April 2000
A Call to Our Guiding Institutions
by Jim Kenney
In 1993, at the first modern Parliament of the World’s Religions (the original was held in Chicago in 1893) a groundbreaking document, Towards a Global Ethic: An Initial Declaration, was issued. The Global Ethic affirmed several of the basic principles that animate the ethical teachings of all the world’s great religious traditions. That document has since been translated into many languages and has energized countless global efforts to inspire ethical action.
In 1999, in Cape Town, South Africa, at the second modern Parliament, the organization that directs this extraordinary international interreligious effort — the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions — presented a new document, A Call to Our Guiding Institutions. The Call is addressed to several of the most powerful and influential institutions of our time, inviting them to reflect on and redefine their roles at the threshold of a new century.
The following institutions are addressed in the document: Religion; Government; Agriculture, Labor, Industry, and Commerce; Education; Arts and Communications Media; Science and Medicine; International Intergovernmental Organizations; Organizations of Civil Society (voluntary associations, non-governmental organizations)
A Call to Our Guiding Institutions draws its principal inspiration from Towards a Global Ethic: An Initial Declaration, which articulates moral and ethical directives held in common by the great religious and spiritual traditions. The Call document brings those directives to bear on the roles and responsibilities of the guiding institutions in the twenty-first century. At the heart of the Call is the invitation to a process of "creative engagement," in which religious and spiritual communities, groups, and individuals find new modes of interaction, dialogue, and collaboration with other guiding institutions. The essential point of such engagement is, of course, to address the critical issues that confront the human community. In the face of these modern challenges, and in the context of these new relationships among different institutions, the document puts forth powerful calls for specific actions urgently needed at the threshold of the next century. The entire Call resonates with the intertwined themes of peace, justice, and sustainability.
A Call to Our Guiding Institutions was drafted through a two-year process, in consultation with over five hundred international religious and spiritual leaders, scholars, and activists, and with the close cooperation of the Millennium Institute in Washington, D.C. — which works closely with a variety of institutions on issues of sustainability. Four draft versions of the document were widely circulated for review and comment. At the 1999 Parliament, the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions issued the final version of the Call as a gift to the world.
The Call begins with these words:
"Guided by a vision of the world as it might be, with deep concern for the well-being of the Earth, its people, and all life, the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions respectfully calls upon the world’s guiding institutions to reassess and redefine their roles in order to assure a just, peaceful, and sustainable future.
"We invite these institutions to join with each other in a process of creative engagement to address the critical issues that face the world.
"We seek common cause with those who strive for justice, peace, and sustainability. We seek to join with those whose lives embody the process of creative engagement. We do this with the knowledge that the future of the whole community of life on Earth depends on the realization of a collaborative, coherent, and moral vision of a better world."
The document is divided into eight principal sections, each addressed to a single guiding institution. Under each heading, eight to ten specific calls to action are listed. The following list includes only one each of the several calls made to the individual institutions.
The Call to Religion: To find practical means to bring those elements of their teachings that address justice, peace, and care for future generations to wider and more immediate effect through engagement with the other guiding institutions.
The Call to Government: To denounce, counter, and deter genocide, as well as persecution, oppression, and terrorism of any sort, whether directed at members of a religious or spiritual community, of an ethnic or national group, of a culture, generation, or gender.
The Call to Agriculture, Labor, Industry, and Commerce: To bring their collective experience, knowledge, and skills at persuasion and innovation into partnerships with organizations of civil society dedicated to the rights of working men and women, intercultural and interreligious understanding, social justice, ecological, and community-based economics.
The Call to Education: To address the needs of the world’s poorest and least educated, with full-fledged universal literacy as a primary goal.
The Call to Arts and Communications Media: To counter the often dehumanizing sameness of globalized mass culture by supporting local and regional traditions and cultures.
The Call to Science and Medicine: To honor and learn from traditional modes of healing in concert with modern technological perspectives on the human body.
The Call to International Intergovernmental Organizations: To protect the natural resources of the Earth from depredation, pollution, waste, and exhaustion.
The Call to the Organizations of Civil Society: To broaden access to participation in civil society, with particular outreach to women, to youth, to indigenous peoples, and to the physically or mentally challenged.
A Call to Our Guiding Institutions is available on the Parliament web site at www.cpwr.org.
Jim Kenney is Director of the International Initiative, Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions
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