Parliament of the World's Religions in South Africa Presses for Interfaith Cooperation
Episcopal News Service. January 13, 2000 [2000-009]
(ENS) As meetings go, it is difficult to imagine a more complex, fascinating, frustrating one than the Parliament of World's Religions, which drew about 7,000 participants to Cape Town, South Africa, the first week in December.
A complex marketplace for nearly every major religion on earth, including a few that might be new to most people, the underlying themes were peace and interfaith cooperation, especially in the face of increasing sectarian violence in some parts of the world.
The setting was crucial to the meeting, giving participants a chance to take a closer look at the new South Africa, emerging from the dark era of apartheid but still struggling against economic disparities and persistent violence. The day before the parliament officially opened, a bomb in a popular beach town near Cape Town injured 48 people. It was the 80th pipe bomb in the last year and perpetuates the mystery of violence since no one claims credit. A local banker said that, if the violence continues, "we are in deep trouble" because foreign investments and tourists will disappear. "Cape Town is the keyhole through which the outside world views South Africa," he said.
An opening day rally near the Parliament Buildings in downtown Cape Town addressed another major issue for Africans -- the pandemic of AIDS. It is the number one killer in sub-Saharan Africa, killing 10 times more people than war. In 1998 about 200,000 people died in wars, compared with about 2.2 million from AIDS. It was difficult not to notice the six-story condom on a downtown office building, urging the practice of safe sex.
Cleve Jones, founder of the Names Project that put together the massive AIDS quilt, told the crowd gathered around a display of panels, "Don't give up. You must believe, in the way you did during the dark days of apartheid, that one day there will be a cure or vaccine. You must fight to stay alive until that day," he said. "We wish to say to President Mbeki that the decision not to provide treatment to pregnant women with HIV is scientifically misinformed, economically unsound and morally bankrupt."
Participants then marched behind a peace flame through the busy streets, past St. George's Anglican Cathedral, which Desmond Tutu made a center of the fight against apartheid, to District Six. It was once a mixed racial community of 60,000 forced by apartheid legislation in 1966 to move out of the city, leaving behind two churches standing as lonely sentinels on a deserted plain. The peace torch was used to light an Olympic-style basin of flame, kept alive during the meeting.
In the opening plenary at Good Hope Centre, crawling with security, participants were welcomed by Mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo of Cape Town, in the absence of President Thabo Mbeki. She said that Cape Town is a very special city with two faces.
In profound and moving comments that seemed to describe the climate in much of the world beyond the continent of Africa, she said, "One is the physically beautiful city we see around us, the other is a more somber one associated with oppression, imposed values, cultural domination, slavery, repressive law-making and the imprisonment for their beliefs of many of our country's leaders, including Nelson Mandela," she said.
"One is a place of tree-lined streets, affluent families and spacious homes. The other is a place where poverty, joblessness, overcrowding, inadequate housing, ill health, hunger and fear is a reality....Today we have a city divided against itself...Let this be the beginning of a real and lasting unity, in spite of all we think divides us. The example of acceptance in diversity, of sharing life experiences and a common yearning for spiritual meaning, is something all Capetonians should take to heart."
The Rev. Dirk Ficca, an American who is executive director of the Chicago-based Council for the Parliament of the World's Religions, said that the meeting came at "a time of transformation for the African continent....We chose South Africa because of its rich religious diversity and because of the role religion has played in its life," he said. "The parliament is about religious harmony -- not unity," he added. "Participants come fully as who they are. We are seeking convergence of purpose, not consensus. Our religious differences are not a problem to be solved but one to be celebrated...It is time to bring the voice of spirituality back to the table."
Addressing an issue that would haunt attitudes about the meeting, Ficca said that the planning committee decided not to decide what is or is not a religion. He then led an exercise to demonstrate who was present. Very few responded from South America or even Europe, but there was heavy representation from North America and South Africa. About 90 countries were represented. The majority identified themselves as Christians, with a sprinkling of Buddhists and Hindus and only a few Bahai, Zoroastrians and Sikhs.
The first parliament was held in 1893 in Chicago, in conjunction with the World's Columbian Exposition, when interfaith dialogue was a radical idea. But the world has changed, its religions are no longer isolated from each other, so a second parliament was convened a century later, also in Chicago. Planners made it clear at Cape Town that they hope to convene a parliament every five years or so.
"For some the lure of the Parliament was the opportunity it offered to listen and to share, to engage in serious dialogue with other faiths, other cultures, and other paths," said Jim Kenney, who helped plan both the 1993 and 1999 meetings. He said that the Chicago 1993 parliament, despite some sharp disagreements and heated exchanges, resulted in a "prevailing spirit of hope and shared commitment. Gradually a broad consensus emerged that a new international interfaith agenda, which would draw on the experience and expertise of existing institutions devoted to interreligious understanding, was an urgent necessity."
The last parliament produced a Call, originally drafted by Roman Catholic theologian Hans Kung, launching a "process of dissemination, consultation and emendation affirming the essential principles: No new global order without a new global ethic; every human being must be treated humanely; commitment to a culture of non-violence and respect for life, a culture of tolerance and a life of truthfulness, a culture of equal rights and partnership between men and women, and a transformation of consciousness as the priority for the planetary community," according to Kenney.
Representing what he called "a moral convergence," the global ethic "embodies the implicit promise that the world's religions can begin to speak with a single voice on issues of concern to us all and that they can begin to draft a common language -- not a common theology -- but a coherent and shareable way of addressing universal challenge. Religion is not always at its best but perhaps the parliament represents a new stirring, a new reality," he said.
The plenary hall took on a carnival atmosphere with dozens of booths hawking different religious messages. Earnest young people passed out invitations to listen to their version of the truth, conveyed by a dazzling array of teachers, swamis, gurus, and priests. Where else could one see a Muslim mullah talking with a Hindu priest and a black Southern Baptist, joined by a Tibetan Buddhist nun, with shaved head, who is chattering away on her cell phone. A coven of witches from Chicago attracted quite a bit of attention, as did someone who claimed to be the 196th Pharaoh. Representatives of indigenous religions, especially from Africa and North America, were highly visible.
Yet that diversity provoked some controversy. When the parliament decided to use the broadest definition of religion, it curbed significant involvement of Roman Catholics, Orthodox and many mainline denominations. South Africa's Chief Rabbi Cyril Harris said that the presence of pagans detracted from the real purpose of the parliament. "Religion should be democratic but the wider the definition the more one loses depth -- the whole thing becomes an exercise in artificiality," he said. "The fear is that one gets a bunch of weirdoes using the parliament to get publicity. I would prefer it to be more mainstream."
The national chairman of the Council of African Traditional Religions, Nokuzola Mndende, suggested that the chief rabbi should learn to be more tolerant, like the Dalai Lama. "If South Africans are true to their liberation they must learn to be tolerant." Elder Rowan Fairgrove, a Wiccan, said that neo-paganism was the fastest growing religion in the world and that it represented a genuine attempt to return to ancient spiritual practices, many of them downtrodden by mainstream religions like Christianity.
Anglican Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane, however, agreed with the rabbi. After the parliament he met with the Dalai Lama and said in a press interview that he was disappointed by the "unorthodox" religious groups who attended, especially the witches and neo-pagans. "It should not be open to everybody who says they are a religion."
The star power of Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa, was palpable as he was welcomed to a special plenary. "This coming together in the southern-most city on the African continent symbolizes mutual inter-dependence and common humanity," he told a crowd of over 5,000. He called the parliament "an affirmation of the nobility of the human spirit. "He said that the 20th century had seen more than its share of violence, suffering and pain but he argued against the cynicism of the age, contending that the parliament itself "counters that despairing cynicism."
Accepting two awards for his efforts to fight violence, Mandela quickly paid tribute to "the ordinary, unsung men and women who in this century refused to bow to baser instincts of our nature." They were the ones who "saved our world from even more genocide," putting an end to tyrants and dictators, but also helping us finally realize that "poverty is the single most dangerous threat to society today."
Echoing a theme that he had used at the 1998 Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Zimbabwe, Mandela said, "My generation is the product of religious education," when only the religious groups would educate blacks. "Without these religious institutions I would never have been here today." He added, "To really appreciate religion you had to be 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 would return."
Brushing aside claims that the anti-apartheid movement was dominated by radical elements, he said, "Religion was one of the motivating forces of everything we did." And he argued that "religion will have a crucial role inspiring humanity to meet the enormous challenges we face."
He ended by suggesting that the South African experience in "settling a deep and long-standing conflict" might be an example for others because it proves that "common ground is greater than what divides people."
Many visited nearby Robben Island to dedicate a peace pole and look at the small jail cell where Mandela spent most of his 27 years in confinement until his release in 1990.
While participants waded through a list of over 800 workshops, symposia, seminars, lectures, performances, exhibits and concerts, an "inner core" group of about 400 church leaders met in a closed assembly, hammering out a new draft of a statement that emerged from the 1993 meeting. Their task included efforts to design ways to impact the eight "guiding institutions" of society, including: governments; agriculture, labor, industry and commerce; education; arts and communications media; science and medicine; intergovernmental institutions; and voluntary associations. And they designed a list of hundreds of projects, which they called gifts, that would draw together people of faith around the world.
According to the planners, participants in the assembly were chosen for their spiritual leadership within different religious traditions. "The key criteria are whether a person is known and respected in a tradition -- and engaged in real work to address issues," according to Jim Kenney.
"The assembly has been very problematic because it has been poorly focused," argued the Rev. Eric Beresford of the Anglican Church of Canada. He said that the assembly attempted to advance the work of the Global Ethic that emerged from the 1993 parliament. He thinks that ethic needs more work, and that didn't happen at the assembly. "Specifically for me, it's the perspective from which we look at moral issues -- the choice to look from the bottom up rather than the top down." The perspective is missing from the Call to Guiding Institutions, he said. "We have done a half-baked job of everything," including the list of projects or gifts, most of which are not even new. Too many players are not at the table, which diminishes the impact of the Call.
Bishop Alan Chester of England, representing the archbishop of Canterbury, felt that the best part of the parliament was listening to one another's stories, with respect but without compromise of beliefs. He said it was a "tense time" in relations among religions but held out the hope that it would be possible to take practical steps of cooperation and to "speak out together on appropriate issues."
He deplored the absence of Roman Catholics and Orthodox and questioned the definitions of religion. He said that the parliament, and the assembly in which he participated, was "a noble concept, still in its infancy. But if major religions are to take it seriously, we must ask what is a world religion."
Bishop William Swing of California, a member of the assembly, said that it was difficult to read the map of interfaith dialogue and action "because it hasn't been written yet and everyone is operating with different definitions." He said that the parliament is "inventing itself as it goes along and therefore seems a bit chaotic, with little order and no map." Yet he is convinced that interfaith cooperation is becoming a necessity, not a luxury. The spiritual benefit is that it drives us deeper into our own traditions. While the dialogue is still in its early stages, he believes, it is being pushed by the developing reality that we are living closer together. "The Episcopal Church has a chance to get out in front of this issue, like it did with the AIDS crisis," he said.
Ms. Midge Roof, associate director of the ecumenical office, carries the interfaith dialogue portfolio and attended the parliament as the church's representative. She agreed with Swing. "The impetus is coming from the pews, not from the top down. As we get to know our neighbors better, we are realizing that we are not strictly a Christian nation any more." The Episcopal Church is in the early stages of determining where to invest its energy in interfaith dialogue, she said.
Parliament leaders used the closing plenary for some assessments. A South African member of the planning committee called it "a banquet for the soul," while others said that the confusing program was more of an "indigestible smorgasbord." Amy Marks, co-chair of the parliament, said that it was "a dream realized," building what she called "bridges of understanding. Someone else called it "a magnificent failure."
Kenney introduced the Dalai Lama, exiled leader of Tibetan Buddhists, who had endorsed the parliament based on his conviction that it was "absolutely vital" that religious leaders meet and talk. At an earlier press conference he was asked about the apparent "snub" by President Mbeki, who declined to meet privately with him in apparent deference to pressure from the Chinese. The Dalai Lama said that it was "understandable" since governments must act in national interest.
An editorial in the Cape Argus newspaper strongly criticized Mbeki for "excuses not to meet one of the strongest symbols of peace, freedom and spirituality in modern history," at the same time that the government was providing "sanctuary to one of Africa's most evil men, former Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam," who was in South Africa for medical treatment.
Tibetans are not calling for independence, the Dalai Lama pointed out. "We have a right to self-determination but we are not asking for independence, irrespective of the past. We want the Chinese to give us genuine autonomy. Under the present situation, Tibetan culture is facing extinction.... Some form of cultural genocide is taking place. If this culture is destroyed," he said, "in the future I'm sure there will be many Chinese who will have immense regret." He recognizes China's need for stability and unity but said that its government has "overreacted because deep inside the Chinese leadership is a sense of insecurity." Yet he is convinced that Tibet will ultimately have self-rule because "China is in the process of changing and there is no possibility of turning back."
In his address to the plenary, he said that change comes only through action, not meditation or prayer, and he urged participants to go into areas of conflict and contribute in solving them. Instead of trying to propagate one's religion, it was more important to seek the common good. "It is important to care and to help others, but to seek inner peace and strength so that one is better equipped to help others," he said. "All human beings have a responsibility to look after themselves and the planet." He urged everyone to be open, unbiased and skeptical in the search for truth.
While participants attempted to sort through their experience and decide what to tell the folks back home, several concrete steps might make that easier.
It was announced that a Millennium World Peace Summit would bring together a thousand religious leaders at the United Nations this August, just before the Heads of State Summit. They will be welcomed by UN General Secretary Kofi Annan. The four-day event, which will include an open forum and dialogue among the participants, will be televised.
The hope is that the religious leaders will "support the peace process, in concert with the political bodies there," according to Bawa Jain, executive coordinator. He said that the summit is based on the conviction that the "religious and spiritual communities can play a substantial role in easing tensions in the world zones of conflict. Ultimately, this first-ever council of senior religious and spiritual advisors will be established as a resource to the UN General Secretary," he said.
Many participants left reinforced and encouraged that a common vision of a just and peaceful society was emerging. "I came to realize more and more," said Kung, "that religion is a political issue -- not just an academic affair. It has many political ramifications. There will be no peace among nations without peace among the religions and no peace among the religions without dialogue."
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