United Communities of Spirit

THE UNITED RELIGIONS INITIATIVE AS A
GLOBAL NETWORK

Dialogue and Community
It is a truism to suggest that we live in a "global village" -- involving collapsing borders, global communications, and an accelerating process of intercultural encounter. Today, in the supermarket in Cleveland, the Baptist meets the Hindu meets the Buddhist; all are members of one community, with an array of common values and needs, and a natural interest in the principles that can make their community thrive.

Out of this melting pot atmosphere emerges the United Religions Initiative. The URI brings together talented voices and responsible religious leaders from all over the world, working to forge a common vision and a common ethic. It is their hope to create a foundation for an ongoing process of interreligious encounter that can transform the cultural life of the 21st century.

As an agency of responsible and real-world cultural change, it is clear the URI is facing an enormous task. The differences that have long separated religious traditions are solidly embedded, involving ideological presumptions that are very often exclusivist, affirming values and principles in direct contradiction to those of other cultures.

The URI assumes that the process of dialogue can mediate these differences, and lead to a relaxation of historically dangerous tensions. If religious groups can come to understand one another, and get a sense that members of other cultures are also human beings like themselves, they can learn to appreciate one another, and evolve a spirit of mutual friendship and respect, and perhaps even of love.

At the local level, this new social contract is being forged among the most innovative and cosmopolitan of world citizens. But in a global context, where most religious believers are not in a position to personally interact with members of other cultures, the ideologies that distinguish the various traditions remain solidly intact.

The Task at Hand
The work undertaken by the URI involves challenging this cultural insularity -- creating some medium of communication and dialogue that can mediate this process, and promote and nourish the emergence of cooperation and something of a shared world view.

At the local level, the task of forging healthy common bonds that strengthen a community is difficult enough. Dialogue and experience are essential. We must get to know one another, establish mutual respect, and friendship where possible. Where citizens are rubbing shoulders in the real world of daily encounter, this process can occur naturally, and have a gradually transforming effect on the life of the local community. But in a global context, this becomes much less feasible. How can we promote interaction amongst the members of diverse cultural groups without restricting this interaction to a privileged few? If we do restrict this intercultural process to a dialogue among selected representatives only, how do we fully engage the "grass roots", the local people, who must themselves be effected by this process if it is to have a real effect on world conditions?

It is, of course, highly desirable to pursue this process of dialogue on a daily and face-to-face personal basis. But it also true that this approach is expensive, and perhaps even "dangerously elitist". It is difficult enough to arrange ways that several hundred religious representatives from around the world can come together in a daily personal dialogue. And it is even more difficult to devise means that the fruits of this conversation be effectively communicated back to the grass-roots individual members at the local level. This is a challenging business, demanding the best of us, and perhaps requiring of us some innovative new approaches.

United Communities of Spirit
One possible way to overcome some of the difficulties involved in creating an ongoing and influential intercultural conversation involves the use of emerging new methods of communication. Today, through an array of new technologies, an ongoing daily dialogue conducted on a global scale is becoming feasible. Methods such as video conferencing, telephone conference calls, and the Internet, can make this process much less expensive, and far more accessible to religious believers at the local level. And of these approaches, by far the least expensive, and the most feasible for a large-scale process, are methods involving the Internet.

It is true that the Internet is still an advanced technology, not accessible to many people. There are religious leaders around the world who do not have access to telephones, much less the Internet. Still, this emerging new network does reach every continent, and every country in the world. Through a process of networking and cooperation, it can conceivably draw together into a single dialogue not only the voices of an elite group of selected religious representatives, but thousands or millions of voices at the local level - each contributing in their own intimately personal way to a vast global conversation, intended to influence the values and understanding of religious people everywhere.

Yes, this is an advanced vision, and to unfold anything like it will take time and perseverance. But it is also true that the power of Internet communications continues to grow rapidly, is steadily spreading around the world, and becoming more accessible and less expensive every day.

Through our "United Communities of Spirit" network (http://origin.org/ucs.htm), we are pioneering the development of such a global network across the Internet. We are creating a forum that operates continuously, and can be accessed by anyone in the world who can reach the Internet. We are devising an array of programs intended to pursue the agenda of the URI, and doing what we can to lay the groundwork for a high-powered global network that can truly change the world.

The UCS project continues to grow. We have members from every religious tradition, and every day, new voices join us, from an astonishingly diverse array of traditions. We have members from every mainstream religion, an array of eclectic "new agers" of all types -- and pagans, and Wiccans, and humanists, and even atheists, who see in what we are doing some real hope to forge a new foundation for global interreligious understanding.

Unity and Diversity
By developing our project on the Internet, we are in a position to pursue a most ambitious agenda. Yes, we can provide a simple "meeting place of religions", by creating an open discussion forum, accessible by religious persons from anywhere in the world, from any tradition. Through this medium, the basic objectives of creating interpersonal trust and mutual respect can be pursued. But we are also devising ways for our members to conceive and unfold a common agenda -- a body of simple and basic doctrine on which all can agree, and which could form the foundation for cooperation on a global scale. And for those members who are interested, we are also exploring ways that scientific methods can be used to identify the common factors in the various world religions.

Are we working to create a new religion? In any classical meaning of the word "religion", the answer is no. Our task is simply to mediate cooperation and mutual understanding. But in a certain sense of the word, it is also true that we are working to create unity -- a unity of understanding, phrased in a common language, and defined in a common agenda. To some degree, perhaps, this common agenda can be seen as something like a religion -- a body of doctrine that bonds together a community of faith believers from around the world, who want to work together to build a better world.

The Internet continues to emerge, in ways that may gradually become the most powerful and effective means of communication in history. Unlike television, the Internet provides a medium of interactive (two-way) dialogue Unlike print, it can be as instantaneous as a conversation. Unlike either, the Internet, since it is computer-based, can keep track of enormous complexity and detail. And, perhaps most importantly, the Internet is highly affordable. Almost anyone can become involved if they desire. Religious leaders in most cities and towns in the world could conceivably come together on an occasional basis, to participate in a single "global town meeting" to pursue the development of a common agenda.

Today, as the URI continues to unfold, the Internet can provide an ongoing and important means of support, drawing together participants from all over the world, and bringing their voices into a common context. As the religious leaders of the world become more comfortable with this new technology, it seems clear enough that the Internet can become an inspiring and immediately practical tool for the realization of the highest ideals of global community.