Summit shows religions at best and worst

Christian Century, Sept 13, 2000

Rich in color and pageantry, long on good intentions but often falling short of a clear purpose and outcome, the Millennium World Peace Summit provided a revealing glimpse of religious groups--and the conference itself--sometimes at their best and sometimes at their worst. On paper, the four-day summit, which concluded its work August 31, did little that was either surprising or remarkable. In a final "Commitment to Global Peace," the nearly 1,000 leaders representing a wide spectrum of religions pledged their support to ending religious-based violence and respecting each other's faith traditions.

Still left unsettled was the formation of a kind of global religious advisory group to the United Nations, which hosted the first two days of the conference. As the summit ended, there was talk of selecting a steering committee to oversee the creation of such a panel, though the specifics remained to be worked out. Indeed, it was not clear how badly the UN, or its secretary general, Kofi Annan, even wanted the panel, though both seemed eager for some kind of alliance between the UN and religious leaders.

To longtime ecumenists such as Konrad Raiser, the general secretary of the World Council of Churches, it all seemed a bit vague, and Raiser was not alone in raising concern that there was not enough "heft" to the proposal. Raiser also suggested that the depth of representation at the summit was not equal to its breadth, which was enormous. Those were far from the only grumblings about the summit.

The decision of the conference organizers not to invite the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader, to the UN portion of the summit out of deference to the Chinese government was a sore point that would not go away. Nobel Peace Prize-winner Betty Williams publicly decried the Dalai Lama's absence, as did a group of indigenous leaders who spoke at the summit's closing ceremony, calling him "our brother." A group of Tibetan Buddhists eventually spoke to the gathering late August 29 and read a statement by the Dalai Lama in support of the goals of the summit, prompting a walkout by Chinese representatives.

The summit's structure, which often resembled a formal UN meeting, was also bemoaned--and especially criticized for an overkill of representative but often repetitiousprayers and declarations that kept thwarting the assigned timekeepers. "I thought prayers were supposed to be short," grumbled one delegate, expressing a common complaint.

"Religions aren't holier than other institutions," said Wendy Tyndale, coordinator of the World Faiths Development Dialogue and the moderator of an August 30 working session on the issue of poverty. "What we are witnessing is a microcosm of globalization and a clash of cultures."

The session she moderated--at times impassioned, noisy and a little messy--proved just that. Roman Catholic Bishop Alvar Ramazzini of San Marcos in the western highlands of Guatemala, gave a fervent opening speech in which he declared, in a booming voice, that he could not believe in a God "that would allow his creatures to suffer." He said it is the responsibility of religious communities to work toward just and sustainable development "based on human values."

There was a visible stir among the assembled audience, perhaps tired after sitting and largely listening to two days of prayers and official addresses. Robed Hindus from India, Buddhists from Vietnam and indigenous persons from Central America and Africa all clamored for the microphone.

Often identifying themselves only by country and faith, the speakers exposed some of the political, economic and religious fault lines of much of the world. A woman from Africa condemned what she called "collaboratized stealing" on the part of the West and its international lending institutions; a Mayan from Guatemala made a plea for indigenous rights; a woman who has studied the "Course in Miracles" program said the answer to poverty requires a solution "not of this world."

But the most impassioned remarks of all came from Hindus from India, condemning what they said was continued proselytizing by Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians in their country--something they linked to a legacy of Western colonial dominance. In recent years a number of Christian missionaries have been killed or attacked by Hindus in India.

The criticism of Christianity, in turn, drew a strong defense of religious freedom by Cardinal Francis Arinze, the president of the Pontifical Council on Interreligious Dialogue and the Vatican's representative at the summit. He said international law protects the rights of people to accept and practice the religion of their choice. As he left the session, a clearly irritated Arinze was approached by Hindu Indians who wanted to continue the debate.

Tyndale said she was neither dismayed nor surprised by the heated nature of the session. In fact, she said, it would send a message to the United Nations that "poverty is not just an economic process but something that embraces the whole of life and that development must be a multidimensional process."