International Association for Religious Freedom

Peter Gerlitz

Looking at the proceedings of the 27^th IARF World Congress Europe 1990 and the subject the Congress was dealing with, we are impressed by the many different facets of the congress theme "Religious Co-operation for one World". There was an attempt to reflect this vast theme with a spiritual and intellectual view and with the vision that religious people will be able to realize their hopes in concrete terms one day; that means: Making human rights a reality; peace and social justice will be possible if spirituality and faith become the preconditions of accepting our responsibility for the world, especially for the oppressed in the Third World. To pursue this aim, the congress was arranged in three main groups: Worship and congress services of the different groups and their contributions to a world-wide religious understanding and inter-religious dialogue.

1) The congress started with the opening service, an impressive act of worship, celebrated by representatives of the different faiths (but where was the Baha'i religion?) Christian hymns, Buddhist Sutras, Sikh and Muslim prayers made the service a festival of faith and hope. Although even here we could see the enormous differences between the religions, differences in their doctrines and practices, which are hidden behind a facade of harmony and consensus.

The same thing could be observed during the devotions in the morning: Each religion demonstrated an impressive self-projection with statements and thoughts concerning their faiths and hopes, - but did not even make an attempt to find ways to achieve a constructive dialogue.Thus the opening service as well as the morning devotions seemed an artificial conglomeration of religions. Instead it should have been an example of different races practising living together under one common roof of mankind. What I deplore is the separation of the spirit. Each group "fulfilled" its role without knowing what its neighbour was doing.

2) On another level, namely the intellectual one, we could see how the same problems were reflected in a much more intensive way: while listening to the plenary addresses, the so-called "key notes", we got a special orientation concerning the "Humanum" or the conception of a "World Ethic" exemplified by the problem of peace, justice and human rights. So Hans Küng's thesis was (and of course still is!) that the influence of spiritual religious life on secular world security is still enormous; there can be "no peace among nations without peace among religions". Küng thinks that the solution to the quest for peace is to be found in the search for truth. But truth may only be used as an ecumenical criterion if it is connected with the "Humanum". Thus the realization of the "Humanum" is the consequence of religious tolerance.

3) All members of the different study groups did indeed try to point out this problem in their contributions concerning the inter-religious dialogue. So for instance Eshin Nishimura in his essay "Inter-religious Dialogue and Buddhist Spirituality" or Jakob von Uexküll in his "Ecological Commandment", and of course the ever-present "Vision of one World" (Dianne E. Ararkawa, János Erdö, Manfred Haustein, Spencer Lavan in Study Group 1,"One World". "Spirituality and One World" have accompanied the IARF like a vision. Even in Hamburg Study Group 2 dealt with these topics, and Richard Boeke used the famous ora-et-labora-pattern to show how both interlock and fit. The subject of spirituality often dealt with prayer and meditation, showing that they both complement each other. Prayers cover the personal aspect of God, whereas meditation is "an exercise for the transparence to the real being" ( K. Graf Dürkheim by Jutta Reich); or: spirituality has a divine and a human dimension,as Y. Yamamoto-san exemplified when he interpreted the Shinto term "reisei".

The members of Study Group 3 discussed the essential concern for Peace, Disarmament and Human Rights with the aim of creating a demilitarized world. However, the problem was how to find a way from a Utopian One-World-Vision in the IARF to a realization of what is possible for a non-governmental organization. Homer A. Jack pointed out that there is a "growing constituency for peace" in the UN which is more powerful than it has ever been before. There is a heightened awareness of a new generation of problems common to all nations (Proceedings, 203). For the Buddhist world that means a "disseminating of the Lotus Sutra" all over the world (Y. Saito).

The topic of Study Group 4 dealt with the global ecological crisis and the survival of our planet. The authors pointed out that awareness of the present situation, responsibility and cooperation in pursuit of global change is a challenge to our age. S. S. Chakraborty, Ramakrishna Mission emphasized the close connections between Hindu beliefs and the practice of development strategies in present-day India. It is a pity that the ecological basis of Indian religions was not mentioned in this connection. We could have learnt that the classical Indian religions have a kind of ecological concept long before secular Western initiatives with the benefits of Western scientific knowledge started their campaigns against pollution and environmental contamination, etc.

The members of Study Group 5 studied the symptoms of economic crisis in connections with poverty, famine, health, population growth etc., demonstrating the interdependence of armament and human rights (M. Haustein and J.Paul), economy and a "religious perspective" (Jay Atkinson), etc.

When visiting the former Nazi concentration camp at Neuengamme we were made aware of the "omnipresence of the holocausts in the world" and the fact that terror and fear are still the inhuman companions of mankind which have not been overcome. The IARF, with its high ideals of a "new world" with mankind living in harmony, thinks that it bears responsibility for a future where holocausts will never happen again.

When considering the subject of the IARF congress 1990 "Religions Cooperating for One World" it was came up with the "Donation One Meal Campaign" as well as brief visits to different Christian and Unitarian communities and an impressive agápe prepared by Protestant laymen on the topic of "Creator and Creation". We have fond and lasting memories of these events

(The IARF Albert Schweitzer Award was presented to János Erdö, Romania; the Distinguished Leadership Award to Dieter Gehrmann, for many years the reliable and capable General Secretary of the IARF.)

The 27^th IARF Congress concluded with a number of resolutions: resolutions concerning environmental pollution, disarmament, human rights and the right to freedom of religion.

The World Congress of the IARF 1990 in Hamburg was an impressive testimony to the cooperation between religions all over the world and a remarkable spiritual attempt to fight for religious freedom, human rights, peace, justice and the protection of nature and creation. These were our great visions. Now we must try to make some of these high ideals, or at least parts of them, a reality. We hope that we will be successful one day; but we must accept the fact that perfect religious harmony and harmonious religious unanimity will remain utopian ideals and can - probably - never be achieved by human beings-unless one day we receive them as grace and mercy from our Gods.