William E. Swing, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese appeared on a

San Antonio radio show, the host said he was ''out to destroy the core of all religions and blend everyone into one.''

SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS
FAITH IN DIALOGUE
LEADERS FROM WORLD'S MYRIAD RELIGIONS GATHER AT STANFORD IN HOPES OF TRANSCENDING BELIEFS, BORDERS WITH 'SPIRITUAL U.N.'
Monday, June 23, 1997
Section: Front
Edition: Morning Final
Page: 1A
BY RICHARD SCHEININ, Mercury News Religion and Ethics Writer
Illustration: Photos (4)

Caption: PHOTO: Swing
[970623 FR 12A 2]
PHOTO: Gandhi
[970623 FR 12A 3]
PHOTO: PATRICK TEHAN -- MERCURY NEWS
Volunteers Socrates Olympio, left, and Diana Daane hang a banner bearing the symbol for Christianity at the site of United Religions' weeklong conference, which opens this morning at Stanford University.
[970623 FR 1A 2]
PHOTO: The Venerable Jinwol, a Buddhist from Korea, fills out a registration form for the gathering of the world's religions at Stanford.
[970623 FR 1A 5]

A WORLD assembly where Muslims and Jews, Christians and Buddhists -- representatives of any and all religions -- can come to the table and settle their differences is the ambitious goal behind a historic conference that starts this morning at Stanford.

The hope: To chip away at the barriers that have spawned centuries of suspicion and conflict among faiths.

''We're talking about calling the entire world of religion into a global dialogue,'' said William E. Swing, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California. He envisions a ''spiritual United Nations'' where hundreds of delegates will sit down and wrestle with issues of war, poverty, environment and population.

In practical terms, the so-called ''United Religions'' organization would have no official power. But its planners, 200 of whom gather this morning at Stanford, hope the proposed world body will move interfaith discussions away from the ivory tower to the pew, from the conference room to the real world. If humanity has a common spiritual heritage, then spiritual leaders must leverage that knowledge to help end religious and ethnic conflict.

This isn't the first time religious leaders have sought to reach out so ambitiously to one another. Modern efforts to create a world religious parliament date back more than a century but have always faltered. With the rise of global information and financial networks, organizers feel their moment has arrived.

''We believe we can put out the fires,'' said Iftekhar A. Hai, director of the San Jose-based United Muslims of America and a United Religions director. ''I think you will find a lot of people at this conference who really believe that the time is now.''

Planning began in earnest two summers ago after an interfaith celebration of the United Nations' 50th anniversary at Grace Cathedral. Then in early 1996, Swing left the cathedral for a three-month world tour, gathering support from the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and other spiritual superstars. Now comes the grunt work: The 200 delegates from all continents must delineate the mission and agenda of the United Religions Initiative.

Expanding scope

Delegates include Arun Gandhi, a grandson of Mohandas Gandhi and director of a non-violence institute in Memphis. There will be rabbis, imams, Catholic priests, Buddhist monks and lay people from most every tradition. More novel are the spiritually minded business consultants, philanthropists and directors of international environmental groups who will expand the conference beyond the typical scope of interfaith gatherings.

They are coming because the United Religions Initiative is col laborating with the management school at Cleveland's Case Western Reserve University. A year ago, faculty members read about the initiative and, excited by its potential, phoned Swing and the Rev. Charles Gibbs, executive director of the initiative. ''I really wanted to get them involved with people who know how to build organizations and how to make linkages across cultures,'' said David Cooperrider, chairman of the school's Center for Social Innovations in Global Management, which studies and collaborates with 75 international, non-profit groups. The religious initiative ''sparks people's imaginations more than any other story I've been involved in,'' he said.

There are critics, of course. When Swing appeared on a San Antonio radio show, the host said he was ''out to destroy the core of all religions and blend everyone into one.'' A few conservative Christians have likened the initiative to the anti-Christ. But Swing was welcomed by 1,200 youths at a Rotary Club session in Wisconsin. And he has made some progress with a skeptical religious hierarchy.

Archbishop's support

''This time last year, the Archbishop of Canterbury would hardly give me an appointment,'' Swing said. ''Now he's sending me personal letters, saying, 'The more I travel the world, the more I'm convinced you're on target.' ''

But it's still an up-and-down business, this building of a world religious forum: ''One moment, you're talking to the Dalai Lama; the next moment, you're licking stamps,'' Gibbs said.

A year ago, the United Religions Initiative consisted of Gibbs; Swing; his wife, Mary; and a handful of volunteers. They had begun investigating funding sources and dreamed about a 10-acre site in the Presidio where a United Religions complex might some day stand. But as Swing and Gibbs traveled to discuss the project -- smaller regional conferences have been held in Buenos Aires, New York and Oxford, England this year -- the numbers of people actively involved rose to about 1,500.

The possibilities for religious cooperation via the Internet and other electronic technologies became obvious. And plans to build headquarters for another international body in North America began to feel presumptuous: ''There are plenty of places we could meet all over the world,'' Swing said last week. ''We don't need to spend hundreds of millions of dollars for new buildings.''

Plans open-ended

San Francisco still might be a ''symbolic place to put a letterhead and office,'' he said. But plans, which call for the organization's charter to be written by 2000, are largely open-ended. It's the purpose of the conference to chip away at some of the looming issues: Who will be represented? In what numbers? Will Christians have more representatives than, say, the Jains? Will there be representation for small spiritual communities?

To some, the very process of formalizing interfaith collaboration poses a danger: ''I'm for the conversation. I'm not sure I'm for institutionalizing it or locating it somewhere,'' said Glenn R. Bucher, president of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and one of the 200 attendees. The possibility that too many rules will kill the spirit of the dialogue is ''the problem lurking in the hallway,'' he said. ''Most of these people, I suspect, represent religious institutions and will want to institutionalize it. And I think there needs to be more of a movement than an organization.''

For a century, since the founding of the modern interfaith movement, its leaders have said that all faiths proclaim the oneness of God and unity of humankind.

That message was proclaimed by the Temple of Understanding, a worldwide interfaith organization co-founded in 1960 by Eleanor Roosevelt and a then-homemaker named Juliet Hollister, now 80 and attending the Stanford conference. Hollister, too, obtained the endorsements of everyone from the Dalai Lama to Pope John XXIII. Last week, she remembered the headlines accompanying the Temple's 1966 dedication in the Washington, D.C., suburbs: '' 'Spiritual United Nations Dedicated in the Nation's Capital.' Ambassadors were there and all sorts of famous people.''

Generation may be ready

The big buildings never went up, yet the Temple held conferences for years. And with the increase in global communication, Hollister said, a new generation may be ready for a higher level of religious cooperation: ''My age group always says, 'We love you, dear Juliet, but you're crazy,' '' she said. ''I find today that the kids from 25 to 35, they get it instantly. . . . People think I'm just peaches and cream, when I'm used to getting kicked in the teeth.''

''Jesus said there are two great commandments, and one is to worship God and the other is to honor your neighbor,'' said Swing, who met a ''hard-nosed fundamentalist'' imam, or Islamic spiritual leader, in India during his travels. The imam, to the bishop's surprise, decided to send a representative because ''he loves the vision. He said, 'Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could all sit at the table and talk about God?' So you never know. You just lay it out there.''

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All content © 1997 SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All archives are stored on a SAVE (tm) newspaper library system from MediaStream Inc., a Knight-Ridder Inc. company.