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State of Interreligious Movement ReportJune 2008A Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions 1
 
State of the Interreligious Movement Report
A Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions Publication
 
State of Interreligious Movement ReportJune 2008A Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions 2
 
Table of Contents
Editor’s Note ....................................................................................................................... 3 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 5 A Snapshot of the Interreligious Movement ..................................................................... 11 Baha’i ............................................................................................................................ 11 Buddhist ........................................................................................................................ 18 Christian ........................................................................................................................ 31 Confucian ...................................................................................................................... 70 Hindu ............................................................................................................................. 71 Indigenous ..................................................................................................................... 86 Jain .............................................................................................................................. 103 Jewish .......................................................................................................................... 117 Multi-Religious and Independent ................................................................................ 130 Muslim ........................................................................................................................ 184 Pagan ........................................................................................................................... 193  New Religious Movements ......................................................................................... 198 Shinto .......................................................................................................................... 202 Sikh.............................................................................................................................. 203 Taoist ........................................................................................................................... 222 Zoroastrian .................................................................................................................. 223 Essays .............................................................................................................................. 228 The Interfaith Movement: An Incomplete Assessment................................................ 228 Religion in the 21st Centurys ....................................................................................... 247 What Counts as “Religion” in the Interreligious Movement?...................................... 258 
 
State of Interreligious Movement ReportJune 2008A Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions 3
 
Editor’s Note
This Report presents illustrative examples of fifteen religious traditions participating in the interreligious movement. Examples of multi-religious andindependent facilitation of the interreligious movement are also presented. All of theexamples have been compiled using the following three methods: (1) researchers havesearched organizational webpages, community newsletters, and other relevant websitesselecting pertinent public information, (2) researchers have contacted interreligious practitioners to solicit information on their work, and (3) the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions has sent an email to thousands of its contacts soliciting informationon their current activities. These examples have been reviewed by the editor and selectedfor publication in this report according to their illustrative effect.These methods of collection are necessarily limited, due to the often ad hoc andinformal quality of much interreligious work. We have also been limited, for the most part, to examples in the English language. And, of course, many people in the world – including participants in the interreligious movement – are not readily accessible byemail or phone. What is more, we simply do not understand the varieties of religious lifewell enough to identify examples of interreligious work that are not relatively obvious.The list could go on and on. Nonetheless, we have tried to convey a representative portrait of whatever in the interreligious movement has been accessible to our methodological reach.The categories dividing “A Snapshot of the Interreligious Movement” are usedonly because of their familiarity. The use of terms like “New Religious Movements” and“Indigenous” has been reluctant at best; these are fraught and often exploited terms andwe look forward to a time when better, more representative language becomes available.For that matter, this document does not purport to decide who counts as a “Hindu” or a“Jew” or a “Christian” or a “Muslim” or anything else. The examples provided below areoffered with an implicit invitation to constructive criticism and the assumption of futurerevisions.The Report uses the terms “interreligious” and “interfaith” somewhatinterchangeably throughout; in the first of three critical essays, “The InterfaithMovement: An Incomplete Assessment,” good reasons are provided to prefer the term“interfaith.” But this report has sided with the term “interreligious” for its title. Historicaland theoretical considerations, elaborated in the second and third essays, suggest that thisusage of the term “faith” is epiphenomenal to a field of meaning already established bythe modern category of religion. The contentious and fraught category of religion has,therefore, been retained to provoke further reflection on its nuances: to clarify, for instance, why it might seem attractive to translate this concept into the language of “faith.”This report could not have been produced without the outstanding efforts of anentire team of researchers and reviewers. The Council for a Parliament of the World’sReligions would like to thank the volunteer research team of Adam Dichson, BrookeHeerwald, LeAnne Clausen, and Michelle Townsend and our research assistants Katerina
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