http://www.crosscurrents.org/

CoNexus Press and Braybrooke Press ISBN:  0-9637897-2-4       www.conexuspress.com/ Faith and Interfaith in a Global Age The Author MARCUS BRAYBROOKE is an Anglican (Christian) parish priest, a lecturer—world-wide—and author or editor of many books on interfaith relations, including PILGRIMAGE OF HOPE: One Hundred Years of Interfaith Dialogue. He is joint President of the World Congress of Faiths, and a Trustee of the International Interfaith Centre, the Peace Council, and the Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions. He has served as editor of the journal "World Faiths Encounter," and is a participant in many other interfaith organizations, including Temple of Understanding Center for World Thanksgiving, and the United Religions Initiative.

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United Religions Initiative and CoNexus Press ISBN:  0-9637897-5-9    www.conexuspress.com/

The Coming United Religions by WILLIAM E. SWING, Bishop of California For more than 100 years, visionaries have been dreaming of a day when the world's religions could work together for peace.  "That day is coming — soon!" writes Bishop William E. Swing.  He and others in the United Religions Initiative (URI) have already held consultations with numerous religious and spiritual leaders during global summits, regional conferences, and interviews.  The 1998 Summit endorsed an innovative draft of the United Religions Charter, and the group is planning to inaugurate the UR in the year 2000.  Meanwhile, URI is reaching across the planet to gather insights and support from people, young and old, of every faith.

Continuum Publishing Co. ISBN: 0-8264-0899-0

The Community of Religions: Voices and Images of the Parliament of the World's Religions Edited by WAYNE TEASDALE and GEORGE CAIRNS Gathering on the centenary and in Chicago where the first Parliament took place, the 1993 Parliament of the World’s Religions was the largest inter-religious gathering ever held. Members of minority, ethnic, and tribal religions took the podium as equals alongside representatives and members from the world’s largest religious traditions. www.conexuspress.com/

Published by KQED Books ISBN 0-912333-35-9

A Parliament of Souls: In Search of Global Spirituality Edited by Michael Tobias, Jane Morrison, and Bettina Gray Explore the most insistent questions facing our diverse and shrinking world in these candid, insightful interviews with 28 of the world's leading spiritual thinkers: www.conexuspress.com/

Things you can do to make a difference...

The following insights were written by Joel Beversluis of the CoNexus Press at http://www.conexuspress.com/

"My dear brothers and sisters: we are already one, but we imagine that we are not. What we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to become is what we already are." Thomas Merton

TRUTH AND REVERENCE WILL CARRY US THROUGH

When we have seen the connections and want to begin to move through the nexus into a culture of peace in the new millennium, we can do as Gandhi proposed: Invite the truth-force to work in us. It's a process of action and reflection, a series of steps that moves us toward personal and collective truths--if we don't resist or short-change it. As we embark on this process of transformation, we must test not only our religious and spiritual communities for re-packaged versions of the status quo but also "global consciousness" and its step-sister the "new world order," to distinguish the highest spiritual values from fashion, wishful-thinking, and outright deception. The following insights may be used as a perceptual matrix for that inquiry:

• All the world's affairs are rooted in ecology. Governance, commerce, food, population, work and leisure are all human components of the interconnected systems of Earth.
  

• All of our choices are grounded in a spirituality. All of our values and actions reflect the meanings and relationships that we choose for our lives: our spirituality is manifest in our relationships with other life and the Earth, with the cosmos, with the creating One.
  

• Most of our actions are inevitably making political choices within a global context: we're always voting with our time or energy or money, even when we're apathetic or simply following cultural patterns.
  

• There is no separate or neutral ground for religions and spiritual traditions; they will either help or they will hinder the processes of transformation.
  

• Transformations in our thinking must become public policy. Our efforts are needed to change the inertia of the institutions and powers that influence our realities.
  

• Finally, reverence for the beauty, interconnectedness and mysteries of Earth-life provide the key perception and a strong foundation for new ways of living.
  

These qualities point us toward what we've been seeking all along--the true meaning of peace. St. Francis sang, "Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace." With a similar intention, we become co-creators, reshaping the connections that link us all into a new community of peace. As Thomas Merton said at the First Spiritual Summit in Calcutta, "My dear brothers and sisters: we are already one, but we imagine that we are not. What we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to become is what we already are."

On that sacred journey, each of us is the conexus.

Copyright 1999 Joel Beversluis 
CoNexus Press

http://www.conexuspress.com/index.html

From the INTERFAITH VOICES FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE website at http://interfaithvoices.org/ifv.cfm THE "GOLDEN RULE" IS UNIVERSAL People of all faiths lament that injustice, conflict and violence "for God's sake" has been, and continues to be practiced. But fearing internal conflict, faith groups often remain quiet or even seem to suppress dissent. We assert that we can not remain quiet or inactive when we discern injustice and violence. We have joined together with others moved to action by God's call. Baha'i "Desire not for anyone the things that ye would not desire for yourselves." -- Baha Ullah LXVI Buddhism "Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful." -- Udana-Varga, 5:18 Christianity "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." -- Matt 7:12 Confucianism "Do not unto others what you would not have them do unto you." --Analects 15:23 Hinduism "Never do to others what would pain thyself." --Panchatantra III.104 Islam "Do unto all men as you would they should do unto you, and reject for others what you would reject for yourself." -- Mishkat-el-Masabih Jainism "In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard all creatures as we regard our own self." -- Lord Mahavira, 6th Century B.C.E. Judaism "What is hateful to you, do not to your fellowmen. That is the entire law..." -- Talmud, Shabbat 314 Native American "Respect for all life is the foundation." --The Great Law of Peace Sikhism "Treat others as thou wouldst be treated thyself." -- Adi Granth Taoism "Regard your neighbor's gain as your own gain and your neighbor's loss as your own loss. -- T'ai Shang Kan Ying P'ien. Zoroastrianism "That nature alone is good which refrains from doing unto another whatsoever is not good for itself." -- Dadistan-i-Dinik, 94:5 We do not need to be of one belief, nor of one religion. We do need to act on the Common Behavioral Ethic we all proclaim. Interfaith Voices http://interfaithvoices.org/ifv.cfm See Page 3 for more information on this group.........

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