State of Interreligious Movement Report June 2008 State of the Interreligious Movement Report A Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions Publication A Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions 1 State of Interreligious Movement Report June 2008 Table of Contents Editor’s Note ....................................................................................................................... 3 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 5 A Snapshot of the Interreligious Movement ..................................................................... 11 Baha’i ............................................................................................................................ 11 Buddhist ........................................................................................................................ 18 Christian ........................................................................................................................ 31 Confucian ...................................................................................................................... 70 Hindu ............................................................................................................................. 71 Indigenous ..................................................................................................................... 86 Jain .............................................................................................................................. 103 Jewish .......................................................................................................................... 117 Multi-Religious and Independent ................................................................................ 130 Muslim ........................................................................................................................ 184 Pagan ........................................................................................................................... 193 New Religious Movements ......................................................................................... 198 Shinto .......................................................................................................................... 202 Sikh.............................................................................................................................. 203 Taoist ........................................................................................................................... 222 Zoroastrian .................................................................................................................. 223 Essays .............................................................................................................................. 228 The Interfaith Movement: An Incomplete Assessment................................................ 228 Religion in the 21st Centurys ....................................................................................... 247 What Counts as “Religion” in the Interreligious Movement?...................................... 258 A Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions 2 State of Interreligious Movement Report June 2008 Editor’s Note This Report presents illustrative examples of fifteen religious traditions participating in the interreligious movement. Examples of multi-religious and independent facilitation of the interreligious movement are also presented. All of the examples have been compiled using the following three methods: (1) researchers have searched organizational webpages, community newsletters, and other relevant websites selecting pertinent public information, (2) researchers have contacted interreligious practitioners to solicit information on their work, and (3) the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions has sent an email to thousands of its contacts soliciting information on their current activities. These examples have been reviewed by the editor and selected for publication in this report according to their illustrative effect. These methods of collection are necessarily limited, due to the often ad hoc and informal quality of much interreligious work. We have also been limited, for the most part, to examples in the English language. And, of course, many people in the world – including participants in the interreligious movement – are not readily accessible by email or phone. What is more, we simply do not understand the varieties of religious life well enough to identify examples of interreligious work that are not relatively obvious. The list could go on and on. Nonetheless, we have tried to convey a representative portrait of whatever in the interreligious movement has been accessible to our methodological reach. The categories dividing “A Snapshot of the Interreligious Movement” are used only because of their familiarity. The use of terms like “New Religious Movements” and “Indigenous” has been reluctant at best; these are fraught and often exploited terms and we look forward to a time when better, more representative language becomes available. For that matter, this document does not purport to decide who counts as a “Hindu” or a “Jew” or a “Christian” or a “Muslim” or anything else. The examples provided below are offered with an implicit invitation to constructive criticism and the assumption of future revisions. The Report uses the terms “interreligious” and “interfaith” somewhat interchangeably throughout; in the first of three critical essays, “The Interfaith Movement: An Incomplete Assessment,” good reasons are provided to prefer the term “interfaith.” But this report has sided with the term “interreligious” for its title. Historical and theoretical considerations, elaborated in the second and third essays, suggest that this usage of the term “faith” is epiphenomenal to a field of meaning already established by the modern category of religion. The contentious and fraught category of religion has, therefore, been retained to provoke further reflection on its nuances: to clarify, for instance, why it might seem attractive to translate this concept into the language of “faith.” This report could not have been produced without the outstanding efforts of an entire team of researchers and reviewers. The Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions would like to thank the volunteer research team of Adam Dichson, Brooke Heerwald, LeAnne Clausen, and Michelle Townsend and our research assistants Katerina A Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions 3 State of Interreligious Movement Report June 2008 Sokolova, Kyeongil Jung and Pangernungba. We would also like to give special thanks to Kusumita Pedersen, Travis Rejman, and Matt Weiner. In addition, the “Gathering of Experts” at the 2007 Forum of World Cultures in Monterrey, Mexico made invaluable comments. We would also like to thank the Journal of Ecumenical Studies for allowing the inclusion of “The Interfaith Movement: An Incomplete Assessment” by Kusumita P. Pedersen, which originally appeared in the Winter 2004 issue of the JES . Jeff Israel Editor Brooklyn, New York 2007 A Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions 4 State of Interreligious Movement Report June 2008 Introduction On September 25 th and 26 th of 2007, forty-five religious leaders and scholars came together for a “Gathering of Experts” in Monterrey, Mexico. Each expert had just finished presenting at the Encuentro Mundial Interreligioso , a four day interreligious event that attracted thousands to the city of Monterrey. The participants in the Gathering were from a range of religious and spiritual traditions: Muslim, Pagan, Christian Protestant, Brahma Kumari, Jain, Christian Catholic, Sikh, Buddhist, Yoruba, Baha’i, and Hindu. For two days, these experts from all over the world discussed the challenges to religion and the interreligious movement in the 21 st century. While the diversity of the participants was reflected in the spectrum of views expressed at the Gathering, several common concerns did emerge. Participants shared concerns about the following challenges to religion in the coming years: • Materialism and Spiritual Decline. Many participants were worried about rampant materialism and feared that the spread of consumerist values would exacerbate already declining spiritual vitality throughout the world. This concern reflects a broader anxiety about the homogenizing and spiritually deadening effects of globalization. People around the world are besieged by commercial advertising, emanating mostly from rich Western countries and regional economic powers. Public life is all too often saturated with products to buy and sell. Under these circumstances people begin to think of themselves in terms of what they own and what they can afford to buy. In general, the global reach of consumer culture is everywhere promoting the idea that a life devoted to the accumulation of wealth is the best life for human beings. This poses a direct threat to religious and spiritual traditions that assert a loftier purpose for human life. • Profaning the Earth. Participants were also deeply concerned about protecting the Earth from ecological disaster and expressed a desire to mobilize religious and spiritual people on behalf of the environment. Religious and spiritual traditions that hold the Earth to be sacred cannot abide the destructive effects of human behavior on the rest of the natural world. In place