Executive Director's weekly letter.

Over the millennia of human experience, the power of religion has been both blessing and curse. The source of life and death. At this pivotal point in history, humanity desperately needs religions to claim a shared vocation for peace, justice and healing.

By many estimates, religion is a factor in more than 30 armed conflicts in major “hot spots” around the world, to say nothing of the countless daily acts of discrimination, oppression and violence in local communities everywhere.

Northern Ireland, Boznia Herzegovina, Israel/Palestine, India/Pakistan, the “Christian” West against the Muslim world, Sri Lanka and Sudan, to name a few, have seared into the public imagination an image of religion as a cause of injustice, suffering and death on a massive scale.

So, it is no surprise that, increasingly, the dominant image of religion is negative, focused on the religiously motivated violence that has drenched the Earth with blood for millennia.

Witness these words from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan:

“Religion, sadly, has been misused throughout history in the cause of division, discrimination and even death. From antiquity through the Crusades to the present day, religion has been distorted, turned from a personal matter of faith and sustenance into a weapon of power and coercion. The cry of the soul for meaning, and for God, has been drowned out by the battle cry of those claiming to have God on their side.” 

And yet, the other side of the story too often goes untold. By one estimate, 98% of the world’s 6.4 billion people belong to a religion, spiritual expression or indigenous tradition. The overwhelming majority of these people eschews violence and seeks to make their communities and our world more peaceful and just.

Every day around the world through the efforts of Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, Jain, Hindu, Sikh, Zoroastrian, Bahá’í, Christian, Indigenous, Pagan individuals and institutions people are fed, educated, housed and given medical care. Babies are blessed. Couples are married. The dead are buried. The Earth cared for. Ordinary people are supported through the joys and sorrows, the defeats and victories of their lives.

In many manifestations, individuals and institutions of faith regularly speak out and act for a more peaceful and just society for all. One exemplar of this aspect of religion was Mother Teresa, who said, in her Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech:

 “… I am grateful to receive (the Nobel) in the name of the hungry, the naked, the homeless, of the crippled, of the blind, of the lepers, of all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared-for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone.”