wfn.org | Religious leaders commit to work with UN

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2000-132

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Religious leaders commit to work with UN 

by Jan Nunley

     (ENS) A first-ever gathering of religious leaders at the United Nations has 
produced a "Commitment to Global Peace" and the beginnings of a religious 
advisory council to serve as a resource for the UN's Secretary General in 
conflict situations where religion is a factor.

     The Millennium World Peace Summit brought almost 1,000 religious and 
spiritual leaders to New York, August 28-31, for prayers, speeches, and an 
opportunity to rub shoulders and exchange ideas with a dazzling array of 
representatives from most of the world's faiths. 

     The four-day gathering began with the pounding rhythms of the Shumei Taiko 
Ensemble, followed by a colorful procession of leaders dressed in the vestments 
of their respective traditions. A soaring a cappella performance of "Amazing 
Grace" preceded a series of blessings and calls to prayer from Hindu, indigenous 
Inca, and Muslim leaders. For the next two days, the UN's General Assembly Hall, 
usually the scene of political speeches, was a house of prayer for very nearly 
all of the world's people.

Dalai Lama, proselytizing spark controversy

     Not that politics didn't make its presence known.

     Even before the summit, heated words were exchanged over the decision by its 
organizers to limit an invitation to the Dalai Lama to the last half of the 
conference, held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. A UN official had advised 
organizers that bringing the spiritual leader of the world's 15 million Tibetan 
Buddhists to the UN would offend China. The Dalai Lama fled his homeland in 1959 
after a failed uprising against Chinese occupation of Tibet, and now lives in 
India. 

     The decision drew sharp criticism from Anglican archbishop Desmond Tutu of 
South Africa, who said it "totally undermines the integrity of the United Nations 
and the credibility of the summit." The seven-member Chinese delegation to the 
summit, chosen by the Chinese government, included a Tibetan Buddhist member, but 
the Dalai Lama sent an eight-person delegation of Tibetan Buddhists to the 
meeting anyway, and demonstrators protested his exclusion.

     Conflicts arose during the conference over proselytizing, seen as an 
essential element in Christian and other faiths but criticized as "spiritual 
violence" by a delegation from India. Evangelism was linked to the evils of 
colonialism by some Third World and indigenous participants, while the Vatican's 
representative, Cardinal Francis Arinze of the Pontifical Council on 
Interreligious Dialogue, gave a stirring defense of religious freedom of choice.

Problems not with faiths, but with the faithful

     Ironically, the summit wasn't a UN-sponsored event. The gathering was 
largely underwritten by media mogul Ted Turner's UN Foundation and Better World 
Fund. Turner, who has been critical of organized religion in general and 
Christianity in particular, was the honorary chair of the meeting and gave the 
keynote address. 

     Breezily informal, Turner recalled leaving the Christian faith of his 
childhood because the denomination of which his family were members "taught we 
were the only ones going to heaven. That confused the devil out of me. I said 
heaven is going to be a mighty empty place with nobody else there." Turner 
declared that "the religions that have survived don't have blood sacrifice, and 
they don't have hatred behind them. The ones that have done the best are the ones 
based on love."

     UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, whose meeting with Turner three years ago 
sparked the religious summit, told participants that they could be "powerful 
agents of change" in the cause of world peace. But he noted that religion can be 
used for darker purposes as well. "As I have often said, the problem is usually 
not with the faith, but with the faithful," he observed.

     Conspicuously absent from the summit were evangelical Protestants. Only 
Billy Graham's daughter, the Rev. Anne Graham Lotz, was invited to address the 
gathering. Lotz spoke passionately of Jesus as the source of peace, to restrained 
applause from the audience. Evangelicals also complained that Eastern faiths were 
over-represented at the summit, although a tally of participants showed that 
Christians outnumbered all other representatives, with the exception of those 
from indigenous religions.

Ndungane calls for African "Marshall Plan" on debt

     Although the archbishop of Canterbury declined to attend the summit, 
Anglicans were represented by Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane of South Africa. 
Speaking to the theme of "ending the violence of poverty and environmental 
degradation," Ndungane issued a powerful appeal for debt cancellation and what he 
called a Southern African "Marshall Plan" to help the process of recovery from 
apartheid. "Let us also remember that the United States financed the European 
Recovery Programme to ensure its own economic prosperity," Ndungane said. "So a 
Southern African Marshall Aid Plan to redress the apartheid legacy of poverty and 
inequality offers a rare occasion where justice, morality, and economic benefit 
meet in a win-win situation."

     Participants signed an 11-point "Commitment to Global Peace" which 
acknowledged the role of religion in human conflicts. The document included 
promises to collaborate with the United Nations in the pursuit of peace, a 
renewed commitment to ethical and spiritual values, and condemnation of all 
violence committed in the name of religion. The agreement also proposes a 
universal right to freedom of religion and to education, health care, and an 
equitable distribution of wealth. Care for the earth's environment and work for 
the universal abolition of weapons of mass destruction were also mandated.

     The second goal of the conference, the formation of a UN religious advisory 
panel, awaits the appointment of a steering committee to select its members. 

--The Rev. Jan Nunley is deputy director of the Episcopal Church's Office of News 
and Information.