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| Developments in World
Religion
 Join us this month in an exploration of
growing movement around the concept of "World Religion" and what it
means in our lives today.
We begin with a listing
of seven of the major religions in the world today and their common
elements...
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These seven major world
religions all have common elements:
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Taoism founded by Lao Tsu
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Zoroasterism founded by Zoroaster
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Judaism founded by Moses
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Christianity founded by Jesus
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Islam founded by Mohamed
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Hinduism founded by Krishna
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They are the
following:
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A recognized founder
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A sacred text
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One Absolute Deity
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A sacred Trinity
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A sacred Septenary
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Two-fold method of teaching
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A goal
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A path to God
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Meditation
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Places of revelation (frequently a sacred
mountain)
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Commandments
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The Golden Rule
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An evil one
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A Coming One
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Reincarnation
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Law of Cause and Effect
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Place of worship or sacred space
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Special festivals
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Taken from a talk by Robert
Borel at a Conference called: A
World Religion for the 21st Century at Meditation Mount in Ojai, CA.
For a copy of
the conference report go to: http://www.meditation.com/April2000ConferenceReport.htm
“If the great organized religious groups and
churches
in every land and composing all faiths do not
offer
spiritual guidance and help, humanity will find
another
way. Nothing under heaven can arrest the progress
of
the human soul on its long pilgrimage from darkness
to
light, from the unreal to the real, from death to
immortality
and from ignorance to
wisdom.”
Problems of Humanity
by Alice A. Bailey - Lucis Publishing 1972
Material from a preview of the book on the CoNexus Press
website....... http://www.conexuspress.com/
| Excerpt from the Foreword by Professor
John Hick:
"The impetus of the World's Parliament of
Religions in Chicago in 1893 initiated a network of varied
inter-religious organizations through which people of different
faiths have been seeking to meet one another. Their aim has not been
the missionary task of conversion, but, in a spirit of mutual
respect, to engage in a many-sided and open-ended dialogue, whose
outcome lies in the unknown future. This network has grown,
especially in recent decades; new movements and organizations are
continually arising and new multi-faith events are occurring all
over the world." |
Excerpt from Chapter Two
of Faith and Interfaith in a
Global Age
by Marcus
Braybrooke
The
Interfaith Movement: Shaping the Present Reality
Hans Kung ends his
book Global Responsibility with these words: "No human life
together without a world ethic for the nations. No peace among
the nations without peace among the religions. No peace among
the religions without dialogue among the
religions."
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| One hundred
years ago, Charles Bonney, who presided at the World's Parliment of
Religions in Chicago, ended his closing address like this:
"Henceforth the religions of the world will make war, not on each
other, but on the giant evils that afflict
mankind." |
Sadly, religions have failed to
fulfill that hope. Yet this century, for all its catastrophic wars
and acts of genocide, has also seen the growth of a worldwide
interfaith movement...
The Study of World
Religions
The World's Parliament
of Religions gave an impetus to the emerging study of world religions.
While such study is an academic in its own right, it has greatly
increased awareness of teachings and practices of world religions at
every level.
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"Knowledge may not of itself create sympathy.. Opportunities
for personal meeting and friendship are important to dispel
prejudice and to encourage
understanding." |
Many interfaith groups attach
much importance to providing opportunities for young people to meet.
Often they discover they face similar problems and that in every
society many young people are questioning all religions. They may also
discover how much people of all faiths can do together to work for a
better world...
Organizations for Interfaith
Understanding
"Those who take part in interfaith bodies
seek for a bond between religious believers, despite the differences
of belief and practice between and within the great religions. These
interfaith organizations all reject "syncretism," which implies an
artificial mixing of religions, and "indifferentism," which suggests
that it does not matter what you believe. None of these
organizations are trying to create a new world religion, although
some other groups have that
hope."
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...While aware of the distinctiveness of the
world religions, members of interfaith organizations hope that some
basis of unity exists or may be discovered, although the nature of the
relationship of religions to each other is still much
debated...
| "In their early years the international
interfaith organizations tended to stress what united religious
believers. Now, with greater trust and knowledge, equal emphasis
is given to appreciating the distinctive contributions each
faith--and the various traditions within each faith--make to
human awareness of the
Divine." |
Increasingly, those who occupy
leadership roles in the various religious communities have begun to
take an active part in interfaith organizations, whereas at first the
initiative lay with inspired individuals. It has taken a long time to
erode the traditional suspicion and competition between religions--and
it still persists... Happily, now, those at the leadership level in
many religious traditions recognize the vital importance of
inter-religious cooperation.
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To read these excerpts in their
entirety please go to
The CoNexus Press
website at:
http://www.conexuspress.com/catalog/page16.html
Learn more about those actions
you can take in your daily life
that will work toward understanding, and
"become co-creators,
reshaping the connections that
link us all into a new community of peace"...
Joel Beversluis
ON TO PAGE 2 -
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