By Carl Teichrib – September, 2000

 

This article is based on the author’s experience while attending the URI
Charter signing summit.

 

Please visit his website at
www.forcingchange.org

^Home

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Dressed in the garb of their
“faith traditions,” supporters of the global interfaith agenda stood in a large
circle on the Carnegie Melon University campus, located in historic Pittsburgh.
Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, Wiccans, New Agers, Muslims, followers of
Judaismand Zoroastrianism, along with devotees of a multitude of religions
joined together as native spiritualists invoked the “great spirit” and
“cleansed” the circle with smoke from a smudge pot.

Once the smudge had made it
around the group, indigenous drummers from India led the procession to the
University Center. The United Religions Initiative global charter signing summit
was officially opened.

Watching the processional
from the sidelines, it struck me that this organization, the URI, was
nonexistent only five years ago. And while the present charter summit was not
large in terms of attendees, it was designed to make a long-term impact on the
global religious scene. We had gathered to make history. The Pittsburgh URI
summit was a six-day event starting on Sunday, June 25.  

The actual charter signing,
officially launching the world body, was held on Monday, June 26—the same day
that the United Nations charter signing took place back in 1945. This was not a
coincidence. The United Nations, through the vision of UN official Robert Muller
and the events surrounding its fiftieth anniversary, was the guiding force
behind the creation of the URI. Cementing this link, a letter of support from the
San Francisco chapter of the United Nations Association was read on Sunday, and
at the Monday charter signing, a congratulatory conference call came from the
UN.

Unfortunately, due to
technical difficulties, the telephone connection failed. Many other links
between the URI and the United Nations exist. Currently, the URI and UNESCO
(United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) are partners
in the United Nations sponsored International Year for the Culture of Peace, and
in a concurrent peace program called Manifesto 2000.

The URI also has a
“Cooperation Circle” inside the UN. Cooperation Circles, or CC for short, are at
the heart of the URI agenda. CCs are self-organized groups that are “locally
rooted and globally connected.” According to the URI, “Cooperation Circles
support the spirit, values and vision expressed in the URI Charter’s Preamble,
Purpose and Principles and carry out this vision in a multitude of ways.”
Net-working CCs “provide opportunity for worldwide collective interfaith
actions.”

In essence, CCs are local
church-like interfaith settings where URI members come together in
inter-religious worship and interfaith community planning. It’s the URI at the
grassroots level.

On the global level—besides
working with the United Nations—the URI is partnering with various interfaith
world organizations. At the Charter signing, it was admitted that global
inter-religious organizations such as the Council for the Parliament of the
World’s Religions, are larger, have deeper linkages, and work within broader
mandates. In the spirit of global cooperation, the United Religions Initiative
is striving to interface with these more established inter-religious bodies.
Already a CC has been created “to bridge the work of the Council for the
Parliament of the World’s Religions and the URI.”

In order to globally steer the URI, a Global Council is being organized. At the
Pittsburgh summit we were introduced to the Interim Global Council, which was
set-up to solidifying the official development of the URI as an international
organization. According to a URI document given out at the summit, between June
2000 and June 2001, a process will be put in place “to select the 41 members of
the first globally selected Global Council.” Although the document stated that
the Global Council’s “central spirit is not one of control,” in casually
discussing this issue with summit attendees, I was told that “control” was a
real area of concern.

Three URI members I talked
with—one from Eastern Europe, one from the Caribbean, and a New Ager from the
US—privately admitted that the URI has a real potential to become a controlling
factor within the universal interfaith movement. These three attendees—who
supported the summit—recognized the URI and its Global Council as a
potentially dangerous element in suppressing genuine religious freedom. As
the URI Charter’s Preamble explains,

“We unite to support
freedom of religion and spiritual expression, and the rights of all
individuals and peoples as set forth in international law” [emphasis mine].

The URI Charter Principles
also allude to the creation of a controlling interfaith power structure.
Principles 13 to 16 state,

 “We have the
authority to make decisions at the most local level that includes all the
relevant and affected parties. (13) We have the right to organize in any
manner, at any scale, in any area, and around any issue or activity which is
relevant to and consistent with the Preamble, Purpose and Principles. (14) 
[The Charter is broad enough that almost any religious, “spiritual,” moral,
or ethical issue could be construed to be relevant to the URI Charter
Preamble, Purpose and Principles.] Our deliberations and decisions shall be
made at every level by bodies and methods that fairly represent the
diversity of affected interests and are not dominated by any. (15) We (each
part of the URI) shall relinquish only such autonomy and resources as are
essential to the pursuit of the Preamble, Purpose and Principles. URI
members also agree through the Charter not to ‘proselytize’ each other.” 

In other words, members will
not witness to, or proclaim that their religion is the “truth,” lest a member of
another religious tradition become offended. This is interfaithism; the idea
that all religions are pathways to the same mountaintop called “God.” It is the
blending of all spiritual expressions, “truths,” and “gods” into a belief of
global religious tolerance—”unity in diversity” is the motto.

Of the approximately 250 who
participated, “Christianity,” broadly defined, had the most representation. On
June 26, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that numerous “Christian”
denominations, including Roman Catholicism, did not support the URI agenda. This
created a controversy, and at the Monday evening Charter signing ceremony, the
Rev. P. Gerard O’Rourke, Director of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San
Francisco Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs office, gave a firm rebuttal to
the Post-Gazette article.

I want to correct
something that I saw in your paper today in this city. I am here officially
as a member of the Catholic Church, and this is where I should be… I am
officially here. It’s where the Church should be right now—and it is here.
Bless you all.

Immediately following the
Charter signing, I asked Rev. O’Rourke about the role of the Vatican in the
global interfaith agenda. He told me that the Roman Catholic Church had received
guidance from Pope John Paul II—through his words and his inter-religious activi-ties—that
interfaithism is to be vigorously pursued. O’Rourke reminded me that the
Catholic church, since the 1962 Second Vatican Council, had dedicated itself to
advancing global inter-religious cooperation. He also told me that at least
seven other Roman Catholic priests, each highly respected within Catholicism,
were present at the URI charter signing and had offered their support to its
goals. There can be no doubt that the global interfaith agenda is speeding up.

Bishop William Swing, the
Episcopalian founder of URI, sees his inter-religious organization playing a
long-term role in the “new world” agenda. At the summit, Mr. Swing expressed his
hope that fifty years from now, thousands from around the world would come to
Pittsburgh and celebrate the URI’s fiftieth anniversary—much like the United
Nations did in 1995.

What the final role of the
URI will be is not entirely known. And while the organization is presently
small, it is strategically aligning itself within the framework of the global
village.

But how does Jesus Christ fit
into the URI agenda? Not surprisingly, I never heard the name of Jesus mentioned
at the summit. Nor could His name be brought up. After all, it was Jesus Christ
who made it clear in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man
cometh unto the Father, but by me.” The exclusivity of Jesus Christ is in direct
contradiction to the goals of the URI, its Charter, and interfaithism in
general.

Not only does Jesus Christ
claim to be the only way to God, negating all other “ways,” but He commands His
followers to “proselytize”—”teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father, andof the Son, and of the Holy Ghost…” (Matthew 28:19). And in Acts
chapter one, Jesus proclaims that His message will be preached “unto the
uttermost part of the earth.”

Jesus Christ is not
politically correct in the new global order. As mankind works to build a “peace”
based on distorted New Age and interfaith agendas, we who have the peace of
Christ must maintain a steadfast determination to follow the will of
God—recognizing the exclusive Lordship of Jesus Christ and proclaiming His
message of salvation to all the world—regardless of what the cost might be. May
we not be slack in this high calling.

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 Carl Teichrib is a highly respected freelance researcher
and a wise and authoritative writer on issues pertaining to globalization. Please visit his website at
www.forcingchange.org

 

Some
of his earlier articles are:

Re-zoning the World: The Merging of the Americas in a New Global Order

A Short Guide to Occult
Symbols |

Esoteric Christianity

A New
World Agenda – Canada’s Role In Sustainable Development

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