Bahá’í World/Volume 28/Parliament of the World’s Religions
 | The text below this notice was generated by a computer, it still needs to be checked for errors and corrected. If you would like to help, view the original document by clicking the PDF scans along the right side of the page. Click the edit button at the top of this page (notepad and pencil icon) or press Alt+Shift+E to begin making changes. When you are done press "Save changes" at the bottom of the page. |
The [999 Parliament Ufthe
World 38' Religions brought more than seven thousand religious representatives fivm around the world 10 C ape Town, South A/i'ica, in December.
PARLIAMENT OF THE
ORLD’S WRELIGIONS
or the first week of December 1999, residents of Cape Town,
South Africa, witnessed a remarkable metaphor in action. Seven thousand teachers, scholars, leaders, and religious believers gathered, as representatives of hundreds of millions of their coreligionists in some ninety countries, to consult with, learn from, and share fellowship with each other. Religion, so long Viewed as divisive in human affairs, has been engaged for several decades in a process of rediscovering itself, chiefly driven by interfaith dialogue. The contraction of borders, economies, and cultures has changed the face of more than governments. Globalization is forcing the world’s religions to take a fresh look at their existence in a Wide spectrum of faiths. The Parliament of the World’s Religions represents a high point in this movement towards introspection and consultation. One of the chief results of the Parliament was the seventy—page document A Call to Our Guiding Institutions, a plea to those people and institutions responsible for shaping the future course of humanity—religions; governments; organizations of agriculture, labor, industry, and commerce; educators; the arts
105
[Page 106]
Tm; Bahá’í WORLD
and media; science and medicine; and non-governmental organizations. The Call underscores the commonality of moral Virtues and their potential role in solving global social problems, touches upon issues as diverse as sustainable development, global governance, media ethics, and debt relief. In short, it offers a blueprint for religious and secular partnership in addressing the new millennium’s global challenges.
Held six years after the Parliament in Chicago that marked the one—hundredth anniversary of the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions, the 1999 event offered a glimpse of some of the currents in the worldwide interfaith movement.
“We find ourselves at a moment when people everywhere are coming to recognize that the world is a global Village,” the Call says. “Unique to this moment is the possibility of a new level of creative engagement between the institutions of religion and spirituality and the other powerful institutions that influence the character and course of human society. . .What is needed now is a persuasive invitation to our guiding institutions to build new, reliable, and more imaginative partnerships toward the shaping of a better world.”
“We’re convinced that the international interreligious movement is one of the most important features of the modern world,” said Jim Kenney, international director of the Council for the Parliament of the World’s Religions, which cosponsored the event along with the Parliament of the World’s Religions, South Africa. “Our motivation for holding the Parliament comes from the fact that the world is shrinking and that diversity is more and more apparent,” said Kenney. “Twenty years ago, a Westerner might never have encountered a Buddhist or a Bahá’í or a Muslim or a Hindu. Now. . .the followers of all these traditions live adjacent to each other.”
Events like the Parliament embody an ideal of the Bahá’í teachings. In the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the central book of the Bahá’í revelation, Baha’u’llah exhorts His followers to “[c]onsort with all religions with amity and concord” and states elsewhere that the doctrines of holy war, ritual impurity, and other hindrances
106
[Page 107]
PAjLIAMENT 0;: RELIGIONS
to interreligious unity have been categorically abolished. “So powerful is the light of unity,” says Baha’u’llah, “it can illuminate the whole earth.”I
The Call was one of two new efforts of this year’s gathering intended to stimulate faith groups to take their involvement in the Parliament to the level of joint action. The other was the offering of “Gifts of Service to the World,” a listing of several hundred faith-inspired service projects.
The Parliament
The Parliament opened with a colorful procession of religious leaders and believers through the streets of Cape Town. As several thousand Bahá’ís, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jains, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, African indigenous leaders, and others wound their way through the city, they were at times heckled by fundamentalist groups and even threatened with violence. The protests were reflections of the challenges tha surround interfaith dialogue.2
The daily program of the Parliament began with morning prayers and meditations, followed by numerous workshops and talks, and evening plenary sessions and artistic performances. Scholars, activists, and religious leaders addressed topics ranging from the basic teachings of the world’s religions to an exploration of faith—inspired solutions to world problems.
“Much time and energy was devoted to discussing practical problems such as poverty and discrimination, social injustice and the stifling of ancient traditions, environmental pollution and global ethics, economic exploitation, and health issues,” said Varadaraja V. Raman, professor emeritus of physics and humanities at the Rochester Institute of Technology in the United States and a representative of the Zygon Center for Science and Religion. “Thus, for example, in one session a speaker expounded on the human rights Violation suffered by millions of ‘untouchables’ in India, while in another, an eminent scholar interviewed some
' Bahá’u’llz’th. G/eaningsfrom [/78 Writings Q/‘Bu/m ’u '/l(i/I (Wilmette: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1994), p. 288. 3 For more on interreligious dialogue, see “World Watch,“ pp. 265784.
107
[Page 108]
[—1
TH: 134M WLRLD
Native American elders on how their religions and cultures have been marginalized in modern America.”
More than one hundred Bahá’ís from around the world attended the Parliament and many were integrally involved in its organization and operation, including Dr. Amy Marks, who acted as cochair and spoke during the opening and closing plenary sessions. Several other Bahá’ís served as trustees on the Parliament’s South African and international boards of directors; Lally Warren, a member of the Continental Board of Counsellors for Africa, read a prayer as one of the twenty dignitaries on stage during the opening devotions; Shohreh Rawhani, secretary of the South African National Spiritual Assembly, was a main speaker; nine Bahá’ís served as representatives to the high—level Parliament Assembly; a Bahá’í youth dance group and Kevin Locke, a native American Bahá’í, performed at two of the plenaries and there were Bahá’í booths and displays.
During the final three days, an Assembly of some four hundred religious and spiritual leaders gathered for consultations and to make further commitments to joint action. Joining the Assembly were secular leaders from business, agriculture, academia, the media, and international organizations such as the World Bank.
The closing ceremony featured a short speech by the Dalai Lama, leader of Tibetan Buddhists. He said he was encouraged that so many people could honor each other’s religions and expressed the hope that such meetings would result in concrete social action.
A Noble Heritage
The 1999 Parliament builds on the World Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago in 1893, which brought together several hundred scholars, theologians, and religious leaders of East and West. The 1893 event is Viewed by some as the dawn of interfaith dialogue, and also holds the distinction of being the first time the Bahá’í Faith was introduced to the public in the Western hemisphere.3
3 In his address to the conference, the Reverend Henry H. Jessup, D.D., direc tor of Presbyterian missionary operations in northern Syria, quoted C ambridge Orientalist E. G. Browne’s description of Bahá’u’lláh.
108
PARLIAMENT 9F RELIGIQNS
Religious leaders, including Bahá’í' representative A my Marks (lhi/‘dfirom lefi), stand with Nelson Mandela, former president of
South Africa .
The Council for the Parliament of the World’s Religions was established after a highly successful 1993 centenary of that event drew more than ten thousand participants to Chicago. Among the major products of the 1993 Parliament was a document called Towards a Global Ethic, a statement of global ethics as defined by the world’s major religions.
Council officials said they chose South Africa for the 1999 Parliament because of the role that religion played in the struggle against apartheid. “We believe that there is a unique role that religion and spirituality play in social transformation,” said Dirk Ficca, executive director of the Council. “It provides resources for the people to get a clear Vision of where they might go, and an outline of the most peaceful and just way to get there.”
Addressing the Parliament, former South African president Nelson Mandela acknowledged, “without the Church and religious institutions, I would never be here today,” explaining that it was Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and J ewish religious groups that were instrumental in providing him and other young blacks with an education—and later in giving comfort to political prisoners and their families. “I appreciate the importance of religion,” he said. “You have to have been in a South African jail under apartheid where you could see the cruelty of human beings to each other in its naked form. Again, religious institutions and their leaders gave us hope that one day we could return.” He went on to say that “religion will have a crucial role to play in guiding and inspiring humanity to meet the enormous challenges we face” in the next century.
109
[Page 110]
THE BAJIM WQRLD
Once the decision was made to hold the 1999 Parliament in South Africa, much of the planning and implementation of the event was turned over to the Parliament of the World’s Religions, South Africa (PWRSA), an autonomous interfaith organization. “The South Africa religious community, humble as it was, rose to the immense task of playing host to the Parliament,” said Amy Marks, cochair Of PWRSA and a member of the South African Bahá’í community. “In truth,” said Marks, “it can be said that the 1999 Parliament of the World’s Religions was achieved on the interreligious foundations built by those who were key players in the struggle against apartheid.” The next Parliament was tentatively scheduled for 2005.
A welcoming message from the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of South Africa, which appeared on the front page of Vukani, the official newsletter of the Parliament (and which was distributed as an insert in the municipal newspaper Cape Times), summed up the spirit of the Bahá’í contribution to the gathering by speaking of the
vast majority of the peoples of the world [who] accept and understand that we are one peoplefione people rich in the diversity of our cultures, languages, temperaments and thought. .. As a new century opens, the oven'iding challenge facing all of the world’s peoples is to understand and wholeheartedly accept...that the time has come to rise above our petty differences of national and religious rivalries and work constructively and enthusiastically to build new order in the world.
A gathering ()j'some 9/1/12 participants at the 1999 Parliament oft/ze World 3' ’ Religions in C ape Town, South A/i'ica.
