November 03, 2015
 

What If Every Day Was a Parliament of the World's Religions?

Posted: 10/22/2015 - 5:28 pm EDT
John Halstead
Managing Editor of HumanisticPaganism.com

I just returned from the Parliament of the World's Religions in Salt Lake City. For five days, October 15-19, approximately 9,500 people from over 50 different faiths from all over the world gathered to share their beliefs, learn about each other's faiths, and to find common ground to work toward peace and ecological harmony. I am a former Mormon turned Pagan and Unitarian, and my LDS wife and I are raising our two children in a multi-faith household, so my interest in interfaith work is a practical one.

The Parliament was an amazing experience. Among the big name speakers were Jane Goodall, Karen Armstrong, Eboo Patel, and many others. (The Dalai Lama had to cancel due to an illness.) But even more amazing were the attendees. Gathered in one place were Catholics and Protestants, Buddhists and Jains, Muslims and Sikhs, Hindus and Pagans, members of various indigenous faiths and others. The sentiment that I heard expressed repeatedly over the long weekend was: "What if the world were like this? What if the Parliament of the World's Religions represented reality?" It is a powerful thought. What would that world look like? As I thought about it, there were three ways in which the Parliament, as I experienced it, was different.

You might think that all the talk at the Parliament was about what we have in common. There was plenty of talk about oneness and harmony, but there was an equal amount talk about our diversity, about the uniqueness of each faith and each adherent. For five days members of the most diverse religions not only co-existed, but created community together. How was this possible? There was no proselytizing.

Certain religions were probably underrepresented, including those which believe it to be their religious duty to preach their particular good news in every situation, and those who hold exclusivist attitudes toward questions of religions truth. But some the more curious members of even those faith communities were present. And perhaps they will carry this curiosity back home with them to their own communities as unofficial ambassadors of religious harmony.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-halstead/parliament-world-religions_b_8353546.html