The Parliament of the World`s Religions: A Legacy of Swami Vivekanada

By Robert P. Sellers

The breakfast table was appropriately prepared as we sat down to a meal both kosher and halal. I was meeting the guests seated on either side of me for the first time. To the left was Rabbi David Saperstein, the United States ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom under President Obama, and to the right was Sheikh Saleh Abdullah bin Humaid, president of the Consultative Assembly of Saudi Arabia and imam of the Grand Mosque of Mecca. 

As a Christian minister and Baptist professor from Abilene, Texas, and chair elect of the convening organization hosting the meal—the Parliament of the World’s Religions—I sat between them. There we were: a Jew, a Christian, and a Muslim, unofficial representatives of the three great Abrahamic religions, siblings descended from the same Semitic ancestor and committed to a life of belief in and submission to One God. 

Where did such a fascinating shared meal occur? It happened one morning during the sixth convening of the Parliament in Salt Lake City, Utah, in October 2015. While this encounter was remarkable for me, because of the character and accomplishments of my breakfast companions, it was emblematic of the kinds of chance or planned meetings that frequently take place at these international gatherings. 

The Parliament of the World’s Religions is arguably the oldest, most documented, and largest convener of religious followers on Earth. Sometimes credited with originating the term “interfaith dialogue,” opportunities to experience similarly significant conversations with the religious other are limited only by one’s personal inclinations and the willingness to engage with those who are different than oneself. 

The First Parliament

The original assembly in 1893 has been termed “the dawn of religious pluralism.”¹ Concerning this claim, professor and director of Harvard University’s Pluralism Project, Diana Eck writes: 

For some, this was surely the dawn of what we might call pluralism: that this plurality is where we, with all our particularities, make our home, and its energetic exploration is our common task. For others, however, this plurality was seen as but a step on the way to an emerging world religion that would draw the finest essence of each into one. . . . For still others, the high-flown talk of the “coming unity of mankind” concealed an implicit vision of the gradual universalization of Christianity. On the whole, one could argue that the predominant vision of the Parliament was not pluralism, but the dawning of a new era of unity and universalism.²

The “World’s Parliament of Religions,” the precursor and model for the contemporary Parliament of the World’s Religions, was conceived to be a vital part of the World’s Columbian Exposition, a world’s fair crafted to celebrate the “discovery” of the New World by Christopher Columbus. According to religious studies scholar Richard Hughes Seager:

In September of 1889, when plans for the fair were just getting under way, Charles Carroll Bonney, a Chicago lawyer and a layman in the Swedenborgian church, proposed that the Exposition Corporation sponsor a series of international congresses to complement the material triumphs and technological marvels that formed the substance of the Exposition’s displays. “Something higher and nobler,” he wrote, “is demanded by the enlightened and progressive spirit of the age.”³

Of the 200 such congresses convened during the Exposition—focused upon themes as diverse as “women’s progress, the press, history, fine arts, public health, medicine and surgery, engineering, temperance, government, social reform, and religion,” which collectively drew “an estimated 700,000 people in the course of the Columbian summer of 1893”—the World’s Parliament of Religions garnered “the most attention, the most applause, and the best press.⁴

The Goal of the First Parliament

Charles Bonney’s desire was that the World’s Parliament of Religions would “unite all religion against irreligion,” and that the Golden Rule would be “the basis of this union.” His hope was that “when the religious faiths of the world recognize each other as brothers, children of one Father, whom all profess to love and serve, then and not till then, will the nations of the earth yield to the Spirit of concord and learn war no more.”⁵

His conviction that persons of multiple faith traditions who choose to live as neighbors could ultimately effect change and inspire good in the world was echoed, more than a century later, in the assertion of Swiss Catholic theologian Hans Küng, who famously said that “There will be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions. There will be no peace among the religions without dialogue among the religions.”⁶

The opening day for the highly anticipated 17-day festival was September 11, 1893. The Columbian Liberty Bell tolled 10 times for the great religions of the world, as they were identified at the end of the 19th century: three Indic religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism); three Eastern religions (Taoism, Confucianism, and Shintoism); and four Mediterranean religions (Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). At that same moment, a joyous procession into the Hall of Columbus and onto the decorated stage began, creating a colorful display of distinguished spiritual figures from many diverse faiths. As Seager poetically recreates the scene, there were:

the ocher robes of Buddhist ascetics; the vermilion cloaks and turbans of Hindu swamis; the silk vestments of the Confucians, Taoists, and Shinto priests; and the somber raiments of Protestant ministers, all gathered together on the platform around a Catholic cardinal dressed in scarlet and seated upon a high chair of state.⁷

In the words of Jenkin Lloyd Jones, founder and minister of the All Souls Unitarian Church in Chicago who witnessed the spectacle, “Over and over again the throng burst into tumultuous applause. The waving of handkerchiefs, the mingling of tears and smiles combined to make a scene never to be forgotten.”⁸

The Legacy of the First Parliament

This initial excitement did not wane over the two-and-a-half weeks of meetings. Inspired by stirring public speeches and stimulating personal encounters, attendees went home flush with idealism and zeal. Bonney optimistically predicted, “Henceforth the religions of the world will make war, not on each other, but on the giant evils that afflict mankind.”⁹ Some considered planning another convening in India but global conflicts and depressed economies, as well as the lack of an ongoing organization to coordinate efforts, soon overcame idealistic intentions, so that the impact of the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions took years to realize. As Braybrooke explains, “[I]t was a long time before America could be described as a multi-religious society. Only then did the importance of the 1893 World Parliament of Religions come to be recognized as marking the beginning of the international interfaith movement.”¹⁰

A major aspect of this inheritance was the newly-felt appreciation in the West for the religious traditions of the East. More than mere curiosity, the shared sentiment of admiration can be attributed to the presence in 1893 of Swami Vivekananda, an appealing Hindu monk [who] mesmerized the 5,000 assembled delegates, greeting them with the words, ‘Sisters and brothers of America!’ This speech, which introduced Hinduism to America, is memorized by school children in India to this day. Swami Vivekananda became one of the most forceful and popular speakers [at the first Parliament] in spite of the fact that he had never before addressed an audience in public.”¹¹ From this impressive spokesperson for Asian inclusivity has come a legacy of accepting religious diversity and recognizing that multiple spiritual paths offer valid avenues for improving the world. Vivekananda made this point 125 years ago:

Much has been said of the common ground of religious unity. . . . But if anyone here hopes that this unity would come by the triumph of any one of these religions and the destruction of the others, to him I say, “Brother, yours is an impossible hope.” … 

The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the others and yet preserve its individuality and grow according to its own law of growth. 

If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything to the world it is this: it has proved to the world that holiness, purity, and charity are not the exclusive possessions of any church in the world, and that every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character.¹² 

Another legacy of the 1893 Parliament, despite the fact that North American Christians were numerically dominant in the gathering, was the growing awareness that there are ‘wells of truth’ beyond Christianity.¹³ This enlightened perspective can be heard in the words of many contemporary Christian scholars and practitioners when they note the benefits of drinking from interfaith wells. Benedictine abbess and prolific writer Joan Chittister, for example, suggests that our common humanity justifies our drawing from other wells. She writes:

Whatever the distinctions of . . . culture, whatever the time and place in which we have lived, we are all human beings. . . . We have at our fingertips . . . a reservoir of wisdom as broad as the sky, as deep as history. [For each great spiritual tradition, in its own way, suggests a model of what it means to be a holy person.¹⁴ 

Ecologist and process theologian, Jay McDaniel, maintains that we should drink from other wells because our own water may be less than pure. He says, “Many people in different religions are realizing that the water is polluted, and that in order to cease polluting it, they need not only to dig within their own heritages for help but also to learn from other religions.”¹⁵ Perhaps most pointedly Matthew Fox, Dominican priest and author “silenced” by the Vatican for his Creation Spirituality, argues that the source of water in all the wells is the very same Divine River. He insists: 

There is one underground river—but there are many wells into that river: an African well, a Taoist well, a Buddhist well, a Jewish well, a Muslim well, a goddess well, a Christian well, and aboriginal wells. . . . To go down a well is to practice a tradition, but we would make a grave mistake (an idolatrous one) if we confused the well itself with the flowing waters of the underground river.  Many wells, one river.¹⁶

The fact that many progressive Christians, including myself, are outspoken about the beauty, richness, and wisdom of other faith traditions is a wonderful extension of interfaith awareness that began developing in the minds and hearts of our spiritual ancestors long ago.

A further outgrowth of the World’s Parliament of Religions was the seed of desire for a dialogue-with-difference which was carried back to distant places, planted in the soil of religious homogeneity, and allowed to germinate and produce what has become thousands of local interfaith projects and organizations around the globe. As one who has dedicated much of her adult life to this cause, Professor Kusumita Pedersen observes:

This is the greatest contrast to the movement’s early decades, and it seems to signal a new phase. The increase of local interfaith programs is important not only because it represents an ever wider horizontal reach of practical pluralism but also because it actualizes an ever deeper reach. It is in the local setting that members of different religious traditions can meet not just regularly and often but also over time, building enduring friendships and joining together for the long term in ongoing partnerships and mutual education about the realities of their day-to-day lives and their deepest, most abiding concerns.¹⁷

The mission statement of the contemporary Parliament of the World’s Religions concludes with the hope for “a more peaceful, just, and sustainable world.” To attain these good and noble ends, people in grassroots organizations everywhere are voicing their prayers, joining their efforts, and dedicating their lives. Regardless of their differences, they have realized that all of us are interconnected in the Human Family and that our collective future depends upon achieving these goals. 

The Modern Parliaments

In 1987, an idea began to be discussed around the kitchen table of the monastery at the Vivekananda Vedanta Society of Hyde Park in Chicago. Swami Varadananda, a current trustee of the Parliament’s board of directors, recalls that he and other devotees of the order founded by Swami Vivekananda were interested in celebrating the centenary of that first international convening.¹⁸ To help to bring this dream into being, the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions was incorporated as a non-profit organization dedicated to extending the spirit and legacy of the 1893 event through subsequent global gatherings.  The Chicago monk stresses that the first Parliament “has been described as a watershed event, meaning that the world changed—a new idea, an idea of interfaith harmony, of interfaith dialogue, of religions trying to understand rather than compete with each other—came out of that Parliament, and . . . out of the message of Swami Vivekananda. . . .”¹⁹ Daniel Gómez-Ibáñez, the first executive director of the Council, reminisces about the beginnings of the modern Parliaments, saying: “The non-Western religions all understood that their origins and their visibility in the West could be traced back to 1893 to the original World’s Parliament of Religions. . . . So the very first people who got involved were people from the communities representing non-Western religions.”²⁰ 

When the centenary celebration took place, however, participants from many different religions, both East and West, were enthusiastically engaged. But the two Chicago events were not the same, as Braybrooke emphasizes:

In many ways the 1993 Parliament was very different to the one which it commemorated. The optimism and “frontier mentality” of 1893 had long gone. By 1993, the Cold War had ended and there was growing anxiety about the dangers of globalization and American imperialism. . . . [Moreover, t]he range of religions and spiritual movements in 1993 was far, far larger. Indeed, Spiritualist and New Age movements were conspicuous more so, perhaps than the Protestant churches.²¹

Seager comments on the dissimilar nature of the two convenings, as well, writing:

By late nineteenth-century standards, the first Parliament was a liberal assembly, infused with a progressive post-millennial spirit, while partaking of the Euro-American triumphalism of the age. Its controlled structure buttressed its organizers’ intention to present to the world both the essential unity of all religions and the supremacy of Christianity. The second Parliament was marked by a more egalitarian spirit. At the same time, it displayed a more critical concern for the impact of modernity on different peoples, traditions, and the planet. Its decentered structure seemed to mirror the intention of its organizers to affirm the complexity of the religious world of the late twentieth century.²²

It might be said that the first Parliament was an event consistent with the attributes of modernity—with its appreciation for the expert voices that represented the centers of influence in North America and beyond. The centennial Parliament, on the other hand, exhibited traits of postmodernity—non-totalizing (refusing “to impose one, overarching pattern upon the complex possibilities of life”), non-objective (recognizing that “all perceptions of reality contain an element of subjectivity and may therefore be suspect”), non-univocal (admitting that the “pursuit of knowledge is a participatory activity, a shared quest”), and non-elitist (insisting that “we listen not only to those from privileged positions . . . but also to those who are usually not given a chance to speak”).²³

Following the 1993 Parliament in Chicago, where Hans Küng brought the draft of a “Global Ethic” which was debated, modified, and endorsed by prominent figures from multiple religions, there have been four subsequent, international Parliaments which have fleshed out many of those shared ethical concerns. These convenings occurred in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1999; Barcelona, Spain, in 2004; Melbourne, Australia, in 2009, and Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2015.  The average attendance at these multi-day conferences has been 8,000 persons from all around the globe.  Massive plenary sessions have included presentations by spiritual leaders like the Dalai Lama of Tibetan Buddhism; Christian author and founder of Sojourners, Jim Wallis; Sri Sri Mata, or Amma, the Hugging Saint of Hinduism; Rabbi David Rosen, the British-born director of the American Jewish Committee’s Department of Interreligious Affairs; New Age Spirituality guru and humanitarian Oprah Winfrey; Chief Arvol Looking Horse, the Lakota Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe; and Shirin Ebadi, Muslim judge and human rights activist from Iran. These striking sessions have also featured Nobel Laureates such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and Ireland’s Mairead Maguire; political figures like Presidents Nelson Mandela and Jimmy Carter; academics including historian of religions Karen Armstrong and primatologist Jane Goodall; and international specialists like Jim Young Kim, head of the World Bank, climate change gadfly Al Gore, and Wei Ming Tu of China, the premier Confucian philosopher. Supplementing these plenaries have been between 600 and 1,000 breakout sessions at each Parliament—excellent opportunities for persons committed to the beliefs and actions of the interfaith movement to present their own ideas. Additionally, a Sacred Music Concert, art and photography exhibits, film premiers, and a massive exhibition hall filled with educational and craft materials add to the “world’s fair” atmosphere.

The overall impact can be life-altering.  That was the testimony of Franciscan Sister Georgene Wilson, who wrote:

The experience of the Parliament changed my vision. It was as if the soul of the cosmos met my glance with bold embrace. For a week of creation we coincided as if there were but one homeland where blessing was the law of the land. We exchanged the breath and fire of life in word and ritual, in poetry and dance, in confirmation and challenge, in tears and laughter, in fears and faith, in inspiration and invitation to global awareness as well as to a global ethic. Because of the experience of the Parliament my heart has grown more loving. My spirit breathes more fully. My desire for “unity coinciding in diversity” longs more passionately. I suspect I will forever be changing the filters through which I gaze and receive.²⁴

The 2018 Parliament in Toronto

The seventh global convening of the Parliament will be in Toronto November 1-7, 2018.  It is appropriate that the most inclusive interfaith organization in the world will meet in what the United Nations call the “most diverse city” on Earth.  As one of our partners in Canada noted, “More than 140 languages are spoken in the city every day, and . . . over half [of Toronto’s six million inhabitants] were born outside of Canada, representing more than 200 ethnic origins.”²⁵ Toronto is a fitting host for such a pluralist gathering, indeed!

Three critical issues—promoting climate change, advancing justice, and countering hate, violence, and war—and three important constituencies—Indigenous peoples, women, and the next generation of emerging leaders—will anchor this Parliament’s programming. Thousands of participants from 70 countries and 50 religions are anticipated. Trustees, staff, and volunteers have been working for many months in Canada, the United States, and other parts of the world to launch this remarkable conference.

Who should come to Toronto? Those who want to hear important speeches or enjoy music and movement as varied as the Japanese Shinto taiko drums, Balinese Hindu barong performance, African Christian children’s choirs, Jewish hava nagila dance, Indian Sikh rebab and dilruba, Turkish Sufi whirling dervishes, Australian aboriginal digeridoo, and Tibetan Buddhist monks chanting multiple harmonic tones from a single throat.  And, those who plan to participate in ceremonies or rituals that come from religions other than their own. Or, those who desire meaningful conversations with persons from other spiritual traditions, when shared life stories and dreams are discovered to be so similar. Plus, those who hope for a place in today’s troubled world that reflects the inspiring words of Swami Vivekananda, who said about himself, his religion, and his nation: 

I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth.²⁶

Of all those who should come to Toronto, however, most of all it will be those who joyfully seize the moment to join with people of good faith—of many good faiths—so that, having been informed, engaged, and motivated—they may return home inspired to help create a more peaceful, just, and sustainable world. 

— Rob Sellers is professor of theology and missions emeritus at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon Seminary in Abilene, Texas. He is the immediate past chair of the board of the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago. He and his wife, Janie, served a quarter century as missionary teachers in Indonesia. They have two children and five grandchildren.

Bibliography

Braybrooke, Marcus. Pilgrimage of Hope: One Hundred Years of Global Interfaith Dialogue (London: SCM Press, 1992), 13. Quoted in Marcus Braybrooke. Widening Vision: The World Congress of Faiths and the Growing Interfaith Movement.  London: Braybrooke Press, 2016.

Braybrooke, Marcus. Widening Vision: The World Congress of Faiths and the Growing Interfaith Movement.  London: Braybrooke Press, 2016.

Burg, David. Chicago’s White City of 1893. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1976, 284-285. Quoted in Richard Hughes Seager. “General Introduction.” In The Dawn of  Religious Pluralism: Voices from the World’s Parliament of Religions, 1893, edited by Richard Hughes Seager, 3-12. LaSalle, IL: Open Court Publishing Company, 1993. “Chicago 1893: General Introduction.” accessed July 7, 2018, https://parliamentofreligions.org/parliament/Chicago-1893.

Chittister, Joan. Welcome to the Wisdom of the World and its Meaning for You: Universal Spiritual Insights Distilled from Five Religious Traditions. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2007.

Eck, Diana L. “Foreword.” In The Dawn of Religious Pluralism: Voices from the World’s Parliament of Religions, 1893, edited by Richard Hughes Seager, xiii-xvii. LaSalle, IL: Open Court Publishing Company, 1993.

Fox, Matthew. One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths. New York: Penguin Group, Inc., 2004.

Gómez-Ibáñez, Daniel. “First Director of Parliament,” accessed July 7, 22017,  https://parliamentofreligions.org/videos/ daniel-gomez-ibanez-first-director-parliament.

Jones, Jenkin L. Jones. A Chorus of Faiths as Heard in the Parliament of Religions. Chicago: Unity Publishing Co., 1893, 25. Quoted in Richard Hughes Seager. “Part I: Introduction.” In The Dawn of Religious Pluralism: Voices from the World’s Parliament of Religions, 1893, edited by Richard Hughes Seager, 15-16. LaSalle, IL: Open Court Publishing Company, 1993.

Küng, Hans. Public statement given March 31, 2005, at the opening of the Exhibit on the World’s Religions at Santa Clara University, accessed July 7, 2018, http://quotegeek.com/personalities/hans-kung/10296.

McDaniel, Jay. With Roots and Wings: Christianity in an Age of Ecology and Dialogue. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1995.

Pedersen, Kusumita P. “The Interfaith Movement: An Incomplete Assessment.” Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 41, no. 1 (Winter 2004):228-245, reprinted in Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions. State of Interreligious Movement Report, June 2008.

Seager, Richard Hughes, ed. The Dawn of Religious Pluralism: Voices from the World’s Parliament of Religions, 1893. LaSalle, IL: Open Court Publishing Company, 1993.

Seager, Richard Hughes. “General Introduction.” In The Dawn of Religious Pluralism: Voices from the World’s Parliament of Religions, 1893, edited by Richard Hughes Seager, 3-12. LaSalle, IL: Open Court Publishing Company, 1993.

Seager, Richard Hughes. “Part I: Introduction.” In The Dawn of Religious Pluralism: Voices from the World’s Parliament of Religions, 1893, edited by Richard Hughes Seager, 15-16. LaSalle, IL: Open Court Publishing Company, 1993.

Seager, Richard Hughes. “The Two Parliaments, the 1893 Original and the Centennial of 1993: A Historian’s View.” In The Community of Religions: Voices and Images of the Parliament of the World’s Religions, edited by Wayne Teasdale and George Cairns. New York: The Continuum Publishing Company, 1999.

Sellers, Robert P. “A baptist View of Missions for Postmodernity.” Review & Expositor, 100, no. 4 (Fall 2003).

Swami Varadananda, “Sharing Parliament Stories,” accessed July 7, 2018,  https://parliamentofreligions.org/videos/sharing-parliament-stories-swami-varadananda-    and-imam-abdul-malik-mujahid/.

Swami Vivekananda. Quoted in “Swami Vivekananda Quotes,” accessed July 7, 2018, http://www.swamivivekanandaquotes.org/2013/11/swami-vivekananda-quotes- from.html.

Toulouse, Mark. Quoted in “Toronto, Canada Named Host of the 7th Parliament of the World's Religions in 2018,” accessed July 7, 2018, https://www.parliamentofreligions.org/parliament/ 2018-toronto/toronto-host-2018-powr.

Vivekananda. “Impromptu Comments.” In The World’s Parliament of Religions, edited by John

H. Barrows, 1:170-171. Chicago: Parliament Publishing Company, 1893. Quoted in The Dawn of Religious Pluralism: Voices from the World’s Parliament of Religions, 1893, edited by Richard Hughs Seager. LaSalle, IL: Open Court Publishing Company, 1993.

Wilson, Georgene L. “Gazing into the Cosmic Soul: A Participant’s Reflection on the  Parliament.” In The Community of Religions: Voices and Images of the Parliament of the World’s Religions, edited by Wayne Teasdale and George Cairns. New York: The Continuum Publishing Company, 1999. 

Footnotes

¹ Richard Hughes Seager, ed. The Dawn of Religious Pluralism: Voices from the World’s Parliament of Religions, 1893 (LaSalle, IL: Open Court Publishing Company, 1993).

² Diana L. Eck, “Foreword,” in Ibid., xiv.

³ Richard Hughes Seager, “General Introduction,” in ibid., 3-4.

⁴ David Burg, Chicago’s White City of 1893 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1976), 284-285, quoted in Ibid., 4.

⁵ Marcus Braybrooke, Pilgrimage of Hope: One Hundred Years of Global Interfaith Dialogue (London: SCM Press, 1992), 13, quoted in Marcus Braybrooke, Widening Vision: The World Congress of Faiths and the Growing Interfaith Movement (London: Braybrooke Press, 2016), 254.

⁶ Hans Küng, public statement given March 31, 2005, at the opening of the Exhibit on the World’s Religions at Santa Clara University, accessed at http://quotegeek.com/personalities/hans-kung/10296. 

⁷ Richard Hughes Seager, “Introduction,” in The Dawn of Religious Pluralism, 15.

⁸ Jenkin L. Jones, A Chorus of Faiths as Heard in the Parliament of Religions (Chicago: Unity Publishing Co., 1893), 25, quoted in Ibid.

⁹ Quoted in Braybrooke, Widening Vision, 256.

¹⁰Ibid., 257.

¹¹ “Chicago 1893: General Introduction,” accessed at https://parliamentofreligions.org/parliament/Chicago-1893.

¹² Vivekananda, “Impromptu Comments,” in John H. Barrows, ed., The World’s Parliament of Religions (Chicago: Parliament Publishing Company, 1893), 1:170-171, quoted in Seager, The Dawn, 336-337. 

¹³ Braybrooke, Widening Vision, 256.

¹⁴ Joan Chittister, Welcome to the Wisdom of the World and its Meaning for You: Universal Spiritual Insights Distilled from Five Religious Traditions (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2007), xi, xiv.

¹⁵ Jay McDaniel, With Roots and Wings: Christianity in an Age of Ecology and Dialogue (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1995), 140.

¹⁶ Matthew Fox, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths (New York: Penguin Group, Inc., 2004), 4-5.

¹⁷ Kusumita P. Pedersen, “The Interfaith Movement: An Incomplete Assessment,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Vol. 41, No. 1, Winter 2004, reprinted in Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, State of Interreligious Movement Report, June 2008:245.

¹⁸ Swami Varadananda, “Sharing Parliament Stories,” accessed at https://parliamentofreligions.org/videos/sharing-parliament-stories-swami-varadananda-and-imam-abdul-malik-mujahid.

¹⁹ Ibid.

²⁰ Daniel Gómez-Ibáñez, “First Director of Parliament,” accessed at https://parliamentofreligions.org/videos/ daniel-gomez-ibanez-first-director-parliament.

²¹ Braybrooke, Widening Vision, 258.

²² Richard Hughes Seager, “The Two Parliaments, the 1893 Original and the Centennial of 1993: A Historian’s View,” in The Community of Religions: Voices and Images of the Parliament of the World’s Religions, ed. Wayne Teasdale and George Cairns (New York: The Continuum Publishing Company, 1999), 27.

²³ See Robert P. Sellers, “A baptist View of Missions for Postmodernity,” Review & Expositor, Vol. 100, No. 4 (Fall 2003) for a discussion of relevant traits of postmodernity.

²⁴ Georgene L. Wilson, “Gazing into the Cosmic Soul: A Participant’s Reflection on the Parliament,” in The Community of Religions: Voices and Images of the Parliament of the World’s Religions, ed. Wayne Teasdale and George Cairns (New York: The Continuum Publishing Company, 1999), 71. 

²⁵ Mark Toulouse, quoted in “Toronto, Canada Named Host of the 7th Parliament of the World's Religions in 2018,” accessed at < https://www.parliamentofreligions.org/parliament/2018-toronto/toronto-host-2018-powr>.

²⁶ Swami Vivekananda, quoted in “Swami Vivekananda Quotes,” accessed at http://www.swamivivekanandaquotes.org/2013/11/swami-vivekananda-quotes-from.html.

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