Ted Turner once called Christianity a religion for stupid people. He urged that adultery get tossed out of the Ten Commandments. At a black-tie dinner, he made an offensive joke about the Pope. Yet for four days in August, Ted Turner convened a world conference of religious and spiritual leaders in New York City.

Turner set the tone of the meeting almost immediately. On opening day he bounded energetically toward the enormous main podium in the UN General Assembly Hall to thunderous applause from the reported 800 religious leaders and 1,000 observers. Turner’s entrance was like that of a beloved conqueror. The adoration grew even more intense when he immediately launched into a vigorous denunciation of his childhood Christian fundamentalism.

First he said he wanted to be a missionary, and everybody at the conference laughed. He said his little Christian sect, however, was “intolerant” because it taught that only they were going to heaven and no one else. “It just confused the devil out of me because I said heaven is going to be a mighty empty place with nobody else there. So I was pretty confused and turned off by it. I said, ‘It just can’t be right.’”

Turner did not balance his youthful understanding of Christianity with a more mature reflection. Given past pronouncements, Turner’s remarks were not as surprising as the reaction of the crowd of “religious and spiritual leaders” who rose and vigorously applauded, fists and clapping hands pummeling the air. They hooted and hollered like it was an old-time revival meeting. Keep in mind these were “religious and spiritual” leaders from all over the world, and this was supposed to be a meeting in which all beliefs were equally respected. But it was clear from this first moment of the conference that at least evangelical Protestants were not welcome.

Turner dreams that all the sharp edges of strong religious faith can be pared away, that all theological differences can be agreed out of existence, or at least set aside for the real work of mankind. He dreams of a room big enough for the religious leaders of the world to get together to talk. Then this group could go into the service not of souls, but the service of the United Nations, which Turner believes is the real hope of mankind’s salvation.

Turner was not alone in this dream. He shared it with former US Senator Tim Wirth, the man who ran the Clinton Administration’s population control negotiations at the International Conference on Population and Development at Cairo in 1994. He shared it with New Age Canadian billionaire Maurice Strong who spearheads something called the Earth Charter initiative, an effort proponents call a “new Ten Commandments.” Turner shared it with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. And they all agreed to hold the Millennium Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders in New York City for four days in August.

Major religions left out of religious summit
This is the story of how a meeting that was supposed to advance the causes of peace, love, and understanding became little more than a confab between the Far East and the far left. While this meeting brought together hundreds of religious leaders, observers noted it was bereft of at least numerically proportionate representation of the two largest faiths, Christianity and Islam. They point out further that most of the Christians present were politically left of center.

Putting simple numbers aside, the meeting ignored or insulted the theological beliefs of Christians and Muslims. Organizers claim benignity, saying they only want to advance the cause of peace. Still, critics wonder how a meeting organized principally by Ted Turner could advance the cause of mutual understanding between faiths, let alone between warring countries.

What was apparent from the beginning was that the meeting was awash in cash. Essentially a meeting of non-profit, non-governmental organizations, the meeting took place partly in the giant UN General Assembly Hall, a place that does not come cheaply. One diplomat speculated that Ted Turner paid the UN $12 million for its use. What’s more, most of the meetings took place in conference rooms at the wildly expensive Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Park Avenue on the east side of Manhattan. The Grand Ballroom alone was reserved all day and night for four solid days. Much of the fourth floor was reserved for private meeting rooms for conference organizers. And a few days after the meeting’s close, a full-page ad ran in the New York Times at a cost of at least $80,000.

While the meeting was born from the mind of Ted Turner, the principal organizer was Turner’s hand-picked “Secretary General” Bawa Jain, member of a karma- and reincarnation-believing far-eastern sect called Jainism whose members frequently take the name of the sect. The dark-bearded Bawa Jain is a long-time fixture in UN spiritual circles and is connected to something called the Temple of Understanding, the Rev. James Morton’s Interfaith Alliance, and the Vatican-condemned United Religions Initiative.

Jain began inviting religious leaders as long ago as early 1999. He said he traveled the world for 18 months presenting his vision to religious and political leaders. “Despite the best efforts of individual religious and spiritual leaders from different parts of the world, the human family is still unable to prevent the eruption of horrible acts of war,” said Jain. “Even at this moment, terrible conflicts threaten the lives of large numbers of people in various parts of the globe. There is a growing conviction that new measures must be sought to arrest violent conflict in the years ahead.”

Turner and Jain’s idea was threefold. First, it was to bring together world religious leaders just to talk and to find common ground. Second, they intended to issue a declaration on world peace. Third, and the major work of the conference, was to establish a permanent body attached somehow to the UN that would advise it on religious and spiritual matters. The body would also “parachute” into trouble spots around the world and defuse them. Organizers repeatedly suggested that most conflicts are based on either ethnic or religious differences, and therefore religious leaders were specially positioned to fix them. All these intentions came to naught. And perhaps the seeds of its failure were planted in the very beginning with the list of leaders invited.

Jain invited leaders from Hinduism, Sikhism, Shintoism, Judaism, Taoism, Christianity, Islam, Jainism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Confucianism, and indigenous religions. Not that this conference was supposed to be a representative democracy, but some observers felt that the two largest religions that represent fully one-third of humanity, Christianity and Islam, were vastly outnumbered by other, mostly eastern faiths.

“This Summit was a Hindu-Jain show,” said a Catholic priest familiar with the UN. From the great number of orange-robed holy men wandering all over the swank Waldorf, it appeared the eastern faiths were very well represented at the four-day Summit. “I wonder if this was really India’s attempt at getting a permanent slot on the Security Council,” said one skeptical Summit delegate. The seeming over-representation of the eastern faiths could have come from the natural inclination of Summit chief Bawa Jain.

A well-connected Muslim delegate also complained about what he felt was only a token presence of both Christians and Muslims. He explained that an overwhelming number of countries are under administrative control of either Christians or Muslims, yet he felt both religions were under-represented. “If this body is to have any credibility at all, it must address the concerns of both Christians and Muslims,” he said.

The conference was awash in the literature of the Far East. Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, who practices “ayurvedic medicine” circulated literature that said the way to world peace is to stop spanking. “In our homes when we strike our children, we teach everybody to beat everybody else, and the beating goes on, right on down the line, until they are a soldier or a gang member or a rebel, and then they are fighting to kill.” The Satguru also said that it was Christian culture from Britain that imported these notions to Hindu culture in India. Another of the many Hindus there, Dr. Bhupendra Modi wrote, “In one way or another, all religions recognize the existence of God. Despite their different paths, all religions [are] in essence one and convey the similar message.” H.H. Acharya Shri Krishnamaniji Maharaj distributed a booklet describing the “March Toward Universal Religion.” There were dozens of such papers around the conference room. The idea that all religions are the same is an idea rejected by both Christianity and Islam.

Still, it wasn’t just Turner and the east that bashed Christianity. The Rev. Joan Campbell, who frequently defends various liberal causes, including Fidel Castro, received cheers when she condemned “conversion.” An American Indian explained that at one time all people were “indigenous people” and it was Christianity that separated people from their early faith and therefore condemned the environment to degradation. So it went at the World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders.

East v. West
What nationality is the sun? African? American? Indian? Russian? What color is the air? Black? Brown? White? Yellow? Which race does space belong to? The Human Race? What is the religion of water? Hinduism? Christianity? Islam?

These deep thoughts stood on posters leading into the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf. Parody is superfluous, if not impossible, here; yet the meeting was really like this. The message, repeated endlessly for days, was that conflict was bad and was caused by too strongly held religious faith—generally Christian or Islamic—that poverty was caused by the rapacious ownership of the means of production, and that mankind was hell-bent on destroying planet earth.

It’s not that sensible voices were absent. There weren’t very many, but they were present. On opening day in the General Assembly Hall, the Patriarch of Ethiopia actually called for the protection of the unborn. The packed audience greeted this call with absolute silence. The next speaker, the secretary general of the World Muslim Congress, said that marriage could only occur between a man and a woman, and then he condemned all forms of “sexual abnormalities.” Again, deafening silence greeted him. It wasn’t that the crowd was not listening, however, because the very next speaker, a Buddhist “Master,” received a standing ovation when he condemned all attempts at religious conversion.

Cardinal Francis Arinze, head of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, read a statement from Pope John Paul II. The Holy Father is a longtime champion of ecumenism, properly understood, and has supported the kind of interreligious prayer and dialogue the World Peace Summit purported to be. “I have followed with interest the preparations for the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders . . . and through you I am happy to greet all those taking part in the Summit,” read Cardinal Arinze. “The problems facing humanity now are so large and complex that no single people or nation can solve them in isolation; nor can the building of peace be the work of politicians and diplomats alone. It is a task to which all must contribute, and religious and spiritual leaders have an especially important role to play.” After the anti-Christian tenor of the opening day speeches, however, one Vatican source described Cardinal Arinze as “furious.”

The central concern of the Summit was taken up in small seminars of the three major themes: peace, poverty reduction, and environmentalism. They included, among many others, “The Role of Religion in Conflict Transformation,” “Ending the Violence of Poverty and Environmental Degradation,” “Poverty: Is this How the World Should Be?,” “Environment: Trustees of the Earth/ Responses of Indigenous Peoples” and so on.

At least the organizers presented some interesting pairings. They placed together what appeared to be opposing factions from the war in Sudan. The Rev. Ezekiel Kutjok of the Presbyterian Church of Sudan appeared with Sudanese Islamic spokesman Dr. Abdul-Rahim Ali M. Ibrahim. Sadly, both men mostly toed the Islamic government line. Each essentially said that the conflict was really about territory and not about religion. Catholic Bishop Macram Max Gassis travels the world telling a wholly different story, that the northern Islamic government is waging a specific war against Christians in the south and taking thousands of them into slavery.

The organizers also paired Abeno Pails, the Patriarch of Ethiopia, with Abeno Fillips, the Patriarch of Eritrea, whose countries have been locked in a bloody war for many years. Still, it seemed the news had to be occurring somewhere else, somewhere off stage, perhaps in tiny rooms. Or maybe not. Maybe this was all there was.

Earth religion
What was abundantly clear was what many saw as the radical nature of many of the proposals, and at least some of the organizers. One of the chief proposals bandied about was something called the Earth Charter, and one of the more interesting and alarming organizing groups was the United Religions Initiative, a five-year-old group that has already been condemned by the Catholic Church.

The Earth Charter, a pronouncement on the environment, grew from the frustrations of the organizers of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro, 1992) who wanted some kind of environmental charter adopted there. Shortly after the Rio Conference, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev joined with Canadian billionaire Maurice Strong to begin a process which they hope will end in the universal adoption of this document.

During the conference wealthy American professor Steven Rockefeller, who served as chairman of the Earth Charter drafting committee, presented it for the consideration and support of Summit participants. In his introduction, Rockefeller explained that “the biosphere is in us, and we are in the biosphere.”

The Earth Charter, which some promoters describe as a “new Ten Commandments,” promotes a broad range of what many consider to be extreme environmental notions. Early drafts of the Charter raised the suspicion of Christians when references to “Mother Earth” seemed to verge on the pagan.

In sixteen major points, the Charter may sound like a benign call for peace, love, and understanding.

Respect Earth and life in all its diversity . . . . Care for the community of life with understanding, compassion, and love . . . . Build democratic societies that are just, participatory, sustainable, and peaceful.

To well-trained ears, however, other points will sound more ominous. “Ensure that economic activities and institutions at all levels promote human development in an equitable and sustainable manner.” The term sustainable generally is understood as approving controversial topics like population control, sterilization, and abortion.

The roots of the Earth Charter can be found in the writings of Gorbachev’s group Green Cross International. “World population must stabilize,” says Green Cross literature. Green Cross goes on to say that “natural resources are finite” and that each person in the world must be assigned a set amount of resources they can use. A world body would monitor this amount of personal resources. Green Cross also calls for the elimination of national sovereignty when it comes to environmental questions. It also calls for an international body for the Sustainability of Human Life on Earth that would have the “power and independence to facilitate agreement between all societal actors to support the protection of the Biosphere as the Common Interest of Humanity.”

According to Rockefeller, already hundreds of cities around the world have agreed to the tenets of the Charter. The Earth Charter campaign is now running in dozens of countries. Governments, businesses, and individuals will be asked to agree to it in the coming months and years. It is expected to be presented for ratification at the UN General Assembly next year.

Charter proponents presented it to this gathering of religious leaders since they can put a unique kind of pressure on governments and individuals to support its passage.

Proponents hope for UN ratification of the Earth Charter by 2002. They are also working for Earth Charter ratification by individual governments and international corporations. It is thought that the UN Trusteeship Council—the nearly moribund UN “charter body” once entrusted to help “trust territories” to independence—would enforce the Earth Charter. This idea was first considered by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan who said two years ago that the Trusteeship Council should govern “the global commons” which are the air, the water, and the land.

At the center of much of the World Peace Summit was the fairly new and, as yet, little reported movement called the United Religions Initiative (URI). URI is now active in 58 countries on all continents and in 33 states in the United States. Founded in 1995 by Episcopalian Bishop William E. Swing, URI documents call it a “global community dedicated to promoting enduring, daily interfaith cooperation, ending religiously motivated violence, and creating cultures of peace, justice, and healing for the Earth [sic] and all living beings.”

URI leaders intend to create “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.” URI president the Rev. Charles Gibbs describes URI as “an inclusive, decentralized organization, a spiritual partner of the United Nations.”

URI positions are more than religious and delve into the more controversial political issues of the day, including support for population control and environmental extremism. URI is also radical on sexuality. URI’s president and vice-president have signed a new document called the Religious Declaration in Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing produced by the radical pro-abortion group SEICUS (Sexual Information and Education Council of the US). This declaration opposes “unsustainable population growth,” and supports homosexual marriage, artificial contraception, and abortion.

URI observers believe it is an effort to create a new world religion. In 1995, Swing said the world was moving toward “unity in terms of global economy, global media, global ecological system. What is missing is a global soul.” What will be most troubling to those of conservative or orthodox faith is the heavy emphasis and representation of New Age ideology in the URI. Many of URI’s strongest proponents are noted New Age writers and thinkers such as former UN official Robert Muller and popular writer Neal Donald Walsh.

URI and its supporters believe one of the major stumbling blocks to their endeavors is the presence of “fundamentalists.” Swing has condemned traditional notions of Christian evangelization. He suggests that “proselytizing, condemning, murdering, or dominating will not be tolerated in the United Religions zone.” The UN’s Muller says the UN should lead “vigorous actions” against “religious fundamentalism.”

The Vatican promotes religious ecumenism but condemns URI. “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,” said one Vatican official.

In the end, the World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders achieved very little. It did bring many diverse people to the table, but still mostly left out the two dominant world religions, Christianity and Islam. The Summit will probably be seen as a meeting of mostly liberal politicians and eastern religious; the Far East meets the far left. The Summit did produce a feel-good document, although it was written well in advance and was in no way negotiated by Summit participants. It appeared in a New York Times ad at the Summit’s close, but it was signed only by Bawa Jain. And lastly, no permanent body was established to advise the UN on religious and spiritual matters. Organizers said “religious leaders” had committed to it, but they didn’t say who agreed.

Perhaps the prognosis for the World Peace Summit can be seen in an incident that occurred early in the week. During the seminar on conflict resolution a shoving match broke out over audience access to the microphone. Six security guards weighed in and scattered what appeared to be a rugby scrum of ten mostly Far Eastern clerics. The chairman abruptly ended all audience participation.