World Parliament: The Elusive Quest for Religious Harmony

The centennial gathering of world religions is disrupted by wrangling over divergent beliefs, rights, and practices.

The 6,000 people gathered in Chicago for the Parliament of the World’s Religions discovered the search for religious harmony requires that everyone must read from the same music, which few participants at the event seemed willing to do.

The parliament’s sponsors had hoped to lead the participants to endorse a statement on global ethics. Instead, the parliament disintegrated at times into shouting, argument, and alienation among the 125 religious groups attending the nine-day convocation that ended September 5.

Evangelicals were divided over whether to embrace such interfaith gatherings or to condemn interreligious dialogue outside of missions work. Thus a conference that included Roman Catholics, native Americans, self-described neopagans, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists had few conservative Protestants in place.

The laudable objective of the parliament was to discover ways in which the world’s religious communities could reduce religious violence, improve the quality of life, and protect the environment.

The gathering came 100 years after the first parliament, which featured representatives of 41 denominations and religious traditions gathering at Chicago’s World’s Fair in 1893. That meeting introduced Victorian-era America to Eastern religions and helped establish Roman Catholicism and Judaism as important American religious movements.

The 1993 Parliament of the World’s Religions had a different agenda, one that upset some evangelicals. Hoping to bridge gaps between faiths, the parliament’s governing council released a nine-page manifesto, “A Global Ethic,” calling for a consensus on essential ethical principles. The difficulty of formulating a statement acceptable to members of the Covenant of the Goddess as well as lifelong Baptists resulted in a document that calls for more peace and less intolerance. The document contains vague terms that avoid such examples as abortion and euthanasia, which might undercut support.

Complaint department

The search for common ground was rocky, with disruptions, withdrawals from sponsorship, and complaints of being ignored marring the parliament.

A small group of Hindus tried to shout down two speakers during a plenary session on “Voices of the Dispossessed,” charging that the pair were using their platform to make political statements about Indian government oppression of minority religions. With the aid of security guards, event officials managed to remove those causing the disturbance, while many of the remaining audience members sang “We Shall Overcome.”

In addition, two groups pulled out of the parliament before it was over. The Greek Orthodox Diocese of Chicago withdrew from the parliament on August 30 due to the participation of “certain quasi-religious groups with which Orthodox Christians share no common ground.” The diocese said, “It would be inconceivable for Orthodox Christianity to establish a perceived relationship with groups which possess no belief in God or a supreme being.”

The presence of Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam was enough to cause the pullout of four Jewish groups (see “Farrakhan Speaks, Jews Leave”). And Samu Sunim of the Buddhist Society of Compassionate Wisdom, Chicago, complained that other religious leaders were incorrectly classifying Buddha as God. “We find this lack of knowledge and insensitivity all the more surprising because we—the religious leaders of the world—are invited to this parliament in order to promote mutual understanding.”

However intense the moments of disunity, the optimism of many remained unaffected. As one attendee described the diverse gathering, “This is America today.”

In addition to plenary sessions, there were 700 seminars and lectures, touching on topics as unrelated as UFO abduction and yoga. Reactions to the seminars varied widely. Stephanie Schmidts, a Roman Catholic nun working in a Chicago interracial parish, attended lectures because of an interest in Eastern spirituality. Schmidts said, “All of [the religious traditions] have a great desire to help the dispossessed, the poor, to settle disputes peacefully.”

Yet Erwin W. Lutzer, senior pastor at Chicago’s Moody Church, was troubled by what he found. “I think the people in our churches would have been jolted into reality if they had seen the almost 100 display booths with books, videos, and information from every occult group imaginable. The reality of Satan was openly acknowledged by many” Lutzer said. “What I saw and heard was frightening. These people are dead serious about solving the problems of the world throught religious unity, and woe to those who stand in their way”.

Farrakhsn Speaks, Jews Leave

Louis Farrakhan, the controversial and outspoken leader of the Nation of Islam, used his appearance at the Parliament of the World’s Religions to attempt to build bridges with Christians, but he may have burned any remaining bridges to the Jewish community.

Four Jewish organizations withdrew from sponsorship of the parliament several days after it convened when Farrakhan was allowed to participate in the event.

The national office of the Anti-Defamation League notified the parliament’s chairman, David Ramage, Jr., that it could not participate because Farrakhan “continues to espouse and promote classic anti-Semitic notions of Jewish domination and control.”

At the parliament, Farrakhan protested that some Jewish groups are too powerful. He claimed he had been prevented from taking part in the recent thirtieth anniversary commemoration of the civil rights March on Washington by threats from Jewish groups to withdraw their support from the event. He said the incident was evidence of Jewish control over some black civil-rights leaders. “The Jewish community is not a poor and ragged community,” Farrakhan said. “It is an educated community … and it is a self-interested community.”

Farrakhan was hopeful that dialogue would resolve religious disputes, saying, “The intelligent thing to do is sit and talk about differences.”

Speaking about Christianity, he said, “The beauty of growing up in America … is that in our maturity we look back at the teachings of Christ, and we can separate the teachings from the hypocritical practices of some who call themselves Christian.”

Farrakhan has met with many Christian leaders during the past year. “I am dialoguing practically daily and weekly with Christian leaders and scholars.… I preach in as many black churches today as I do in mosques.”

Despite the controversy, Farrakhan said he hoped his extensive dialogue with Christians “would extend to Jews, Hindus, Shintos,” and others.

Religious reality check

The large gathering of minority religious groups, some experts said, does not mean they are becoming a dominant influence on American society. David Barrett, research consultant with the Southern Baptist Foreign Missions Board, said the growth of Eastern religions in the United States is limited largely to immigrants. “Due to migration, any majority religion in any country of the world is gradually declining as a percentage [of the total population]. That doesn’t mean anything in terms of the decline of the largest body. It simply means that if a million Muslims move to England, then the percentage of Christians in England will go down.”

Despite their small numbers, minority religions in the United States were very visible at the parliament. Some representatives used the gathering as a public forum to air grievances against Christianity. To the chagrin of some evangelicals, certain Christian speakers seemed eager to join the gripe session.

Gerald Barney, executive director of the Arlington, Virginia-based Millennium Institute, discussed the problems facing earth and its peoples and drew strong applause when he told the audience, “I do not believe my faith—Christianity—is a sustainable faith as it is practiced now.”

Barney, who told the audience his faith inspires him, said it nonetheless must change, and he received further applause when he suggested some areas of concern for those interested in bringing his faith up to date: ending oppression of women, Christians killing people of other faiths, and abusing the environment in the mistaken understanding that “our real homes are in heaven.”

Peter Jones, a theologian from Westminster Seminary in Escondido, California, noted the recurrent complaints about abuses perpetrated by Christians during the last 2,000 years. “The only thing that’s not mentioned about Christianity so far is Jesus Christ,” Jones told CHRISTIANITY TODAY. “I hear [Barney] calling for the death and resurrection of Christianity.” Jones was surprised the parliament focused not on theology but largely on the environment. “That’s the new source of revelation—science and the earth.”

Affirming each other

Leon D. Finney, pastor of Christ Apostolic Church in Chicago and trustee of the parliament, downplayed Christian unease about dialogue with other faiths. “I believe the living Christ is so powerful that no other force can shake my faith,” Finney told CT. “Our faith tradition calls upon us to stand in the presence of the world without fear.”

Though there was no enforcement of an agreement against proselytizing at the parliament, some Christians were uncomfortable with a conference in which many religious leaders came together to find common ground and to affirm each other. “Something like that in some respects almost flies in the face of biblical Christianity, which is a missionary, evangelistic religion,” said Ruth Tucker of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. “Typically, at a [gathering] like this, they’re not really welcoming people who would affirm a strong missionary zeal.”

Alan Neely, professor of ecumenics and mission at Princeton Theological Seminary, found it “tragic” that only a handful of evangelicals attended the parliament. “It is one of the tragedies of evangelical isolation from the life of the world. I think it’s a case of insecurity.”

James S. Nelson, professor of biblical and theological studies at North Park College in Chicago, said he was asked to be a parliament trustee because he is an evangelical Christian. “At some point when there is dialogue, then each group and tradition should be able to stand up for its faith and also to listen and to learn with real dialogue.

“It’s an opportunity for evangelical Christians to work side by side with other religions,” Nelson said. Participants can use interfaith meetings such as the parliament to “find out how much they could agree at least on social-action ideas … with people from Islam or Bahai or Buddhism or Hinduism.”

Nelson praised Canadian theologian Clark Pinnock for his promotion of interfaith education. Pinnock, professor of theology at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario, told CT that evangelicals would be correct to oppose meetings such as the parliament if the gatherings promoted syncretism. However, if it afforded Christians the opportunity to “actually present their view of the world and salvation in the presence of others in the hope of perhaps communicating to them and learning from them,” said Pinnock, “then there could be no objection to that, since our love for people requires us to do that.”

Little evangelical presence

In 1893, John Henry Barrows, chairman of the first World Parliament of Religions, wrote, “No harm can come to Christianity by recognizing, as Paul did on Mars’ Hill, that there is more than one religion in the world. Paul spoke courteously even to polytheists, but polytheists had no standing in the [1893] Parliament except in a rhetorical blessing at the end of one address.”

The 1893 parliament, which was opposed by evangelist Dwight L. Moody and his followers, was largely a Protestant operation. This year’s gathering was dominated less by any one group than by a search for harmony. The search for truth took a back seat to a quest for interreligious peace.

Lutzer said he understands why evangelicals did not want to be officially identified with the parliament. “But I was surprised that more did not attend simply as observers. The lack of an evangelical presence meant that all of these occult notions went largely unchallenged,” Lutzer said. “The participants surely must have gotten the impression that historic Christianity is a dead issue in America today.”

Roman Catholics constituted the most visible Christian presence. Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, archbishop of the diocese of Chicago, participated in the parliament’s opening ceremony and later gave a presentation on euthanasia. Bernardin and others are working to provide for a continuation of interfaith dialogue after the parliament, hoping to see a permanent interfaith organization develop in Chicago.

Some evangelicals also gained momentum from the Chicago meeting. “We’re in trouble,” Lutzer said. “And unless we stop being ashamed of the gospel, the darkness will only come more quickly.”

Barrett said, “Every year in this country, one-and-a-half million Protestants abandon the faith.” Most become nonreligious, a few become atheists, but only a small number join Eastern religions or native cults. “At the same time, you get large numbers of people becoming Christians.

“In the old days, Christians in America could live out their lives without coming into contact with non-Christians at all,” said Barrett. “Now everybody is being forced to meet everybody else. This is an enormous opportunity from the Christian point of view.”

By John Zipperer in Chicago.

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