Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 29, 1993 TAG: 9308290028
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From The Associated Press and Chicago Tribune
DATELINE: CHICAGO LENGTH: Medium
The 1993 Parliament of the World's Religions opened Saturday with a colorful procession of international religious leaders, a liturgical version of the Olympics' parade of athletes.
But there was a major difference: Unlike the athletes who have had the role of peacemaker thrust on them, participants in the parliament believe world peace is their responsibility.
"If warfare and strife be for the sake of religion, it is evident that it violates the spirit and basis of all religion," Wilma Ellis of the Spiritual Assembly of Baha'i said in her invocation. "The fundamental truth of the manifestations of God is peace. This underlies all religions."
More than 6,000 representatives of faith traditions - from Baha'i, Buddhist, Christian, Confucian, Hindu and Jain to Jewish, Muslim, Native American and Neo-Pagan, along with Shintos, Sikhs, Taoists and Theosophists, Rastafarians, Unitarians and Zoroastrians - have registered for the nine-day conference.
The parliament is the only one of its kind other than an 1893 gathering in Chicago that was considered the birthplace of the interfaith movement.
Diana Eck, professor of comparative religions and director of a religious pluralism project at Harvard University, said, "The central issue of both parliaments is the same - namely, how do various religious traditions understand one another other? But unlike 1893, that is no longer an exotic issue of people who are interested in international geopolitical affairs. It is now a practical main-street issue for much of America, particularly urban America."
The 1893 parliament ended with the hopeful plea for all religions to work together for world peace. But two world wars, the Holocaust, and the current tensions in the Balkans, the Middle East, Northern Ireland and elsewhere where the name of religion is evoked in conflict have brought a renewed sense of purpose.
More than two-thirds of the world's conflicts tend to have religion at their core, says the Rev. David Ramage, president of McCormick Theological Seminary and parliament chairman.
"The very existence of this parliament . . . sends a countervailing message into the places that are divided by ethnic cleansing," he said.
Parliament members hope by the end of the conference to have reached agreement on a universal declaration of human values, and perhaps even to lay the groundwork for an organization akin to a United Nations of Religions.
For members of minority religions in America such as Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism, there is the added hope that the visibility of the conference will help propel them into the mainstream of American religious culture.
Prominent representatives of the world's faiths expected at the parliament include the Dalai Lama, exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader; Inamullah Khan, secretary general of the World Muslim Congress; and H.H. Swami Chidananda Saraswati, the Hindu leader of the Divine Life Society of Rishikesh.
In a prayer before the assembly, Bernardin, who heads the Archdiocese of Chicago, cautioned the delegates not to lose hope in their goal of building harmony among the people of the world.
During the processional, Jewish and American Islamic leaders marched side-by-side down three aisles of the opening session in a packed ballroom at the Palmer House Hotel. Adding to the color of the processional were Wiccans, or witches, with ornate headgear.
by CNB