This is a recap of the info that has been published in the New
Oxford Review.
Lee This file contains three items that have been published in
the New Oxford Review about the United Religions Initiative (URI): a December 1998 cover
story by me, an April 1999 letter to the editor from me, to update the readers about URI
activity, and - in the May 1999 issue - Bishop Swing's reply to the December 1998 article.
You may re-post this information freely, as long as you give credit to me as the author
and to the New Oxford Review as the publisher.
Lee Penn LeePenn@aol.com
**************************************
The United Religions Initiative - A Bridge Back to
Gnosticism By Lee Penn
"If I'm wrong, I'm dead wrong" - Bishop Swing
Bishop William Swing of the Episcopal Church's Diocese of California thinks he is
building a religious bridge to the new millennium, and he wants everybody on Earth to
cross it with him. His United Religions Initiative (URI) is trying to create a kind of
parliament of religions, "a permanent assembly, with the stature and visibility of
the United Nations, where the world's religions and spiritual communities will gather on a
daily basis, in prayerful dialogue and cooperative action, to make peace among religions
and to be a force for peace among nations." As Bishop Swing has said, the world is
moving toward "unity in terms of global economy, global media, global ecological
system. What is missing is a global soul." And how will this global soul be found or
created? By conferences, networking, fundraising, declarations, and press releases.
The URI to date has held three annual summit conferences, each time with more
attendees, among them various Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Shintoists, Bahá'is,
Sikhs, Hindus, Zoroastrians, New Age followers, Wiccans, and representatives of aboriginal
religions. (There have been no representatives from the Vatican or from evangelical
Protestant churches.) These conferences have called for a 72-hour worldwide religious
"cease-fire" on December 31, 1999, and have issued a draft "United
Religions Charter." In June of 2000, the URI plans to stage global ceremonies marking
the signing of this Charter, for by then the URI hopes to have enrolled 60 million people
in what it describes as "a Worldwide Movement to create the United Religions as a
lived reality locally and regionally, all over the world."
This may all sound like just a fond liberal dream, but the URI is gaining support, and
it plans to raise $10 million between now and 2001, with Dee Hock, creator of the Visa
card, helping Bishop Swing on fundraising and organizational development. In the past two
years, interfaith meetings to build support for the URI have occurred in Great Britain,
New York City, Argentina, South Africa, Venezuela, the Netherlands, Los Angeles, India,
Kenya, Japan, Brazil, and Belgium.
The URI has branch offices in Washington, D.C., and Belgium, but its headquarters is in
San Francisco, and on its full-time staff is the Rev. William Rankin, formerly the dean of
the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (It was Rankin who said -
regarding the ecclesiastical trial of Episcopal Bishop Walter Righter for ordaining an
openly homosexual deacon - "Heresy implies orthodoxy, and we have no such thing in
the Episcopal Church." Truer words were never spoken.) In addition to Bishop Swing,
two prominent Anglican bishops support the URI: James Ottley, the Anglican Observer at the
United Nations, and Samir Kafity, Bishop of Jerusalem. Many liberal Protestants are
participating in the URI; no evangelicals are doing so. No Eastern Orthodox bishops are
currently active in the URI, though in 1996 Bishop Swing received a statement of support
from Shenouda III, Pope of the Coptic Church, and from a bishop of the Mar Thoma Syrian
Church.
Within the Catholic Church, opinion about the URI is divided. Rome stands firm against
it, but some theologians, priests, and sisters - and a few members of the hierarchy -
actively support it. At Rome in 1996, Bishop Swing met with Cardinal Arinze, head of the
Vatican's Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue. Bishop Swing received a firm rebuff from
the Cardinal; he reported that the Cardinal "said that a United Religions would give
the appearance of syncretism and it would water down our need to evangelize. It would
force authentic religions to be on an equal footing with spurious religions."
Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, who works under Cardinal Arinze, pointedly ignored Bishop
Swing's invitation to attend the 1997 URI summit conference.
Some Catholics, however, are not following Cardinal Arinze's lead. Paul Evaristo
Cardinal Arns, the recently retired Archbishop of Săo Paulo, Brazil, is claimed by the
URI as a "strong supporter," and Archbishop Anthony Pantin of Trinidad is
forming a URI support group in his country. Fr. Gerard O'Rourke, director of ecumenical
affairs for the Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco, has been an enthusiast for the URI
from its beginning, serving on its Board of Directors. He took part in its 1995 interfaith
service which announced the URI to the public. Other Catholic URI supporters include Fr.
John LoSchiavo, S.J., Chancellor of the Jesuit-run University of San Francisco (and a
member of the URI Board), and Fr. Luis Dolan and Sister Joan Kirby (associated with the
Temple of Understanding). Theologians supporting the URI include Paul Knitter, senior
editor of Orbis Books and professor at Xavier University, and Hans Küng. (Both
theologians are dissenters from the Magisterium.)
Meanwhile, the quest for a global soul is also attracting some global power brokers.
Billionaire currency speculator George Soros has added the URI to the long list of
recipients of his largesse. He also funds Choice in Dying (which supports legalizing
assisted suicide), needle exchanges for drug addicts, and groups that his foundation
believes "will protect women's access to comprehensive reproductive health care,
including abortion." Soros's ambitions, like Swing's, are large, but he is not
daunted. "It is sort of a disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the
creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it
out," Soros has said.
The Gorbachev Foundation's "State of the World Forum" is another ally of the
URI. There is no formal link between the Gorbachev Foundation and the URI, but URI staff
member Paul Andrews has said, "We are friendly colleagues. Some people go to both
meetings." One of these people is Alan Jones, Dean of Grace Cathedral (Bishop Swing's
own parish); Jones is a member of the Forum's San Francisco Coordinating Council. URI
supporter Robert Muller, former Assistant Secretary-General of the UN and Chancellor of
the University for Peace in Costa Rica, is on the Forum's International Coordinating
Council.
The State of the World Forum was a co-sponsor of the 1996 URI summit conference, and
the Forum's own glittery annual meetings in San Francisco (intended to establish "a
kind of global brain trust") attract the usual assortment of rich people,
celebrities, activists, and gurus. On the spiritual side are Stanislav Grof (a
"transpersonal psychologist"), Hal Puthoff (an ESP researcher), Barbara Marx
Hubbard, Charlene Spretnak (of the Green Party), Matthew Fox, Sam Keen, Deepak Chopra, Ram
Dass, and Tony Robbins. The most prominent self-identified Catholic attending the meeting
in 1997 was Frances Kissling, executive director of Catholics for a Free Choice, a group
that supports legal abortion.
More substantially and more worryingly, other notable members of State of the World
Forum committees include Bruce Alberts (President of the National Academy of Sciences),
Kim Daejung (President of South Korea), Willie Brown (Mayor of San Francisco), John
Schlegel, S.J., (President of the University of San Francisco), Federico Mayor (Director
General of UNESCO), and, of course, Ted Turner.
Documents from the 1995 State of the World Forum show some of what these folks want us
to do. We must "create an ecumenical, ecological theology centered in a renewed sense
of reverence for the environment"; religions must "wrestle with questions of
sexuality, contraception, abortion, and family planning" in order to control
population growth. Gorbachev got more specific in 1997, saying that "for a certain
transitional period families should limit themselves to one child." Once the world's
population is stabilized, the former Communist premier would consider upping our ration to
two children per family.
Schemes for global government and notions of the global soul drift in clouds of gaseous
rhetoric from Gorbachev's Forum, Swing's URI, and various prophets of the New Age who
support the URI. One such prophet is the aforementioned Robert Muller, who describes
himself as a Catholic but whose many writings consistently offer a different notion of
salvation. As he said in an interview in a Theosophist newsletter, "The UN is
humanity's incipient global brain.... We still need a global soul, namely our
consciousness and fusion with the entire universe and stream of time.' He has written that
our "supreme interests" include "the apotheosis of the human race,"
and blandly asserts that "The world's major religions in the end all want the same
thing." He has declared his belief in karma and reincarnation, but to those who balk
at political and spiritual globalization he promises a hellish destiny: "Their souls
will be parked in a special corral of the universe for having been retarding
forces...."
Muller wrote the World Core Curriculum, now being taught in 29 "Robert Muller
Schools" around the world, and thinks it should be the basis for universal
educational reform. The World Core Curriculum Manual says that the "underlying
philosophy" of the Muller Schools "will be found in the teachings set forth in
the books of Alice A. Bailey by the Tibetan teacher, Djwhal Khul (published by Lucis
Publishing Company)...and the teachings of M. Morya as given in the Agni Yoga series
books." What those books "set forth" is Theosophy, a Gnostic movement that
arose in the 19th century and has had significant influence on New Age and occult
movements worldwide in this century. A vice president of the Lucis Trust (which issues the
Theosophist newsletter cited above and runs Lucis Publishing) has said of Muller that he
"apparently has been influenced by Alice Bailey's works.... We have been a great
supporter of his work."
(Alice Bailey, be it noted, wrote in 1946 that the new United Nations should be ready
to use the atomic bomb against aggression, "whether that aggression is the gesture of
any particular nation or group of nations or whether it is generated by the political
groups of any powerful religious organisation, such as the Church of Rome, who are as yet
unable to leave politics alone." You read it here first: This fountainhead of New Age
globalism was prepared to nuke the Vatican.)
Another New Age supporter of the URI is Barbara Marx Hubbard, a "futurist."
Hubbard endorsed the URI, saying that "joined with other comparable efforts," it
may be the catalyst for a "great awakening" of the planet, a "Planetary
Birth Day." Her basically Gnostic message is delivered in book after book. Here,
culled from her works, is a synopsis of the gospel according to Hubbard.
Salvation? "Multitudes of self-saviors is what we are, for those who have eyes to
see." The Fall? "The serpent symbolizes an irresistable [sic] energy that is
leading us toward life ever-evolving." The body? "We will soon be released from
the fleeting imprisonment of mind by the material world." Man's place in the
universe? "We can create new life forms and new worlds. We are gods!" The
problem of evil? "Evil - the devil - is evolution's selection process that constantly
weeds out the weaker from the stronger." The Scriptures? Hubbard offers us Episcopal
Bishop John Spong of New Jersey as a reliable interpreter of the Bible. He's the bishop
who recently said, "Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead." The doctrine of
Christ? "The New Order of the Future will help emancipate Christ from the walls of
the church to reveal him to be the potential in each man and woman on Earth." The
scandal of the particular? "The period of separate sects and dogmas gives way to the
period of co- creative consciousness when everyone is attuning [sic] to the same
pattern." Male and female? "Your adolescence will be a joy. You will be
androgynous." As for self murder: "When we feel that our creativity has run its
course, we gracefully choose to die. In fact, it seems unethical and foolish to live
on."
For those of us who don't get with the program, the alternative Hubbard offers is
irrelevance and extinction - "like the dinosaurs." Hubbard warns that "the
selection process will exclude all who are exclusive." (And you thought evolution was
a random process.)
Even better known perhaps than Muller and Hubbard is Neale Donald Walsch, whose cozy
Conversations with God books have made him the Don Camillo of the New Age. [Author's note:
Don Camillo was a popular, orthodox Catholic writer in the 1940s and 1950s.] The URI has
given Walsch the leadership of its "Committee on Spirituality and the Global Social
Agenda." Yet even with Walsch's and God's awesome responsibilities, the two still
take time for the chats that have produced their bestsellers.
Walsch's celestial confidant has told him that "There's no such thing as the Ten
Commandments." "God's Law is No Law. This is something you cannot understand. I
require nothing. " "Hitler went to heaven...." "There is no hell, so
there is no place else for him to go." "Obedience is not what I want from you.
Obedience is not growth, and growth is what I desire." Adam and Eve "are said to
have committed Original Sin. I tell you this: it was the Original Blessing." The sin
of envy? Envy, God informs Walsch, "is a motivator. It is pure desire. It gives birth
to greatness." In fact, God has said, "Forget about religion," and "It
is religion which has filled the hearts of men with fear...." God has also informed
Walsch of His wish for a bicameral world government and the redistribution of wealth. One
bit of this divine plan is worth quoting more fully: "Nothing could be purchased
without [the world government's] Credits. There would be no other negotiable
currency." There is a biblical warning about this kind of system: St. John the Divine
said there would come a time when "no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark
or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.... His number is 666" (Rev.
13:17-18).
Other New Age supporters of the URI include the Very Rev. James Parks Morton, formerly
the Dean of the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, and now
President of the Temple of Understanding. While at St. John the Divine, Morton said,
"The language of the 'Sacred Earth' has got to become mainline." He acted on
this belief by holding St. Francis Day communion services that invoked the gods Ra, Ausar,
and Yemenja. It was from the pulpit of this cathedral in 1979 that James Lovelock first
publicly explained the Gaia theory - that the earth as a whole is a living, conscious
organism.
The attraction of New Age leaders to the URI should not be a surprise, given the
influence of the New Age movement in Bishop Swing's own diocese. Matthew Fox, formerly a
Catholic priest, was accepted into the Episcopal priesthood in 1994 by Bishop Swing. Since
then, Swing has offered unswerving public support to Fox, allowing "Rave Masses"
to occur at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco and lending $85,000 of diocesan money to help
Fox establish the University of Creation Spirituality. Grace Cathedral is also home to
Veriditas, led by Lauren Artress, an Episcopal priestess and an honorary Canon of the
Cathedral. Veriditas promotes walking through labyrinths as a transformative spiritual
experience, a way for people to "be reminded of our soul-assignments," a means
for "being connected to the Divine feminine."
Regarding New Age advocates' influence on the URI, Fr. O'Rourke has said, "No one
person has that kind of dominance in this organization. If our board thought they were
creating a platform for the New Age movement, they would hit the ceiling." Well,
maybe the URI board should now meet in a room with a padded ceiling.
Despite concerns arising from the Twilight-Zone-ish agenda of some URI supporters and
allies, shouldn't Catholics and other traditional Christians support the URI? Isn't a
movement toward global understanding, even if imperfect, worth supporting?
In a word: No. The URI is gravely flawed, from its foundation up. Christians should not
offer it any support, though they ought to monitor its activities closely.
The first problem is that many prominent URI supporters openly equate evangelism -
preaching the Gospel - with conquest and manipulative proselytism; they see orthodox
Christians as "fundamentalists" who put "peace" at risk. This bias
does not appear in official URI documents [Author's note: it does now; see the 4/99 and
5/99 'Letters to the Editor' below], but it does appear when URI supporters speak as
individuals. At a February 1997 URI forum at Grace Cathedral, URI board member Paul Chafee
said, "We can't afford fundamentalists in a world this small." URI board member
Rita Semel said that fundamentalism "comes out of fear and ignorance." At an
April 1997 URI forum, board members Sri Ravi Peruman said that religions have
"invaded and crusaded," "subverted and converted." Pacific Church News
reported: "Calling statements about 'authentic religious freedom' for everyone, 'the
freedom to proselytize,' Peruman said that there should be a universal Declaration of
Rights not to be converted to another religion." The San Jose Mercury News reported
that at the 1996 URI summit conference, URI supporter Robert Muller said that "peace
will be impossible ... without the taming of fundamentalism through a United Religions
that professes faithfulness 'only to the global spirituality and to the health of this
planet'."
The second problem is that many prominent URI supporters favor religious syncretism and
wish to promote a novel, Earth-centered spirituality. Again, this is not in official URI
documents [Author's note: it is now; see the 4/99 and 5/99 'Letters to the Editor' below];
they reiterate that "there is no desire to create one big religion." However, in
1996 Bishop Swing spoke of the world's youth adding "a little yoga to the words of
The Prophet. A little Catechism to a little Dharma.... One way or another, in Bangalore or
in your grandchild, a United Religions will happen." Bay Area newspapers reported
that in the 1995 interfaith service at which Bishop Swing announced the URI,
"prayers, chants, and incantations were offered to a dozen deities." "Holy
water from the Ganges, the Amazon, the Red Sea, the River Jordan, and other sacred
streams" was mixed in a common "bowl of unity" on the altar of Grace
Cathedral. At the 1997 URI summit conference, a public worship service included a
procession of 15 banners representing 15 religions (including a banner for the Wiccans,
the neo-pagan witchcraft movement). The fifteenth banner had on it an empty silver circle,
representing "the religions which are to come."
The third problem is that the URI leaders take a feminist worldview for granted. Bishop
Swing said in 1997 that one reason he expanded the scope of the URI to include New Age
movements (he calls them "modern spiritual movements") is that they include
women as leaders, while traditional religions do not. (Cardinal Ratzinger replied
succinctly to feminism in Salt of the Earth: Feminist ideology "traces all existing
institutions back to power politics. And this ideology corrupts humanity and also destroys
the Church.")
The fourth problem is that URI leaders view religion as captive to the world. Anglican
Bishop James Ottley, a URI supporter, said in 1997 that "the world's agenda is the
agenda of the church," a sentiment expressed in other words by many URI proponents.
The URI's close connection with the New Age movement means the URI is promoting
something Pope John Paul II denounced in Crossing the Threshold of Hope: "the return
of ancient gnostic ideas under the guise of the so-called New Age." The Pontiff
added, "We cannot delude ourselves that this will lead toward a renewal of religion.
It is only a new way of practicing gnosticism - that attitude of the spirit that, in the
name of a profound knowledge of God, results in distorting His Word and replacing it with
purely human words." The Pope said that Gnosticism "has always existed side by
side with Christianity, sometimes taking the shape of a philosophical movement, but more
often assuming the characteristics of a religion or para- religion in distinct, if not
declared, conflict with all that is essentially Christian."
The documents of Vatican II and the encyclicals of John Paul II don't support Catholic
participation in the URI, either. The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church rejects the
notion that all religions are of equal value; it also states that "Each disciple of
Christ has the obligation of spreading the faith, to the best of his ability." The
Decree on Ecumenism - which deals with unity among Christians, not unity among all
religions - says, "Nothing is so foreign to the spirit of ecumenism as a false
irenicism which harms the purity of Catholic doctrine and obscures its genuine and certain
meaning. " The Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions
states that the Church "is in duty bound to proclaim, without fail, Christ who is the
way, the truth, and the life." The Declaration on Religious Liberty says that the
Church's support for religious freedom "leaves intact the traditional Catholic
teaching on the moral duty of individuals and societies towards the true religion and the
one Church of Christ." In the apostolic letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente, John Paul
II says that in Church-sponsored dialogue with "the leaders of the great world
religions," care will always be taken to avoid "the risk of syncretism and of a
facile and deceptive irenicism." And in Ut Unum Sint, an encyclical dealing with
unity among Christians, John Paul II says, The unity willed by God can be attained only by
the adherence of all to the content of revealed faith in its entirety. In matters of
faith, compromise is in contradiction with God who is Truth."
Many of the URI's leaders, supporters, and allies are liberal Protestants, dissident
Catholics, New Age adepts, feminists, and wealthy progressives with a plan to save the
world. With a cast of characters like this, how could the URI go in a positive direction?
Most prominent URI supporters have agendas that are inimical to orthodox Christianity,
Orthodox Judaism, and traditional Islam. If the URI succeeds in gaining global influence,
it will become another opponent of the Church, another supporter of the already dominant
relativist worldview.
A prayer card issued in 1996 by the URI contains an image of the birth of a new star,
with the slogan, "Join a world waiting ... for the birth of a new light ... United
Religions. " We Christians already have a light that cannot fail, for Christ said,
"I am the light of the world" (Jn. 9:5). There is no reason to "join a
world waiting for the birth of a new light" that is not Christ, for Christ said,
"take courage, I have overcome the world" (Jn. 16:33).
Bishop Swing has asked for prayers on behalf of the URI. In a spirit of true ecumenism,
let us respond to his request. Roman Catholics may begin: "O God, look mercifully
upon all those who are seduced by the deceit of Satan, that all heretical impiety may be
removed and the hearts of those who err may repent and return to the unity of Thy
truth." The Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholics may join in: "Those who
depart from the Orthodox Faith, dazzled by destructive heresies, do Thou enlighten by the
light of Thy holy wisdom, and unite them to Thy Holy, Apostolic, Catholic Church."
And evangelicals may close the prayer: "In Jesus' name, Amen!"
We can let Bishop Swing have the last word. On September 11, 1996, he extolled the URI
to a meeting of 200 San Francisco Episcopal lay leaders, and said: "We're talking
about salvation history here. If I'm wrong, I'm dead wrong."
The Bishop has spoken; the case is closed.
Side bar quote:
"The believer in God is not he who utters the name in his speech, but he for whom
this sacred word stands for a true and worthy concept of the Divinity. Whoever identifies,
by pantheistic confusion, God and the universe, by either lowering God to the dimensions
of the world, or raising the world to the dimensions of God, is not a believer in
God."
Pope Pius XI, Mit Brennender Sorge (the 1937 encyclical against Nazism)
(December 1998 New Oxford Review - feature story; written in June 1998)
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Letter to the Editor of New Oxford Review, by Lee Penn -
printed in the April 1999 issue
Since I wrote my article "The United Religions Initiative, a Bridge Back to
Gnosticism," which appeared in the December NOR, the United Religions Initiative
(URI) has become clearer about its opposition to Christian evangelism and its desire for a
New Religion.
The URI is spearheaded by Bishop William Swing of the Episcopal Church's Diocese of
California, and in his new book The Coming United Religions, he habitually and explicitly
equates religious conversion with violence. Bishop Swing identifies Judaism, Christianity,
and Islam as "exclusive religions." He then says, "In order for a United
Religions to come about ... there will have to be a godly cease-fire, a temporary truce
where the absolute exclusive claims of each will be honored but an agreed upon neutrality
will be exercised in terms of proselytizing, condemning, murdering, or dominating. These
will not be tolerated in the United Religions zone."
Here's his logic: Link "proselytizing" (a.k.a. evangelism, the God-given duty
of the Church) to "condemning, murdering, or dominating" - and then say that
none of these will be tolerated in "the United Religions zone" - the whole
world. And, of course, if a United Religions is not only to "come about" but to
stay about, that "temporary truce" will have to be renewed in perpetuity.
Swing envisions the major faiths - Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism,
and the indigenous religions - converging like multiple paths up a mountain to a single
point, a "unity which transcends the world." At the top of the spiritual
mountain are the esoteric believers from each religion; they "intuit that they were
ultimately in unity with people of other religions because all come together at the apex,
in the Divine. Everyone below the line would be identified as exoteric. These people in
all religions would wed the form of faith to the content or final truth of their own
faith. Thus, the forms of one's faith become absolutized because these forms, alone, are
held to carry the truth."
Pity, then, the straightforward, exoteric followers of Jesus, who take Him at His
exoteric word when He says, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes
to the Father, but by me."
Swing says, "The United Religions will not be a rejection of ancient religion but
will be found buried in the depths of these religions." Can Swing prove this from the
depths of the Christian Faith - from Scripture and from the teachings of the Church
Fathers and the Ecumenical Councils? If, indeed, United Religions were to be found
"buried in the depths" of the Christian Faith, countless early martyrs could
have avoided agony and death by burning incense in front of the statue of the Roman
Emperor, and today's martyrs in Sudan, China, and elsewhere could apostatize with a clear
conscience.
Swing claims that "In the same way that the United Nations is not a nation, the
United Religions would not be a religion." Nevertheless, the URI is becoming more
explicit in its support for a New Religion, as shown by the URI's draft Charter currently
circulating worldwide. According to the draft Charter, the URI would "respect the
sacredness of the whole of Planet Earth." The URI would create "solstice and
equinox festivals, the natural earth holidays." There would be a "URI course to
'retool' both clergy and lay religious leaders in the philosophy of spiritual
ecology." The draft Charter says "We believe in the universality and eternity of
the Spirit. We believe that all religions derive their wisdom from that ultimate Source.
Therefore, the world's faith traditions share in common wisdom, which can be obscured by
differences in religious concepts and practices." To make this unity explicit, the
URI will develop a new "theology of acceptance" to "help the world's people
explore common ground" and foster awareness of "unity within religious
diversity," would create a common collection of "sacred writings and oral
wisdom," and would share "spiritual practices."
There would be a new object of devotion - the sacred Earth, a new philosophy of
"spiritual ecology", new Earth-centered holidays, a new theology to promote
"unity within diversity," a new collection of sacred writings and traditions,
and shared prayer. All of this adds up to a new creed, a new code, and a new cult - a New
Religion.
In his book, Bishop Swing himself states, "Originally I thought that the impetus
for the coming together of religions would be finding a common moral voice and taking
mutual action - without getting into the areas associated with spirituality: meditation,
contemplative prayer, sacred writings, end-time hopes, wisdom, etc. But I no longer think
that. If there is ever going to be a United Religions it will only happen because the
Ultimate Ground of Being wills it. ... A United Religions will ... have a distinct
spiritual momentum ... ." Swing gives direction to this "distinct spiritual
momentum." He calls for a "common language and a common purpose for all
religions and spiritual movements ... Merely understanding and respecting other religions
is not enough."
As I noted in my December NOR article, "some [Catholic] theologians, priests, and
sisters - and a few members of the hierarchy - actively support" the URI. Let's hope
they cease and desist, and that all Catholics stand firm against the URI, as Rome is
doing.
********************************
Bishop Swing's Letter to the Editor of New Oxford Review -
printed in the May 1999 issue
"I read Lee Penn's December article on the United Religions Initiative (URI). It
was a rich opportunity wasted. The author could have taken the purpose and principles of
the URI or methods and design, and he could have begun a probe about the truth of the
matter. Instead, he armed himself with just enough extraneous, selective background to
appear as though he had a grasp of the subject. By the end of the first full paragraph he
gave way to hysterical propaganda; by the end he was using prayer to God as a vehicle for
his hatred. Lies abounded - e.g., George Soros has never supported the URI in word or
dollar. Penn assumes an unlimited capacity for paranoia in his readership, so he
breathlessly serves up a decadent assortment of non sequiturs hoping to satiate even the
least discerning appetite. He states his first two objections to the United Religions
Initiative and in both instances said that what he finds repulsive is not the actual
policy of the URI. What the URI stands for and aspires to has been presented openly for
anyone to read. It is a shame that the truth could not have been the focus. Pursuing peace
among religions is a threatening prospect to millions of people. I assume this Penn sides
with the sword.
The Rt. Rev. William E. Swing United Religions Initiative Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of
California San Francisco, California
Lee Penn replies:
There is a lawyers' saying that applies to the Episcopalian Bishop's letter: "If
you have the law on your side, argue the law. If you have the facts but not the law, argue
the facts. If you have neither the facts nor the law on your side, pound the table and
shout." That's what Bishop Swing is doing. Every part of my article about the URI is
based directly on what Bishop Swing, the URI, the Gorbachev Foundation's State of the
World Forum, and their New Age allies have said in books, in magazines, on the Internet,
and in interviews. An updated version of the New Oxford Review story, with footnotes for
every item, will soon appear in the Journal of the Spiritual Counterfeits Project, a
Berkeley-based evangelical Christian think tank that describes itself as "a frontline
ministry confronting the occult, the cults, and the New Age movement."
Bishop Swing says, "Lies abounded; e.g., George Soros has never supported the URI
in word or dollar." Maybe Swing does not know what his own organization has been
doing. An article on the front page of the March 1997 URI News Update, the official URI
newsletter, states, "The Copen Family Foundation, the Soros Foundation and I*EARN,
(International Education and Resource Network) have awarded $20,000 to establish a URI
Youth Network." Once the Bishop has checked up on what his own staff is doing, he
should take time to read carefully what has been said by Robert Muller (who has publicly
supported the URI since its founding), Barbara Marx Hubbard (a member of the URI
"Organizational Design Research and Development Team" set up at the 1997 URI
summit), Neale Donald Walsch (who describes himself as "chairperson of the Committee
on Spirituality and the Global Social Agency for the United Religions Initiative")
and the State of the World Forum. All of this was discussed, briefly, in my article.
Bishop Swing says that his goal is simply "pursuing peace among religions."
His own writings, however, indicate a much broader agenda for the URI. In his 1998 book,
The Coming United Religions, Bishop Swing calls for a "common language and a common
purpose for all religions and spiritual movements ... Merely respecting and understanding
other religions is not enough." For further evidence that the URI is ultimately about
creating a new syncretistic religion, see my letter in the April [1999] New Oxford Review.
******************************
Since these letters were printed, the Vatican has said - as it did in 1996 - that it
does not support the United Religions Initiative. In a letter published in the June 1999
issue of Homiletic & Pastoral Review, a magazine for Catholic priests, Fr. Chidi Denis
Isizoh, of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (the Vatican body
responsible for interfaith work) said: "Religious syncretism is a theological error.
That is why the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue does not approve of the
United Religions Initiative and does not work with it. Indeed, when Bishop Swing came to
the Vatican City in 1996 to solicit support from the Council, Cardinal Arinze clearly
expressed his reservations about the proposal. As the United Religions Initiative
develops, the reasons for not collaborating with it become more evident."
*************************************
Lee Penn, a health-care information systems consultant in San Francisco, is a member of
Our Lady of Fatima Byzantine Catholic Church, a parish of the Russian Catholic Church (one
of the 21 Byzantine Catholic Churches in communion with the Holy See).
By agreement between the author and the New Oxford Review, this story may be
distributed freely on the Internet, on two conditions:
1. That you give credit to the author and to the New Oxford Review, the Catholic
magazine which published the story and the associated letters. 2. That you do not alter
this text when you re-distribute it.
To obtain a copy of the magazines issue containing the December 1998 story and the
associated letters in the April and May 1999 issues, or to subscribe to the New Oxford
Review, contact the New Oxford Review at 1069 Kains Ave., Berkeley, CA 94706-2260.
