ucko described the declaration as "quite good" and 
commended its tone. However, he felt the summit 
would have benefited from a broader constituency 
base. The WCC had not been invited to help organize 
it, and has accepted no role in its follow-up.
 
According to Ucko, plans to set up a steering 
committee to create an interreligious body that 
would seek to bring religious thinking and interests 
into relationship with UN peace efforts are 
premature. An indication of what the UN expects from 
the religious community, and what possibilities the 
UN has for using already established resources are 
needed first. The UN might well rely, Ucko said, on 
an established body such as the World Conference on 
Religion and Peace (WCRP), an interreligious agency 
based at the Church Center for the UN, directly 
across the street from the UN's New York 
headquarters.
 
Ucko said the summit came at a time when the WCC is 
thinking about how to respond to "the many 
interreligious initiatives that are taking place". 
There is a growing push for action in this area, and 
the WCC will hold a consultation on this subject 
next year, he reported.

"Religion can provide the vision and unleash the 
spiritual energy necessary to guide humanity to a 
New World Order worthy of its destiny," stated Dr. 
Albert Lincoln, Secretary-General of the Baha'i 
International Community.

Religious leaders signed a declaration committing 
themselves to global peace, declaring all religions 
equal and recognizing equality between women and 
men. The document, titled, "Commitment to Global 
Peace,'' condemns all violence committed in the name 
of religion and has been signed by the 1,000 envoys 
before they ended their four-day meeting.

The Summit concluded with a ceremony of "sharing of 
the waters from around the world," together with 
many commitments to continued discussion and 
dialogue between religious faiths. (267/2000)