The Parliament of World's Religions: a journey of learning, being challenged, and influencing along the way
Thursday, 8 April 2010
| Dr David Wilson - Chairman of the Australian Evangelical Alliance and Senior Consultant with Community Engagement Australia
As I became involved in the Bid Committee, and then later on the Advisory Committee, and then in the year leading up to the Event as a Consultant for the Chicago Headquarters, I became interested in seeing the World’s Religions from a different perspective. I began to view these religions in more socio-cultural terms and found them to offer fascinating insights into the cultures of the world. My involvement, much criticized by some, was not a truth question (I’m quite settled on that one in my own mind) but a journey of discovery of some of the powerful influences on people and society around the world. I learned much.
However, the most challenging aspect came during the Parliament itself where I was a Volunteer, a Coordinator, and a Presenter… heavily involved over the week of the Event. One of my colleagues jokingly referred to the Event as “the Parliament of the World’s Egos”. There was a lot of truth in that. It could be that readers of this article immediately think of World Religions other than Christianity with their cults of “Guru Worship” and other such Ego based philosophies. And some of that would be true. But it made me sad and mad that some of the worst examples came from leaders of the “Christian” faith. I sat watching some of this on one of the days and reflected on what Jesus would bring to the “Parliament of World’s Religions”. I’m sure we could all come up with some ideas that would probably be more telling of our own biases than anything else but in my reflections at that time I couldn’t get past the words that Jesus said about leadership… servant leadership. He said that both the dominant models of leadership in His day were faulty models and were not to be followed. The Political model of Rome and the Religious model of the Pharisees were to be rejected in favour of the model He was both living and teaching.
Humility was what Jesus was exemplifying. There were some beautiful examples of that at the Parliament, but it was also sadly missing among some of those who purported to be following the “Master Servant”.
I’m really glad I was involved in the Parliament at so many different levels. I made some good friendships with a diverse group of people and I continue to be involved in some of the Legacy work, namely an Association called “Cities of Harmony”, established to work with interfaith groups at a Local Government level, and the possibility of the creation of a “Global Ethics Centre” in Australia in association with Hans Kung. My involvement has reminded me that the Christian faith does not have the corner on issues of concern around the Globe. There are many good, responsible thinkers from other religious traditions talking on issues of the Environment, Social Justice, and Human Rights just to name a few. I still don’t really like a lot of “Religious stuff” and I’m still settled in my mind on the truth question but through my involvement I learned a lot, I was challenged a lot, and I hope I was able to be an influence in some people’s lives along the way.