WUNRN
GENDER
2009 PARLIAMENT OF WORLD RELIGIONS
3-9 December 2009
Melbourne, Australia
First
held in Chicago in 1893, the Parliament of the World’s Religions brings
together the world’s religious and spiritual communities, their leaders and
their followers to a gathering where peace, diversity and sustainability are
discussed and explored in the context of interreligious understanding and
cooperation.
Our theme, Make a World of
Difference: Hearing Each Other, Healing the Earth reflects the urgent
need for religious and spiritual communities and all people of goodwill to act
on their concerns for the environment, peace, and overcoming poverty, and to
take responsibility for cultivating awareness of our global interconnectedness.
This Parliament will focus on the struggles and spiritualities of indigenous
peoples around the globe, particularly highlighting the Aboriginal communities
of
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Council for a Parliament of World
Religions
Our Mission
The Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions was created to cultivate harmony among the world's religious and spiritual communities and foster their engagement with the world and its guiding institutions in order to achieve a just, peaceful and sustainable world.
To accomplish this, we invite individuals and communities who are equally invested in attaining this goal.
The vision of the Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions is of a just, peaceful and sustainable world in which:
The Council for a
Parliament of the World's Religions seeks to promote interreligious harmony,
rather than unity. The problem with seeking unity among religions is the
risk of loss of the unique and precious character of each individual religious
and spiritual tradition; this understanding is key to our framework.
Interreligious harmony, on the other hand, is an attainable and highly
desirable goal. Such an approach respects, and is enriched by, the
particularities of each tradition. Moreover, within each tradition are the
resources (philosophical, theological and spiritual teachings and perspectives)
that enable each to enter into respectful, appreciative and cooperative
relationships with persons and communities of other traditions.
We live in a world of
difference. Yet, we are interdependent. Nowhere is learning to live with
difference more important than religion.
Too often, religion is misused as an instrument for division and injustice,
betraying the very ideals and teachings that lie at the heart of each of the
world's great traditions. At the same time, religious and spiritual traditions
shape the lives of billions in wise and wonderful ways. They gather people in
communities of shared beliefs and practices. When these diverse communities
work in harmony for the common good, there is hope that the world can be
transformed.
Over the years, the Council has initiated dialogues and nurtured relationships
among people of difference. In doing so the Council has provided a framework
for expressing many visions of a just,
peaceful and sustainable future. In the process, religious and spiritual
communities have discovered a shared commitment to ethical principles.
This shared commitment has opened the way for a new era of cooperative action
among the world's religious and spiritual communities as well as civil and
political societies. The well-being of the Earth and all life depends on this
collaboration.
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