SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS
FAITH IN DIALOGUE
LEADERS FROM WORLD'S MYRIAD RELIGIONS GATHER AT STANFORD IN HOPES
OF TRANSCENDING BELIEFS, BORDERS WITH 'SPIRITUAL U.N.'
Monday, June 23, 1997
Section: Front
Edition: Morning Final
Page: 1A
BY RICHARD SCHEININ, Mercury News Religion and Ethics Writer
Illustration: Photos (4)
Caption: PHOTO: Swing
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PHOTO: Gandhi
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PHOTO: PATRICK TEHAN -- MERCURY NEWS
Volunteers Socrates Olympio, left, and Diana Daane hang a banner
bearing the symbol for Christianity at the site of United Religions'
weeklong conference, which opens this morning at Stanford University.
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PHOTO: The Venerable Jinwol, a Buddhist from Korea, fills out
a registration form for the gathering of the world's religions
at Stanford.
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A WORLD assembly where Muslims and Jews, Christians and Buddhists
-- representatives of any and all religions -- can come to the
table and settle their differences is the ambitious goal behind
a historic conference that starts this morning at Stanford.
The hope: To chip away at the barriers that have spawned centuries
of suspicion and conflict among faiths.
''We're talking about calling the entire world of religion
into a global dialogue,'' said William E. Swing, bishop of the
Episcopal Diocese of California. He envisions a ''spiritual United
Nations'' where hundreds of delegates will sit down and wrestle
with issues of war, poverty, environment and population.
In practical terms, the so-called ''United Religions'' organization
would have no official power. But its planners, 200 of whom gather
this morning at Stanford, hope the proposed world body will move
interfaith discussions away from the ivory tower
to the pew, from the conference room to the real world. If humanity
has a common spiritual heritage, then spiritual leaders must
leverage that knowledge to help end religious and ethnic conflict.
This isn't the first time religious leaders have sought to
reach out so ambitiously to one another. Modern efforts to create
a world religious parliament date back more than a century but
have always faltered. With the rise of global information and
financial networks, organizers feel their moment has arrived.
''We believe we can put out the fires,'' said Iftekhar A.
Hai, director of the San Jose-based United Muslims of America
and a United Religions director. ''I think you will find a lot
of people at this conference who really believe that the time
is now.''
Planning began in earnest two summers ago after an interfaith
celebration of the United Nations' 50th anniversary at Grace
Cathedral. Then in early 1996, Swing left the cathedral for a
three-month world tour, gathering support from the Dalai Lama,
Mother Teresa and other spiritual superstars. Now comes the grunt
work: The 200 delegates from all continents must delineate the
mission and agenda of the United Religions Initiative.
Expanding scope
Delegates include Arun Gandhi, a grandson of Mohandas Gandhi
and director of a non-violence institute in Memphis. There will
be rabbis, imams, Catholic priests, Buddhist monks and lay people
from most every tradition. More novel are the spiritually minded
business consultants, philanthropists and directors of international
environmental groups who will expand the conference beyond the
typical scope of interfaith gatherings.
They are coming because the United Religions Initiative is
col laborating with the management school at Cleveland's Case
Western Reserve University. A year ago, faculty members read
about the initiative and, excited by its potential, phoned Swing
and the Rev. Charles Gibbs, executive director of the initiative.
''I really wanted to get them involved with people who know how
to build organizations and how to make linkages across cultures,''
said David Cooperrider, chairman of the school's Center for Social
Innovations in Global Management, which studies and collaborates
with 75 international, non-profit groups. The religious initiative
''sparks people's imaginations more than any other story I've
been involved in,'' he said.
There are critics, of course. When Swing appeared on a San
Antonio radio show, the host said he was ''out to destroy the
core of all religions and blend everyone into one.'' A few conservative
Christians have likened the initiative to the anti-Christ. But
Swing was welcomed by 1,200 youths at a Rotary Club session in
Wisconsin. And he has made some progress with a skeptical religious
hierarchy.
Archbishop's support
''This time last year, the Archbishop of Canterbury would
hardly give me an appointment,'' Swing said. ''Now he's sending
me personal letters, saying, 'The more I travel the world, the
more I'm convinced you're on target.' ''
But it's still an up-and-down business, this building of a
world religious forum: ''One moment, you're talking to the Dalai
Lama; the next moment, you're licking stamps,'' Gibbs said.
A year ago, the United Religions Initiative consisted of Gibbs;
Swing; his wife, Mary; and a handful of volunteers. They had
begun investigating funding sources and dreamed about a 10-acre
site in the Presidio where a United Religions complex might some
day stand. But as Swing and Gibbs traveled to discuss the project
-- smaller regional conferences have been held in Buenos Aires,
New York and Oxford, England this year -- the numbers of people
actively involved rose to about 1,500.
The possibilities for religious cooperation via the Internet
and other electronic technologies became obvious. And plans to
build headquarters for another international body in North America
began to feel presumptuous: ''There are plenty of places we could
meet all over the world,'' Swing said last week. ''We don't need
to spend hundreds of millions of dollars for new buildings.''
Plans open-ended
San Francisco still might be a ''symbolic place to put a letterhead
and office,'' he said. But plans, which call for the organization's
charter to be written by 2000, are largely open-ended. It's the
purpose of the conference to chip away at some of the looming
issues: Who will be represented? In what numbers? Will Christians
have more representatives than, say, the Jains? Will there be
representation for small spiritual communities?
To some, the very process of formalizing interfaith
collaboration poses a danger: ''I'm for the conversation. I'm
not sure I'm for institutionalizing it or locating it somewhere,''
said Glenn R. Bucher, president of the Graduate Theological Union
in Berkeley and one of the 200 attendees. The possibility that
too many rules will kill the spirit of the dialogue is ''the
problem lurking in the hallway,'' he said. ''Most of these people,
I suspect, represent religious institutions and will want to
institutionalize it. And I think there needs to be more of a
movement than an organization.''
For a century, since the founding of the modern interfaith
movement, its leaders have said that all faiths proclaim the
oneness of God and unity of humankind.
That message was proclaimed by the Temple of Understanding,
a worldwide interfaith organization co-founded
in 1960 by Eleanor Roosevelt and a then-homemaker named Juliet
Hollister, now 80 and attending the Stanford conference. Hollister,
too, obtained the endorsements of everyone from the Dalai Lama
to Pope John XXIII. Last week, she remembered the headlines accompanying
the Temple's 1966 dedication in the Washington, D.C., suburbs:
'' 'Spiritual United Nations Dedicated in the Nation's Capital.'
Ambassadors were there and all sorts of famous people.''
Generation may be ready
The big buildings never went up, yet the Temple held conferences
for years. And with the increase in global communication, Hollister
said, a new generation may be ready for a higher level of religious
cooperation: ''My age group always says, 'We love you, dear Juliet,
but you're crazy,' '' she said. ''I find today that the kids
from 25 to 35, they get it instantly. . . . People think I'm
just peaches and cream, when I'm used to getting kicked in the
teeth.''
''Jesus said there are two great commandments, and one is
to worship God and the other is to honor your neighbor,'' said
Swing, who met a ''hard-nosed fundamentalist'' imam, or Islamic
spiritual leader, in India during his travels. The imam, to the
bishop's surprise, decided to send a representative because ''he
loves the vision. He said, 'Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could
all sit at the table and talk about God?' So you never know.
You just lay it out there.''