Helping Create a 'Spiritual United Nations' - Brief Article

UN Chronicle, Spring, 2000 by Benjamin Weil

Although the small sun-filled penthouse, reached through a well-hidden set of stairs from above the 15th floor of a modest but chic building on Fifth Avenue in New York City; has its own special aura, it is not a Zen palace as one might imagine. The offices of the Temple of Understanding, the oldest global interfaith organization in the United States, may be a far cry from the grand building envisioned by its founder, but the global interfaith movement, which includes spiritual traditions as diverse as Jainism, Christianity and Native American, continues to promote dialogue and understanding among all the religions of the world.

The Temple of Understanding was the brainchild of Juliet Hollister, an American housewife who, while eating a peanut-butter sandwich with a friend one day, happened to wonder what the world would be like if the many different religions began conversing instead of feuding. Ms. Hollister began to form a vision of an organization that would promote understanding among the world's religions, recognize the oneness of the human family and achieve a "spiritual United Nations". Through prayer and determination, she attracted such prominent supporters as Eleanor Roosevelt, Albert Schweitzer, Jawaharlal Nehru, Pope John XXIII, Anwar el-Sadat and United Nations Secretary-General U Thant. In 1960, the Temple of Understanding came into being.

The Temple knows it still has a long way to go in realizing that vision of an American housewife, but it continues to sustain her hope which informs its mission and work. Sister Joan Kirby, the current Executive Director of the Temple of Understanding, believes that the organization evolved essentially as a mobilizing force, with only a small staff and no actual "temple", for a reason: its longevity is due in part to the fact that it is not a centralized entity, as spirituality cannot be institutionalized or localized. In fact, since 1968, the Temple has sponsored six "Spiritual Summit" conferences, producing a worldwide network of spiritual leaders, all devoted to the principles of the interfaith movement, whose modem character can be most easily traced back to the first World's Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago, United States, in 1893. It has progressed from the creation of a model of interfaith cooperation to generating understanding and a sense of unity among religious traditions, which nonetheles s retained their individual belief systems and autonomy.

The Temple collaborates in innovative ways with the United Nations, including sponsoring since 1997, together with the Interfaith Center of New York, an interfaith prayer service at the annual opening of the UN General Assembly session.

In decades past, the Temple had focused its work on the central concepts of youth and education. One of the Temple's newest projects--the production of an interactive documentary entitled "Faces of Faith: Children in the Crossfire"--seeks to use technology to connect to youth all over the globe. The six-part series intended for public television, as well as a CD-ROM meant as a tool for student outreach, will profile the lives of teenagers caught in the crossfire of religious, political and ethnic conflicts in many parts of the world. In addition to footage by filmmakers like Temple-affiliate Robin Romano, children in Africa, India, Ireland, the Middle East, the United States and Yugoslavia will use video cameras to document their own lives, allowing students all over the world to learn about how their peers survive and maintain their faith in situations of conflict.

Interfaith work, including the necessary funding for its implementation, has at times been challenged by conservative religious elements that maintain an absolute allegiance to their own religious truths, precluding respect for other spiritual traditions and further insulating religious groups, the very issue the interfaith movement seeks to address, according to the Temple Programme Director, Bevin Deiters. One way in which the Temple has responded to the problem is through a yearly programme called "Spirituality and Different Religious Traditions", which allows adult students to experience the spiritual and meditative practices of seven different religious traditions in the New York area.

Why is the work of the Temple of Understanding and the interfaith movement of particular relevance to the United Nations? My feeling is that this has much to do with the concept of the "oneness of the human family". The United Nations and its partners will increasingly need to rely on the commonalities that link people and communities all over the world.

The need for laying aside differences and embracing the links that bind us is nowhere more urgent than in my own field--the prevention of and planning for the impact of HIV/AIDS. When Noerine Kaleeba started The AIDS Support Organization in Uganda in 1987, in addition to spearheading an important component--grass roots mobilization--of the worldwide response to HIV, she also created a movement that emphasized the fact that we are all living with HIV, whether infected or uninfected. The spiritual element of this reality is essential and undeniable. Loving and assisting other human beings--be they male or female, African or Asian, HIV-positive or negative-is the earthly manifestation of the divine force that links us all together as global citizens.