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ARTICLES

World Forum of the Faith Communities
by Lucien F. Cosijns

Issue of primary importance
Preamble:

Our world growing towards unity
Since WWII, a remarkable evolution by which our world is becoming more and more united has taken place with the creation of following organisations and declarations:

- World Bank in 1944 with 184 member countries, 7.000 employees in Washington headoffices and over .000 in offices in other countries.
- United Nations Organisation created on 24.10.1945 with now 191 member states. Preceded by the first international organization in our world, called the League of Nations, signed in Paris in 1919, at the Peace Conference after WWI., joined by 60 nations but without the USA.
- International Monetary Fund (IMF), established in 1945 as an international organisation with now 184 member countries.
- North-Atlantic Treaty Organisation in 1949 consisting of 19 country members.
- International Court of Justice established as a judicial organ of the United Nations which began work in 1946 in the Peace Palace in The Hague in the Netherlands, when it replaced the Permanent Court of International Justice which had functioned there since 1922.
- World Trade Organisation (WTO) which came into being in 1995 as successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) established in the wake of the Second World War.
- European Union, becoming a reality by the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992, followed by the implementing of the Euro as common currency on January 1, 2002, uniting now 25 countries since 2004 with a population of 455 million.
- Very recently, the preparation towards an ‘Asian Union’ and an “African Union”, similar to the EU, are in progress on both continents. The same evolution is taking place in the Latin American countries towards the creation of a South American Community of Nations (SACN) of 12 countries, with head office in Lima (Peru) and a South American Bank in Brasilia.
- Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders in 2000 attended by more than thousand religious leaders from all world faith communities, a global gathering of religious leaders that was held, in part, in the UN General Assembly Hall, and that involved UN officials, but which was not officially endorsed by the UN.
- World Social Forum which took place in 2003 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, which was attended by more than 100.000 people from all over the world.
- Universal Declarations of Human Rights in 1948, of Non-Violence in 1990, of a Global Ethic in 1993, and of Human Responsibilities in 1995.

The creation of all the above global organisations and declarations shows that the gradual unification of the world and therefore also the globalisation evolution are a world evolution on a way of no return. Nobody doubts anymore that also the industrial and financial worlds are undergoing a similar process of joining hands - of uniting - by the ever increasing merging of enterprises and financial institutes, which for a great part runs parallel with the ongoing world globalisation. From the process of unification of our world in so many domains we can conclude that the word ‘globalisation’ covers a wide range of on-going evolutions and changes. It is obvious that this process is accompanied by less desired and sometimes even pernicious side-effects. The anti-globalisation movement should be renamed and be directed to the finding of ways and means of reducing these side-effects to a minimum and not against globalisation itself.

Humankind has come a long way from the confrontation attitude in the last and former centuries which has been at the origin of so much war and pain, to the now much more accepted way of dialogue and of collaboration in respect of the others. That the United States of America are not joining this worldwide evolution and seemingly prefer to go it alone in a kind of drive for world domination is being looked upon by many as a dangerous trend in this evolution towards unity. US enterprises are making use of the so-called implantation of democracy to overtake and to usurp local enterprises, which policy is now going on in many countries of South America, Afghanistan and is happening also in Iraq.

Task of the political world

There can be no doubt about the fact that to do something in an effective way to improve the problems of our world - the escalating poverty of millions, the escalating gap in common welfare between North and South and the pernicious ecological and social side effects of the world globalisation process - is above everything else a task of the political world. The political world is guided and moved by the opinions prevailing among the citizens of the nations, which come to expression via the lobbying of groups of people, of institutions and of political parties, and not in the least by way of the mass media. The activities of the NGO’s are fulfilling a meaningful role in lightening the problems of our world on a local level but only the political world has the means and the power to really improve the socio-economic structures which are for a great deal at the origin of the main world problems like e.g. the deplorable situation of the 250 million ‘dalits’ (untouchables) in India and the millions of the poor and underprivileged in South American countries, not to speak about the situation in the African continent. In order t be able to influence and even to exert pressure on the political world, a much closer collaboration between the faith communities among themselves and a collaboration between the faith communities and the political world is an absolute requirement.

2. Collaboration

a. Collaboration between the World Faith Communities

We have been able to observe a remarkable increase in the past decades of all kinds of interfaith dialogue meetings the world over. It is however also clear that on the part of the highest authorities of the faith communities there is still a lack of real collaboration, of a joining of hands and forces towards the creation of a one voice world forum for their billions of believers and sympathisers.

An important step forwards has now been made by the establishment of the World Council of Religious Leaders. This council has been created mainly under the impulse of Christian and Buddhist faith communities and as a result of the direction-giving Summit meeting in 2000 in the offices of the UN in New York. Let us hope that the other faith communities come to see the importance of this initiative and make their representatives part of this newly created council.

In order to really influence the political, industrial and financial world, the world of the faith communities needs the unified power of their billions of believers. This can only be realised by joining hands in umbrella interfaith dialogue organisations on the national and continental levels, which still have to be created. This would be an important further step in the evolution of the growing unifying globalisation of our world and be a remarkable contribution to a better world in more peace and justice. A first step in this direction has been realised by the creation in March 2002 of a “Council of European Religious Leaders”, an initiative sustained by the World Conference for Religion and Peace (WCRP)

b. Collaboration between the faith communities and the political world

It is apparent now that in recent years there are signs in the political world of positive efforts to come to a collaboration with the leaders of the faith communities to study together possibilities and means to come to more effective results in the efforts towards a world with a bit more of peace and justice for all.

One of the main handicaps on this road of the faith communities to come to a union in collaboration with the political world is the problem of coming forward with people who can be accepted by their communities as real representatives. The need for a representative authoritative body is now acutely being felt in the Islamic communities, in Buddhism and Hinduism, and also in the Orthodox and non-Catholic Christian communities. Only the Catholic Church disposes of the Vatican as the authoritative head of the Roman-Catholic faith community. The World Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland, could become a qualified representative at least for their members, Protestant and other Christian non-Roman-Catholic communities.

The efforts by the EU-Commission in the past ten years to come to a dialogue with the faith communities clearly show a similar problem of not finding real representative organisations or institutes on the side of the faith communities, which would be acceptable as discussion partners to the leaders of the political world. Progress is being made in the Muslim communities of the European Union where all governments are now being pushed by the EU-Commission to create a national representative body by democratic election in each of the European countries with a rather high percentage of Muslim citizens. This has now become a fact in Belgium since 2002.

c. Collaboration between the interfaith dialogue organisations

In regard with the interfaith dialogue organisations, we can say that there is at last and after about two decades of interfaith meetings a bit all over the world a growing interest from the common public. Dialogue has even become a trendy word in the news media. The prayer meetings in Assisi, Italy on invitation by the Pope and on Mount Hièï in Kyoto, Japan on invitation by the Buddhist Tendai community have become world news. In most meetings however the subject of ‘collaboration on a global level towards the solution of the world problems’ is still not being considered as of primary importance, and is also not included in the program of the planned 4th meeting of the Parliament of the World’s Religions from 7 to 11 July 2004 in Barcelona, Spain, where more than 10.000 participants are expected.

After many years of activity in the interfaith dialogue movement worldwide, it has become my opinion that, in support of the realisation of this global issue of creating a global organisation as worthy partner to the United Nations Organisation, a union in one or another form of real collaboration of some of the existing interfaith organisations in the West and in the East would be most appropriate and opportune. The four western organisations which might be most advanced towards such a union in collaboration are without doubt the Council for a Parliament of the World Religions (CPWR, Chicago), the United Religions Initiative (URI, San Francisco), which both might be joined in this uniting by the World Congress of Faiths (WCF) of Oxford, UK, and the World Conference for Peace and Religion (WCRP). The four of them together might then work out a much needed global interfaith magazine which could become a reinforcement of the former interfaith magazine World Faiths Encounter, edited by the WCF, which is being edited since 2003 under the new name of Interreligious INSIGHT. To get the organisations in eastern countries more involved in this global evolution and as a most necessary cross-exchange of interfaith news between east and west, such magazine could work out a collaboration with one of the eastern magazines such as e.g. “Seeds of Peace”, quarterly edited by the International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB), Bangkok, Thailand.

However there is still also here a lack of global collaboration which is apparent in the many local, national and international interfaith meetings in western as well as in eastern countries. Barring some very rare exceptions, each of the hundreds and more interfaith dialogue organisations in the west as well in the east (see the two lists on my website) remain separate bodies without the necessary power of coming to expression in the mass media and of exerting coercive influence on the political world. Although in their charters and other publications they all invite their members to “unite”, a real collaboration between the organisations is far from being apparent. Such collaboration would be the expression of giving priority to the common good beyond the own interests. They remain separate local, regional or even international organizations, which however all try to protect their own ways of working, which are always in need of money, and which activities do not reach the media. A union in collaboration would also here been able to realise power by globalizing which would be worth of attention by the media and which could be a ‘mighty’ contribution towards the establishment of the wished for international interreligious forum.

3. Final Target : a World Forum of the Faith Communities

From a lot of initiatives and global activities it is now becoming apparent that we can observe a growing interest for everything which can contribute to dialogue and union in collaboration, which can also be said to be a matter of primary importance towards more peace on earth. This rmains a subject for further discussion in the political as well religious world. It must be recognised that most of the worldwide initiatives have originated from Christian communities. Some will without doubt object that this might be an all too western dream originated in the Christian world. The other faith communities should join this movement by a more active participation of ideas and activities from their own religious and cultural values and background.

Many organizations involved in interreligious dialogue have thought it useful if not necessary to have an affiliation with the UNO. In f 2004, there were some 130 organizations and ngo’s (non-government organization), 36 of Europe, 50 of the US, 20 0f Asia & the Middle East, 18 of Africa, 3 of Latin America and the Caribbean, and 4 of Oceania, which have an affiliated relationship with the United Nations. One may wonder if it is the right way for religions and religious organizations to link themselves so closely to the political world, and whether such an affiliation does not run the risk of becoming too closely bound to the political world. The history of the past centuries has shown that religions had better avoid whatever close links with the political world, which had lead to our present separation of church and state in most democratic nations. This is another reason why a separate organization outside the UN but as an acceptable discussion party to the UN, and with the support of their billions of adherents should be the way to exert influence on the activities of the political world towards more effective ways to improve the problems of our world.

Is their still need to repeat that the aim of creating a union of the faith communities as a one-voice global interfaith forum is not the creating of one religion but of a union in collaboration and in joining hands and forces, by the different world faith communities (religions, indigenous traditions, and other convictions like humanists, freemasons, etc.), each keeping to its own identity and values.

In the current development of our world, still troubled by the many conflicts and problems which we all know too well, a start could and should be made on the international level to let each faith community propose qualified personalities on a tentative basis and as an intermediate phase, but who in a later stage could be accepted as full representatives. In this way a preparatory world forum could be created as a stepping stone to a formal world interfaith organisation.

Interfaith dialogue should result in mutual enrichment of the own religious and cultural identity. The words which the Dalai Lama keeps repeating are the way to follow: “By the study of Buddhism, Christians should become better Christians, and Buddhists should become better Buddhists by the study of Christianity!”

Finally a quotation from Leonard Swidler in his Global Ethic proposition (see his website):

“At the same time the world has been slowly, painfully emerging from the millennia-long Age of Monologue into the Age of Dialogue. As noted above, until the beginning of a century or so ago, each religion, and then ideology--each culture--tended to be very certain that it alone had the complete "explanation of the ultimate meaning of life, and how to live accordingly." Then through the series of revolutions in understanding, which began in the West but ultimately spread more and more throughout the whole world, the limitedness of all statements about the meaning of things began to dawn on isolated thinkers, and then increasingly on the middle and even grass-roots levels of humankind: the epistemological revolutions of historicism, pragmatism, sociology of knowledge, language analysis, hermeneutics, and finally dialogue.

Now that it is more and more understood that the Muslim, Christian, secularist, Buddhist, etc. perception of the meaning of things is necessarily limited, the Muslim, Christian, secularist, etc. increasingly feels not only no longer driven to replace, or at least dominate, all other religions, ideologies, cultures, but even drawn to enter into dialogue with them, so as to expand, deepen, enrich each of their necessarily limited perceptions of the meaning of things. Thus, often with squinting, blurry eyes, humankind is emerging from the relative darkness of the "Age of Monologue" into the dawning "Age of Dialogue"--dialogue understood as a conversation with someone who differs from us primarily so we can learn, because of course since we now growingly realize that our understanding of the meaning of reality is necessarily limited, we might learn more about reality's meaning through someone else's perception of it.”

Lucien F. Cosijns
E-mail: lucien.cosijns@telenet.be
Website: www.interfaithdialoguebasics.be