Topia

Description

The following is an excerpt from The Politics of Universal Compassion (forthcoming), by Joel Federman Mahatma Gandhi once wrote that "when you go to the heart of your own religion, you go to the heart of all others, too." He also wrote that "there are as many religions as there are people." When you put these two ideas together, you have the basis for a belief in the possibilty of universal undertanding across all religions and among all people. This is the insight of interspirituality. Interspirituality is a term coined by Brother Wayne Teasdale, a lay monk at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, who combines the traditions of Chrisitanity and Hinduism in his spiritual journey. Teasdale's book, The Mystic Heart , explores the growing worldwide movement of interfaith dialogue, communication, and understanding. Neil Young, "When God Made Me," Shelter From the Storm concert. Search for Common Understanding While the last century--and the dawn of the new milennium--have been marked by world wars, ethnic conflict, and the emergence of weapons of mass destruction and international terrorism, they have also seen an increasing search for a common global identity and universally shared values. This search has taken several forms. First, there has been an attempt to codify and enshrine those political, economic and social rights that all human beings hold in common, the most prominent expression of which is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December, 1948 (Meyer, 1981: xxxi). As noted in Chapter Five, the movement for the universal realization and respect of human rights has grown exponentially in the last several decades, marked in particular by a proliferation of nongovernmental human rights organizations. At the same time, there has been an increasing search to identify common understanding across religious faiths and cultural boundaries. During the last century, numerous efforts at direct dialogue between members of different faiths--and between religion and science--have been conducted, aimed both at increasing mutual understanding and the creation of common action based on shared values. (Kung, 1991: passim; Bryant and Flinn, 1991, passim; Bok, 1992: passim) Interfaith dialogues have been organized at every level, from local community gatherings to global events such as the 1986 inter-faith conference in Assisi, Italy, of sixty religious leaders including Pope John Paul II, the Dalai Lama, and the Archbishop of Canterbury (Schance, 1986); the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)-sponsored conference on "The Contribution of the Religions to the Culture of Peace," held in 1993 in Barcelona, Spain (Teasdale, 1993: 123); and the 1993 Parliament of the World's Religions held in Chicago, Illinois. (Gomez-Ibanez, 1993: 2-3) More recently, responding to the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the subsequent war in Afghanistan, Pope John Paul II organized a conclave of world religious leaders to show the world "that religions must never be allowed to become a cause of conflict, hate and violence.

Products & services

Similar companies nearby