Reports 1995-1998 Edited by Dwain C. Epps

The Promise and Power of Faith: Religions’ role in promoting peace and tolerance

Presentation by the Rev. Dr. Konrad Raiser, WCC General Secretary, in a panel to mark the Fiftieth Anniversary of the adoption of the UN Charter and the UN Year for Tolerance, Palais des Nations, Geneva, 3 July 1995.

The other speakers were H.E. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Secretary-General of the United Nations, and H.H. Alexy II, Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.

It is a distinct honor, on the occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the adoption of the Charter and during this United Nations Year for Tolerance, to be given this opportunity to speak on the role of people of faith in promoting peace and tolerance. It is a particular privilege to share this platform with you, Mr. Secretary-General, and to complement your own important reflections on this important and timely topic.

I come before you today in my capacity as General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, whose headquarters were established more than fifty years ago here in Geneva, a city long identified with the pursuit of peace. In this Council are joined some 325 Christian churches of Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox confessions, located in nearly all the member states of the United Nations. I am grateful that the spiritual head of one of our member churches, His Holiness Alexy II, honors us with his presence here in connection with his visit to the World Council of Churches and the Conference of European Churches.

As a spokesperson for a Christian world body, I do not pretend to speak on behalf of all Christians, many of whom belong to churches that are not members of the Council, nor for people of other living faiths. However, my reflections are informed by the active dialogue the World Council of Churches maintains with a wide range of Christian churches beyond our membership and with people of other faiths. I believe that many of them will share the perspectives which I bring to you today.

From time immemorial, religion has been a defining feature of human society and of the self-understanding of individual human beings. Cultures have given religions their language, and religions, in turn, have provided cultures with ultimate meaning. Religions have been among the principal bearers and protectors of peoples’ languages, traditions, cultural identity and social cohesion through the ages.

Most major world religions are rooted in a commitment to universality and tolerance. Participants representing a wide spectrum of faiths issued an important joint declaration at the conclusion of a recent UNESCO Conference on “The Contribution by Religions to the Culture of Peace” (Barcelona, December 1994), which reaffirms this. They declared:

We are aware of the world’s cultural and religious diversity. Each culture represents a universe in itself and yet is not closed... Unless we recognize pluralism and diversity, no peace is possible. We strive for the harmony which is at the very core of peace...neither the meaning of peace nor of religion can be reduced to a single and rigid concept, just as the range of human experience cannot be conveyed by a single language.

Not all societies have taken such a positive view of religion in society. During this century, Communism sought to eliminate religion and religious institutions through severe social and political constraints and periodic waves of systematic persecution. In the West, the process of secularization and the rise of secularist ideology led many either to disregard religion, or to privatize or deny its contribution to society.

Today, there is a world-wide reawakening of religion, in part, as a reaction to the recent past. Because this resurgence of religious feeling has sometimes taken radical, even aggressive forms, it has engendered fears in many quarters. But we must not lose sight of the fact that the widespread return to religion is also an affirmation that spirituality is essential to human existence. It would be a serious mistake to equate this reawakening with intolerance, for within it is the latent promise of a common search for peace and life together in global community.

At the same time, new religious fervor is often combined with peoples’ deep desire to recover and reassert their ethnic and national identity and freedom in a world besieged by globalizing trends. Some religious movements lend theological and ideological justification for an exclusivist, defensive and at times aggressively nationalistic understanding of human community.

This is not a new phenomenon in human history. As the interfaith declaration issued at the UNESCO conference stated,

Religions have contributed to the peace of the world, but they have also led to division, hatred and war.

The declaration went on to say,

We feel obliged to call for sincere acts of repentance and mutual forgiveness, both personally and collectively, to one another, to humanity in general, and to Earth and all living beings. Religious people have too often betrayed the high ideals they themselves have preached.

...We must be at peace with ourselves to achieve inner peace through personal reflection and spiritual growth, and to cultivate a spirituality which manifests itself in action

The reality of new religious movements is an undeniable fact. The challenge to all religions today is to infuse these movements with the fundamental values of humility, repentance, mutual forgiveness, tolerance, and a common commitment to peace based on universal values. We all recognize that this is a daunting task, but there are those in all world religions deeply committed to the task.

This is not, however, something which can be left to religions alone. Political leaders, policy makers, social scientists and leaders of international institutions have a major responsibility for creating a climate which will foster the positive values of tolerance, peace and universalism which reside in religious communities. History shows that those who exercise political and military power, and those who shape public opinion often seek to use religious sentiment to undergird narrow national, political, and even imperial interests. At the same time, the role of religions as the conscience of society is both feared and despised by many governments who regard religion as a threat, or as an impediment to the realization of their hegemonic aims.

An example of this is to be found in our own recent history. In the late 1970s and through the 1980s churches and other religious groups were at the centre of mass popular protests against the modernization and proliferation of nuclear weapons. These protests challenged the logic and spirit of nuclear deterrence. Similar movements demanded respect for human rights and democracy. Many governments attacked such groups frontally, and engaged in both overt and covert efforts to destabilize and divide religions engaged for justice, peace, tolerance and international understanding.

We have put the Cold War behind us. But the narrow, simplistic mindset which marked that period persists. Many policy makers and political leaders continue to see the world as divided into warring camps, into good and bad, righteous and evil. Regrettably, many now would divide the world along religious lines, and follow policies which militate against intercultural and interfaith understanding. This must end. The logic of the Cold War must now be buried forever.

Religion is not the enemy. Nor are religions as such enemies one of another, as we are told by those who see the future in terms of the confrontation of cultures. Fanaticism, intolerance, and the blind pursuit of power are what threatens human community and the creation of which we are a part. No religion worthy of its calling can ever be an unconditional supporter of worldly power. Faithful to its people, but more faithful still to God and the highest principles of good, religion has a vocation to challenge power when leaders depart from that which promotes peace, tolerance and well-being for all without distinction.

The promise, and the power of faith is there. Now, perhaps more than ever before in history, we need to discover how religions and the state, as well as religions and international institutions, can interact in order to create tolerance and peace.

Tolerance alone, however, is not enough to enable religions to make their full contribution. Tolerance can be limited to condescending acceptance, and fall short of full recognition of legitimate otherness and of the right to be equal, though different. Religious and cultural pluralism is not only a historical reality. It is a source of enrichment for society. Plurality, most religions believe, is part of God’s design for the world. It can only flourish in democratic societies which respect the rule of law and guarantee equal rights and privileges to all individuals and communities who accept shared responsibility for the well-being of all together.

Representatives of five major world religions gathered in a dialogue meeting sponsored by the World Council of Churches in Colombo, Sri Lanka affirmed this in their joint statement, in which they said,

We (have together) acknowledged real common links, based on a sense of the universal interdependence and responsibility of each and every person with and for all other persons; we together recognized the fundamental unity of human beings as one family and committed ourselves to strive, and, if necessary, to be ready to pay a price to realize the equality and dignity of all human beings.

Such signs of good will are essential, but tolerance, peace, and harmony among peoples of deep religions convictions, also requires that states assure full respect for the right to religious freedom. As the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination based on Religion and Belief has reaffirmed, everyone must have “the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion,” a right which includes “freedom to have a religion or whatever belief of his or her choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private to manifest that religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.”

These words were included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 at the urging of the World Council of Churches. We have consistently affirmed that the right to religious freedom is not an exclusive right to be claimed as a privilege for any single religion. Rather it is essential for all if religion is to play its full, constructive role in building a world community characterized by tolerance, mutual respect, cooperation, peace and justice.

If religion fails to do this then faith will have lost all of its promise and all of its power. But all the major world religions, I am convinced, are aware of the challenge to faithfulness and this was given voice in the appeal issued by those who joined in the UNESCO Conference from which I quoted earlier. They said, and with this I conclude:

Grounded in our faith, we will build a culture of peace based on non-violence, tolerance, dialogue, mutual understanding, and justice. We call upon the institutions of civil society, the United Nations System, governments, governmental and non-governmental organizations, corporations, and the mass media to strengthen their commitments to peace and to listen to the cries of the victims and the dispossessed. We call upon the different religious and cultural traditions to join hands together in this effort, and to cooperate with us in spreading the message of peace.

I thank you all for your kind attention.

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