Since its Charter was signed in 2000, United Religions Initiative (URI) has grown to include more than 530 grassroots groups and organizations in 78 countries. Each Cooperation Circle has its own name, size, governance and mission, but they all share in their commitment to and practice of diversity, and to advancing the central purpose and principles of URI. As URI’s director of Organizational Development for over 15 years, I’ve had a good seat from which observe and participate in developing an institution that believes in the power of people to self-organize in order to fulfill their aspirations for peace, justice and healing.
Interfaith 101 for Us All
Lessons from 21 Years with the Parliament
When Rev. Dr. David Ramage recruited me in 1990 to serve on the Board of Trustees leading up to the 1993 Parliament of the World’s Religions, I was not engaged in or much aware of the inter-religious movement.
Finding Sanctuary in an Amsterdam Airport
I was coming back to the US after an intense month in India. Culture shock was inevitable bidding “adieu” to the color, noise, and chaos, as well as to the well of spirituality that defines India. The plane headed to the orchestrated calm of Holland, a streamlined, carefully planned environment, well-labeled and user-friendly.
Three tips for Grassroots Interfaith Organizers
A few days before the Kansas City “Gifts of Pluralism” interfaith conference opened 10 years ago, as one of the planners, I said I thought the effort would be a success if 50 people showed up. Some 250 folks participated and, at the end, applauded.
Ten Excellent Internet Sources for Interfaith News & Commentary
Information overload is a problem for interfaith-interested readers. Discovering useful, trustworthy news about religion is complicated. For more than a decade, major media’s interest in religion has been steadily growing. Newspapers may be in decline, but not religion reporting or multifaith stories. A big slice of religion stories today involve more than one tradition, and often Christianity, which once owned most of the American religion page, is not one of them. Most of us have a confusing view of a huge arena.
URI Leads Non-Violent Elections Campaign in Uganda
On January 4th in a hotel conference room in Kampala, Uganda, youth political leaders and leaders of Uganda’s security forces came face to face for a highly unusual meeting: a national consultation to prevent violence in the upcoming elections on February 18.
Recovering Interfaith History, Recovering Ourselves
The sad wisdom claiming “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to fulfill it” is much more interesting turned upside down: Those who remember the best of the past are freed to live into a better future. Choosing interfaith history as TIO’s second theme had to do with reclaiming remarkable stories, mostly unknown, of men and women building friendship among strangers centuries, even millennia ago.
Reclaiming Ashoka - An Iron Age Interfaith Exemplar
Approximately 2280 years ago, Emperor Ashoka, third regent of India’s Maurya Dynasty, ascended the throne. This Iron Age family ruled India’ first empire, stretching from eastern Iran to Burma, including most of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. Scholars dispute the details but agree that Ashoka ruled for about four decades in the middle of the third century BCE.
How the 1993 Parliament of the World’s Religions Changed My Life
The 1993 Parliament was a watershed event in the interfaith history, following in the footsteps of the first Parliament in 1893. Both events forged new ground and introduced new interfaith possibilities. In addition to making history, the 1993 Parliament transformed my life.
Knowing Huston Smith
When asked how he came to be known as “the dean of comparative religions,” Professor Huston Smith explained with this image: “I drive a hybrid car, but I, too, am a hybrid. I was born in China and my upbringing was there. My first language outside the family kitchen was Mandarin Chinese, spoken with a Suzhou dialect. I have both sides of our planet inside me.
Foundational Documents of the Interfaith Movement
It is no longer news that we live in a growing diversity on an ever-shrinking globe. Whether the subject is crime or economics, politics, entertainment, or almost everything else, strangers from different parts of the world are in dialogue, interacting personally and becoming ever better connected. Along with international communication, travel, and diversity in our neighborhoods comes the growing awareness that a thousand different flowers bloom in the same soil that grows ‘my’ faith, ‘our’ faith, or, we might say, ‘our faiths.’
Torah, Sequined Saris, Chapattis, and Peace
I have prayed in synagogues in Italy, Venezuela, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Curacao, Belgium, Kenya, Egypt, Australia, and Russia. But this was my first time chanting the Shema with a group of Jewish women all wearing saris.
A Dream That Is Contagious
Once after a lecture on the 1893 World Parliament of Religions, I was asked by a sleepy student, ‘Were you there yourself?’ No one, I assume, who was at the 1993 Parliament of World Religions (note the slight change of name) had been in Chicago, a hundred years before. Yet because of its continuing influence, it is worthwhile to glance back to the pioneers of the interfaith pilgrimage. I can remember my own excitement when, looking in the library for another book, I chanced on Barrows’ two volume record of that historic event.
Looking Back to Light Our Future
While a worldwide interfaith movement blossoms, looking back through history to discover glimpses of hospitable multi-religious interaction is instructive. Though few in number, ancient and medieval glimpses can be found of communities that embraced cooperative interreligious relations.
A TIO Interview with Marcus Braybrooke
TIO: When you first became involved in interfaith activities, few if any discerned how several decades of globalization would put religious diversity issues, for good and for ill, center stage in millions of communities. As a preeminent historian of this transformation and its best fruit, the interfaith movement, please share with us how you were drawn to this arena.
Crossing the Ocean & Changing the World
The story line is utterly improbable – an unknown, uninvited 30-year-old monk from a small monastic community in India provides the spark which lights the modern interfaith movement at a world fair in Chicago 118 years ago. All true, though, and it gets stranger.
The Legacy of Juliet Hollister
Sometimes the most amazing events are the most improbable. How, during a lunch of peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, did a spark ignite a movement that to this day grows and travels around the world? That is exactly what happened when Juliet Hollister, a housewife and mother of three, while having lunch with a friend, was commiserating over the dire state of the world. Her friend suddenly suggested that someone should bring the leaders of the world’s religions together to work towards peace. A flash of inspiration went off in Juliet’s heart and mind. From that moment on, magical things seemed to happen around Juliet and her “Wonderful Obsession,” a name coined by the Time-Life Magazine article about her, published in 1962.
Three Ways To Find Excellent Interfaith Resources
The proliferation of ‘interfaith resources’ is an embarrassment of riches. Googling the matter draws more than 5 million items in under half a second. And most at the top of the list are sectarian products – that is, interfaith resources created by this, that, or the other faith tradition – even when it is not obvious. So how do you find the best resources available?
Claremont Lincoln University Launched Watershed Moment in American Theological Education
On September 6, 2011, Claremont School of Theology, a distinguished United Methodist seminary with roots back to 1885, joined in partnership with The Academy for Jewish Religion, California, and the Islamic Center of Southern California/Bayan College. Together, they and a number of other affiliates have joined to create Claremont Lincoln University (CLU), an institution like none other before.