World Council of Religious and Spiritual Leaders for World Peace and Unity

World Council of Religious and Spiritual Leaders for World Peace and Unity

Objectives of Steering Committee Meeting 

One of the stated goals of the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders that took place at the United Nations in August 2000 was to set in motion the process for the formation of a World Council of Religious and Spiritual Leaders. This Council will be a permanent body and function as a resource for the Secretary-General and the United Nations in their efforts to build a lasting peace. 

The growth in interfaith activity over the last decade leading up to the Summit has already laid much of the groundwork for such a Council. The unique role of the World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders is to forge an alliance of religious and spiritual leaders with the United Nations, an ideal forum in which to address world problems. The outcome of the Summit was the signing of a Commitment to Global Peace, in which religious leaders accepted religious diversity, condemned all violence perpetrated in the name of religion, and committed themselves to fostering mutual respect among their communities. These principles will be the foundation for the Council. 

Currently, no organizational body exists where religious leaders from the major faith traditions can come together to provide guidance to the human community on critical issues. Today, as they have for centuries, religious voices speak out individually, each addressing their own religious community. There is no means for issuing joint statements to demonstrate the convergence of the religious traditions on key matters. 

While these voices often express similar ideas and values, they tend to reach only the adherents of their respective faiths. Stronger collaboration by the religious leadership would positively impact the global community. There was consensus among the Steering Committee that world circumstances in the one year since the Summit – the increase in violence in the Middle East and the terror attacks of September 11 – have heightened the need and readiness of religious communities for a World Council, which could provide a stimulus for greater cooperation. 

A main function of the Council would be to build a community of world religions to serve as a model and guide for the nations and peoples of the world. 

Mission of the Council 

The Steering Committee identified four major thrusts for the Council:

1.Fostering the universal values intrinsic to all religions

2.Upholding and celebrating religious and ethnic diversity by cultivating an attitude of mutual respect

3.Employing the moral power of religion to address major social and environmental challenges

4.Encouraging times of world prayer and meditation to aid in the transformation in global consciousness toward greater unity

Post-September 11th, religious leaders recognize the need to move beyond what they have done in the past and to create a new entity that will serve the entire world community with a new vision that includes an acceptance of others. Isolated religious communities will no longer be able to achieve this larger human goal on their own. The mandate is to see all faiths as part of one family. The need is to transform religious points of view from an exclusive to inclusive way of thinking. As the Archbishop of Canterbury said in a recent conversation, 'We need to redefine our theologies for the modern age.' While it may not yet be clear what this 'redefining' entails, the movement emerging from the Summit, and quickened by the events of September 11, is toward a refocusing on what the religions have in common, rather that how they differ. 

This refocusing will enable religious communities to engage with each other in a way that promotes harmony rather than division. An easing of religious tensions will provide the human community with a greater capacity to address the true problems of our era. 

The formation of a community of world religions will be the essential mission of a newly created World Council of Religious and Spiritual Leaders. Its activities will be geared toward building cooperation at the highest level across all faith traditions. The Council will provide opportunities for the world’s religious leaders to come together on a regular basis to address critical issues. Ultimately, it will help create a shift in the thinking and behavior of people, and aid in fostering greater acceptance of other traditions and a new sense of shared global responsibility. 

Religious leaders have a unique asset – their spiritual resources. An important function of the Council will entail fostering spiritual practices on a global scale – such as world prayers in times of crisis. 

The mission of the World Council 


The World Council of Religious and Spiritual Leaders aims to serve as a model and guide for the creation of a community of world religions. It seeks to inspire women and men of all faiths in the pursuit of peace and mutual understanding. It will undertake initiatives to provide the spiritual resources of the world’s religious traditions to assist the United Nations and its agencies in the prevention, resolution and healing of conflicts, and in addressing global social and environmental problems. By promoting the practice of the universal human values shared by all religious traditions, and by uniting the human community for times of world prayer and meditation, the Council seeks to aid in developing the inner qualities and external conditions needed for the creation of a more peaceful, just and sustainable world society. 

                  http://www.millenniumpeacesummit.org/news011022.html

The Importance and Role of Religious Leaders' Activities
against Evil Doers' Violence and Conflicts have very significant meaning of bringing World Peace on the earth through the Cessation of War. In this days all Religious Leaders should come together and make every efforts to create Peaceful World for mankind.