by Kay Lindahl, CLP
from the Interfaith Observer

The 1993 Parliament was a watershed event in interfaith history, following in the footsteps of the first Parliament in 1893. Both events forged new ground and introduced new interfaith possibilities. In addition to making history, the 1993 Parliament transformed my life.

My love affair with the Parliament began before I had even heard of it. In 1989 my husband and I moved to a community where almost everything was new – the oldest buildings had been around for less than 20 years. We became involved in the founding of a church, holding the first service in our living room. We soon found a space to meet in the community room of a local bank.

Within a few months our community became an incorporated city. During this time we met people from other new congregations, of many traditions. Together we lobbied the City Planning Department to include zoning for non-profits and houses of worship in the new city plan, which we accomplished.

We made some wonderful friends during that time, and when that project ended we continued to meet. I invited the group to a conversation asking, “What would it be like to have a strong spiritual base in our community?” By the end of that meeting, we had formed a local interfaith organization, the Alliance for Spiritual Community. Its main focus was interfaith dialogue and being present at community events.

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Leading Catholic theologian Hans Küng discusses his groundbreaking work in applying commonly held religious ethics to business practices. The first modern Parliament of the World’s Religions in 1993, Chicago, culminated in the document “Toward a Global Ethic” which identifies ethical standards held in common by many of the world’s religions.

At the 2009 Parliament in Melbourne, Dr. Küng presented the Manifesto for a Global Economic Ethic, extending these ethical principles to the global economy and the world of business.

Guests include Dr. Aziza alHibri, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Dr. Hans Küng, and His Holiness Swami Chidananda.

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Parliament major speaker Dr Hans Küng called on the Vatican to heed reform calls in the Roman Catholic Church,  The Age reported today.  ”Already the successor of this Pope will have to face the situation that churches are more and more empty, and parishes are without pastors, and communities are dissolving,” Küng said, arguing that reforms not discussed during Vatican II must be acknowledged soon.

Dr Hans Küng is the president of the Global Ethic Foundation of Tübingen University.  On Monday he launched his economic ethical manifesto at the Parliament of the World’s Religions.

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The Age newspaper of Australia has written an article on major speakers Dr Hans Küng and Dr Dipak Jain, participants in the Parliament’s program A New Ethical Manifesto for the Global Economy.  “We have a responsibility to build an adequate financial structure in which ethics is not the icing on the cake,” said Küng, while Jain commented that business schools are partly responsible for the prevailing corporate culture.

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