Faith in Action

Sulak Sivaraksa exudes a rare blend of calm and passion for action. Carrying a tall gnarled staff, dressed in a baggy outfit, and with an everpresent cloth bag stuffed with copies of his books, he's a presence wherever he goes. He prides himself on the many labels people attach to him: intellectual, troublemaker, jailbird, engaged Buddhist, spiritual leader. He carries them all with a smile, wise words, and a barb or two.

A monkey, so goes an ancient eastern parable, passed by a stream and saw a fish in the water. Assuming that it must be struggling for breath, he "rescued" it. On dry land, the fish flopped about as the monkey rejoiced in its liberation. But the fish soon died. The monkey was sad that his rescue had come too late.

Zilda Arns Neumann, sometimes called Brazil's Mother Teresa, was among those who died tragically during Haiti's earthquake. She was in Port-au-Prince to share lessons from the enormous church-based child health program she established in Brazil.

Every five years a gathering known as the Parliament of the World's Religions draws people from all over the world. It's happening now, this time in Melbourne, Australia. For seven days, a jam-packed schedule of events ranges from the ultimate and urgent to the personal and pragmatic. There's culture, politics, meditation, exhibitions, bells and, yes, some whistles. Monks mingle with Catholic priests, Hindu swamis with Zoroastrians and Sikhs. Atheists and pagans have their place. Just walking through the crowd gives a vivid portrait of humanity. And a sea of cameras capture the extraordinary scene.

Organizing this parliament represents an immense effort, carried out by a small Chicago-based organization together with people from the city where the parliament is held. And it's expensive. (Disclosure: the World Faiths Development Dialogue that I head sponsors the poverty programs for this parliament). So, apart from its not trivial educational and networking benefits, why does it matter?

My colleague Paul Raushenbush reflected on that very question on opening night. He revels in the fact that here, at the parliament, the truly moderate faces of religion can, for once, be heard. He credits the assembly with two accomplishments: "Rescuing religion from the sole domain of reactionary politics and theologies while simultaneously insisting that religious voices be heard within the political conversation"

Heard on what?

This parliament returns again and again to three topics: the injustice of poverty, the raging perils of climate change, and women's place in religious institutions and thought. Others might highlight other topics, especially the parliament's historic emphasis on peace and reconciliation, but the determination of large groups here to spur action in these three domains is striking. I also find it heartening.

Global poverty always finds resonance in religious discussions, but if you apply the priority test it's not often at the top of the agenda. So the large crowds turning out for panels entitled "Poverty must no longer be with us" and "Poverty in wealthy countries" is a marked change from earlier gatherings. Much more striking was the depth of discussion, wrestling with difficult topics like the implications of moving from charity to social justice, balancing the desire to help someone "with a face" with addressing systems and root causes. People came and listened and they want to act.

Climate change grips the parliament's audience, especially the young. The parliament is taking place so close to the Copenhagen summit that opens this week that an immediate question is what "message" to send there. Some people will travel from Melbourne to Copenhagen to provide their witness but plans are also afoot to make clear the deep concern of a wide range of religious voices: for example, there will be signed banners, a contest for "the question" to ask, and a group plea for action.

A "women's breakthrough" conference happened on the eve of the parliament, and the energy of this group of women's activists, religious leaders, and development workers spilled over into the parliament. The events on gender pulsed with passion and energy. The parliament has long challenged the "patriarchy" that has grown up in most religious traditions, and there are plenty of voices here declaiming the traditional biases within religious groups.

There's also a visible determination to act. Sister Joan Chittister is perhaps the parliament's most evident rock star (the Dalai Lama has yet to arrive) and her events are so mobbed that security people have their work cut out. Hers is one of many bold voices that essentially are saying: enough is enough, women to the fore.

Another fascinating element of this parliament is the strong focus on indigenous peoples. Their representatives often perform songs and dances at plenary sessions but they are also integrated into the intellectual fare. Perhaps the strongest theme here is recognition and respect.

And that effort at respect came through as a recurrent and striking feature of the official welcomes and opening speeches. In every case, Australia's representatives paid tribute to the Aborigines in language along the following lines: "I acknowledge the First Australians on whose lands we meet and the elders who greet us here, and whose cultures we celebrate as the oldest continuing cultures in human history." Imagine hearing that at a Washington event!

Australia's efforts to deal with the tragic legacy of its past abuse of the Aborigines is a strong undercurrent at the parliament. The country's interest in world religions includes indigenous spiritual traditions. "Sorry Day" in 1998, when the government and country apologized for their past behavior and resolved to change the way they deal with Australia's legacy in the present, is rarely far from the conversation. Australia's example of forthright acknowledgement of the past is justly celebrated as a noble example at the global level.

The parliament sees itself as part of a growing global interfaith movement. It celebrates the diversity of religions, always acknowledging that wide differences separate them. But it also builds on a conviction that there is a "global ethic", strong common values and ideas. What seems to be different here is a fresh determination to mobilize the energies and creativity that are so evident in this motley gathering for bold action, for every community, but still more for the planet. Here's power to them!

As Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams occupies a unique position in the religious world, with the potential to bridge religious and secular. As leader of Britain's established religion, he engages constantly with political leaders. So the title of his recent speech in London jumped out at me: "Relating Intelligently to Religion". Heaven knows, surely that's what we need.

As part of a series of seminars organized by the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, Williams argues that faith communities can be serious and effective allies in the struggle against privation. Even more: their participation could infuse the whole "development project" with a renewed political and moral energy. Development groups need to recognize that religious groups are more than a source of cheap labor. For their part, faith institutions should not grumble at what they see as "prosaic accountability and effectiveness."

He acknowledges that implicit, and to him anachronistic, taboos still block an appreciation of religion, despite a slowly increasing awareness that the majority of the world's population have religious convictions. To ignore religion "is to push against the grain of the societies you're trying to help and support."

Williams is unusual in his willingness to recognize that there are valid reasons behind the suspicions and hesitations that block this sensible alliance. We are seeing some played out vividly in Washington, where the Catholic Church threatened to withdraw from its essential and admirable work in the city's poorest neighborhoods if the City Council makes gay marriage legal. For some observers this hammers home the conviction that church and state cannot and should not mix.

Williams acknowledges that there will always be a shadow of suspicion that churches will favor "their own", and that their good social works are really "a cloak for proselytism". Unpacking the problem, Williams urges a level of mutual trust. This, however, is not an easy sell, given the enormous diversity of religious views. He suggests more religious literacy for a start, so development workers are at least aware of the elements in a particular religious culture that would be most fruitful in the struggle against poverty. These could then be utilized "to stimulate effective action and, ideally, change."

Where there are conflicts between the religious approach and the development approach, Williams urges taking them "as genuinely a disagreement, not simply a standoff between enlightenment and prejudice." Otherwise, he suggests, the development effort will be viewed by the locals as "an agenda that is not theirs, activated by foreigners claiming to act on their behalf, co-opting some of the local people into a new and largely alien elite of income and lifestyle." The resulting resentments and mistrust can paralyze development processes.

Williams acknowledges a reality that many prefer to duck: that supporting human rights can be tricky when engaging with religious peoples. Many human rights principles have deep religious roots, especially their focus on an individual's dignity and our responsibility before God for the welfare of each human being. But the language of human rights can be arid and legalistic. We need "to rediscover how to argue robustly in the public arena over broad ideas about what the good life looks like". Like Pope Benedict XVI, he is concerned that the model for good living should not be shaped solely by law and government.

This takes Williams to the global economic crisis and the related fear that development work is still driven by a belief in unrestricted economic growth - "a dangerously naive hope". "An unbalanced distribution of power is in the long run as damaging to the powerful as to the powerless." He highlights the dilemma of a rights discourse that fails to address the true complexity of societies where "'equal' freedoms amount to protecting the liberty of the already secure and wealthy - just as in the discourse of a lot of modern market economics, unconstrained freedom for some means powerlessness for many." Development is not "simply about the prosperous giving something to the poor, but about a gift that contributes to the liberation of both poor and prosperous and transforms both."

Williams' wisdom and call for honest dialogue offer a welcome opening to what could and should be powerful and modern alliances for the common good.

We're seeing many calls to conscience these days. Nibbling breakfast, I clicked on a video where Jacques Diouf, head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, calls on people everywhere to sign an appeal to the World Food Summit that begins November 16 in Rome. He counts aloud to six, then reminds us that in that time a child has died. Karen Armstrong launched a Charter of Compassion on November 12 in Washington. Its aim is a groundswell of citizen action to live the golden rule - to treat others as you would have them treat you.

But translating noble principles and even the passion and energy of millions of "Yes we can"-inspired supporters into action isn't easy, particularly where agriculture is concerned. The path from a $20 billion promise for new resources to bolster agricultural development, made by the G8 in Italy last June, to successful change on tens of millions of African farms is long and bumpy.

So last Friday, working with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and my NGO, the World Faiths Development Dialogue, we gathered a diverse group to ask the loaded question: "what's religion got to do with it?", focusing on agriculture in Africa. A vast array of ideas came forward, bound together by the appreciation that "it's complicated". What made the brainstorming especially interesting was the common reaction that the introduction of religion into the discussion was new, and inspired new ways of looking at the problem.

A first and fairly obvious action area is advocacy. "Give us this day our daily bread" is a prayer that resonates across faith traditions. David Beckmann, President of Bread for the World, and founder of the U.S. Alliance to End Hunger, is convinced that the moral case for fighting hunger can resonate at all levels and across societies. Religious leaders and communities can be strong advocates.

But closer to the farm, it gets more complicated. Every country and community is different and actions at farm level need to be bolstered not only by national policies that affect prices, fertilizer availability, and interest rates, but rich-world policies (especially farm subsidies) that so deeply affect markets and prices. A vast array of faith-inspired organizations and communities are active in agriculture but their efforts are fragmented. Catholic Relief Services, World Vision, and Islamic Relief have agricultural strategies and work in many countries, but tens of thousands of organizations and programs run the gamut from soup to nuts (literally). There's an unmined potential here: while the global donor community backed off agriculture, tempted by other priorities and daunted by its difficulty, many of these organizations plugged on. So they have a wealth of experience, just not collected or pulled together in any coherent way.

Another challenging call is for more partnership, whether between public and private, or among faith-inspired groups and communities. Cutting across faith boundaries offers many theoretical benefits: better understanding, pooling of knowledge and resources, cutting down fear and ignorance that divides communities. It is easier said than done, however. There are promising small examples that offer inspiration but still far to go.

Perhaps the most interesting probing was around how faith affects attitudes towards farming. Farmers combine practicality and pragmatism with faith: they put seeds in the ground and wait for something to happen. In Africa, beliefs in spirit worlds affect how people relate to change - whether new seed varieties, irrigation practices, or land tenure arrangements. It's all very well to imagine that attitudes will change with education but that's not always the case. Bishop Aboagye Mensah from Ghana gently reminded his eminent colleagues of the strong influence Friday the 13th still seems to exert in the United States.

Most of Africa's food is produced by women, so women's roles figure prominently in the new investment strategies. Religion can be a strong force for positive change but it can also trap women in subordinate roles where even contact with an extension worker is cut off.

The word "holistic" is much in vogue these days; it makes the important if hardly surprising point that things are connected. In practical terms for agriculture it harks back to the realization that just vaccinating a chicken or delivering fertilizer rarely achieves good results if done in isolation from other facets of a farm family's life. In many respects, women come at the beginning and end of that process. There's a long way to go to meaningful action.

So we are embarked on a long learning and action process. Next steps? More talking to those concerned -- farmers, pastors, imams, women's groups, government leaders, others. We hope to gather focus groups of recent Peace Corps volunteers who might offer insights and ideas (volunteers welcome). It is daunting to recognize and grapple with the long road between global inspiration like a Charter for Compassion and supporting African farmers looking through a faith lens, but it's good to be trying.

ActionAid in a preparatory release before the Food Summit urged Pope Benedict XVI to pray for a miracle: the $3 billion that the G8 has found in new money to solve world hunger is, they pointed out, less than Goldman Sach's $3.2 billion profit announced on the eve of World Food Day. The real miracles, though, will happen on farms and in families, impelled by a mosaic of actions that build on traditions, address different aspects of people's lives (especially gender roles), and bring new technologies and support in ways that work.

Aicha Ech Channa, a gutsy Moroccan woman, has worked for five decades with young unmarried mothers, who stand at the very bottom of the social heap in her country. Even if their pregnancy resulted from rape, they are condemned as prostitutes and thrown out by their families, and their babies are stigmatized as bastards.

For her work Mrs. Ech Channa just received the world's largest faith-based prize for social entrepreneurship. That's the Opus Prize and it's for one million dollars.

Ms. Ech Channa began as a social worker in Morocco, mostly in the booming port city of Casablanca, a place of sharp contrasts between rich and poor. For years she struggled in her work, seeing only an occasional victory as her protégées threw off their pasts and built new lives. More often, she saw the vicious cycle that is poverty catch the children of unmarried mothers in its vortex and repeat the story of trouble and misery.

Realizing she could do only so much as a government social worker, Ms. Ech Channa formed a private, non-profit organization (Association Solidarité Féminine) that welcomes young mothers, teaches them skills, helps them care for their babies, and works to find them jobs.

Ms. Ech Channa's work is clearly inspired by her faith. She stresses that she draws on the values of equality, human dignity, and compassion that underpin Islam. She talks constantly about the gifts of God. One of her favorite expressions is that something good is a "coucou du bon Dieu" - a little bird from God. Her partners in the early days were a Catholic nun and a priest.

But she does not label her organization as Muslim. Her work, she says, is poised on a knife edge that is sharpened by religion. She is always in danger of attack, especially from religious groups, and fears a social backlash if she pushes too far ahead of the social consensus.

When she started her work, her belief in women's rights and desire to empower unmarried mothers clashed forcefully with the established Muslim order. But over time, Morocco's royal family has personally lent her support, and a new family code, thrashed out openly with religious and secular bodies across Moroccan society, advances women's rights. It combines the positive values and social benefits of the Muslim faith and tradition with the principle of equal rights, challenging traditional ideas about gender roles and family structures.

The Opus Prize aims to honor unsung heroes but the prize itself is rather unsung. The Prize Foundation is an independent nonprofit that cherishes its Catholic values and tries to keep its light pretty much under a basket. It was established by the founder of the Opus Corporation, a real estate development firm, in 2004. [The family prefers to go unnamed.] The prize selection process is largely secret, each year with a different college as a partner (St. Thomas University this year, Fordham next). The college appoints secret "spotters" to identify candidates and a committee and jury to select finalists. The foundation's board (I am a member) visits the finalists and makes the final decision.

So I was part of a group several months ago with a joyful job: telephoning Ms. Ech Channa to tell her that she was the winner of a prize she had never heard of, worth a million dollars. Last week she was basking in glory in Minneapolis, with the two other remarkable finalists: Sister Valeriana Isabel García-Martín from Colombia, who works with handicapped children, and Father Hans Stapel from Brazil, who runs 60 farms to rehabilitate addicts. They each won $100,000. She then spends several days in Washington, including an event at Georgetown.

But the highlight by far of the experience for me was visiting the young mothers in Casablanca, and being a witness to their shelter in the protective arms of their fierce and loving defender.

After that visit last summer, I read Ms. Ech Channa's book, Miseria. It's a series of vignettes of 24 of her "cases", told in graphic but simple language. I set out to translate a snippet from the French, hoping to tantalize a publisher. I could not stop. The stories are so moving, so full of heartbreak, that I translated the whole book. Housemaids as young as six, burned with needles as punishment for trivial slips in their duties, children abandoned or taken away, desperate girls wanting to care for their babies, story after heart-breaking story of what it is like to be an outcast.

But Ms. Ech Channa's story is above all a story of hope and what a person can do with courage and determination. She took on the system despite fearful reactionary forces. With her strong help, Morocco has confronted many of the devils of harsh traditions, including those that condemned women to second-class citizenship. Morocco's family law is widely celebrated as a rare example of legal reforms that draw both on Muslim teachings and tradition and on universal human rights principles.

For Aicha Ech Chenna, there is much to celebrate, in the lives of the young mothers she helps and in the social environment that needs to support them. But there's a long way to go.

As a development practitioner who also teaches about development, I have tended to take the term for granted. But it's far from simple to define. Universities, non-profit agencies, and churches call fund-raising people "development officers" and the word crops up with other meanings in virtually every discipline.

But there's a pretty specific international development community built around the term. The label "development" is attached to a vast array of institutions, including the World Bank (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development), NEPAD (New Economic Partnership for African Development) and the non-profit I head (the World Faiths Development Dialogue, or WFDD). At its simplest, development can be understood as the path to a more prosperous life.

A visit to Cambodia last summer inspired me to rethink the term. The WFDD has embarked on a year-long exploration of development and faith in Cambodia, to paint as full a picture as we can of faith-inspired efforts to advance development. Two wonderful fellows from the Princeton in Asia Program (somewhat akin to the Peace Corps) are based in Phnom Penh to "map" what is happening and draw lessons from it. The purpose is to understand and build bridges among worlds that are separated by language and preconceptions, and thus achieve better development results.

We knew that we would face questions about how we defined faith. The answer is: broadly, the beliefs and institutions that focus on God, a higher power, or the spiritual dimensions of humankind. But we were surprised at the variety of responses to what constitutes development. As we did our first round of interviews it became clear that everyone had a different notion. In some cases, everything went into the development basket. Sex trafficking? Absolutely, it's a central development question. Concerns about land grabs? Of course. Traffic snarls in the city? Tuberculosis? Corruption? A new radio station? Climate change? Domestic violence? Pre-school education? Every single issue rightly belongs on the development agenda. (For an intriguing concept of development, listen to Swedish health specialist Hans Rosling on TED, the website that features Ideas Worth Spreading. He debunks the idea of a world divided into developed and developing countries).

This question of where development begins and ends is not abstract because it points to fundamental shifts in world realities that are not fully reflected in the way we talk and think about world affairs. Bringing faith and religion into the mix poses a raft of new questions, but the responses offer countless new insights. That's partly because people inspired by faith can approach development matters from a different perspective. Religion is so much at the core of people's lives that it offers a reality check on whether development addresses what people truly want. My mentor and former World Bank President Jim Wolfensohn was fond of saying that faith leaders and communities have no monopoly on ethics. I agree, but ethical thinking is part of their mandate and they are often more skilled than lay counterparts in articulating ethical choices. We need them beside us as we address the issues.

Our team is asking everyone we interview--Buddhist monks, Muslim leaders, Catholic nuns, World Vision officers, Latter-day Saints Elders, orphanage founders, government officials--what development means to them. We also ask what motivates them, why they care. Their answers are a goldmine of insight. But there's a strong common theme: development is above all about having choices, about being able to take ownership and determine what one thinks is best. And that leads to a passion for educating children, lifting the burden of discrimination against women, building roads so farmers can sell their crops and buy what they need, saving the forests from illegal cutting so future generations can enjoy them, and so on.

Searching the Declaration of Universal Human Rights for the word "development," I was interested to see the word coupled in the few cases where it appears with "of the human personality". That speaks to the same idea, of allowing each individual to flourish. Development is not about a single path, nor is it about material prosperity. Nor is it a separate segment of endeavor that applies only to certain countries. Today's development enterprise is about making it possible for all people everywhere to thrive. And it's about keeping ethics at the center as we navigate turbulent waters, where the fate of people far away affects us and our actions affect them, and where we recognize that development is not for the poorest people but for us all.

On October 16, as millions of people were riveted to video of a runaway balloon thought to be carrying a 6-year-old boy named Falcon, a statistic was released on a problem that affects millions of children around the world: hunger. A billion people today are chronically hungry or malnourished, more than ever before in human history.

Bloomberg News made the story its "chart of the day". Comedian Sarah Silverman came up with a tongue-in-cheek answer - sell the Vatican - that had been viewed on YouTube a half million times when I last checked.

But the disturbing number, which came on World Food Day, is deadly serious. As Eleanor Roosevelt remarked, "The first great human right to most of the people of the world is the right to eat." And that's a right and a goal that is ingrained in many religious traditions. Feeding the hungry is right up there with loving God and caring for one's neighbor.

The one billion number is the tragic result of two facts. The financial and economic crisis has combined with sharp increases in food prices, so many more people can't afford to buy enough to feed their families. And many have lost jobs, so the estimates of hungry and malnourished people have shot up. But there are deeper problems at work that demand financial resources (the G20 promised $22 billion), intellectual investment and some true moral leadership.

Investments in African agriculture collapsed, I believe, because problem-ridden programs led to a collective cynicism and depression. So there's a huge catch-up needed all around. Money is needed for research, for on-the-ground programs, and for training.

Intellectual input is needed because these are tough problems that have defeated many dedicated people in the past. I worked on agriculture in Africa for two decades and can attest to how heartbreaking it can be when Murphy's Law creeps in and everything that can go wrong - including locusts, plagues, drought, corruption and so on - does. The chronic difficulty of implementing programs is already more difficult because climate change is upon us. Droughts and floods are early but unmistakable signs of things to come.

Even when funds are available, debates rage around the right course of action to help agriculture, which results in no action being taken at all.

One source many look to is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In a speech last week, Bill Gates called small-holder farmers, especially in Africa, "the world's single most powerful lever for reducing hunger and poverty." And, he promised, "the world's attention is back on your cause". He acknowledged one of the raging debates: "this global effort to help small farmers is endangered by an ideological wedge that threatens to split the movement in two. On one side is a technological approach that increases productivity. On the other side is an environmental approach that promotes sustainability. Productivity or sustainability - they say you have to choose."

Gates regards the choice - benefit from science by using improved farming methods or seek safety from genetically modified crops by "going natural" - as far too simplistic. And in related debates about large farm versus small farm, local versus multinational, his foundation is clearly steering towards small farmers and respect for local tradition and knowledge. He's right on both points. But that does not mean dialogue is unnecessary. Respected religious leaders all over Africa, supported by many in richer countries, preach fervent sermons about the evils of the recipes for reviving agriculture and see devious motives behind much of the aid and the solutions that are on the table. They deserve a hearing and we need to engage them if they are to be part of the solution, as they must be.

These are ancient problems with a modern face. With the great strides made in agricultural research, there was real hope some years ago that hunger could be conquered. It didn't happen, but the hope is still alive. And Sarah Silverman is absolutely right to point out that the resources are there. Eleanor Roosevelt hit the moral imperatives hard: "This should be one of the aims- to show that our conception of freedom and the rights of men includes the responsibility of their government to see that no man, woman or child starves and that, as far as we are able, we extend that guarantee to the nations of the world because of the greatness and generosity of our spirit." She added that "We have been blessed by the Almighty with a land that provides us with a surplus of food and yet we have not learned how to share this surplus with the people of the world."

This is a ferociously complex problem. I don't agree with Roosevelt's suggestion that only when people have enough to eat -"only after that is gratified can we offer cultural and spiritual leadership." We need that spiritual leadership now. Hopefully, with collective outrage at the reality that a billion people are hungry, we can focus at least as much concern and attention on the world's hungry that we lavished on little Falcon, the balloon boy.

Last Friday evening, in the quiet sanctuary of an old Catholic church in Brooklyn, a group gathered to talk about a community that works globally for peace and social justice, the Rome-based Community of Sant'Egidio. To understand this group, you have to explore the interwoven notions that they see as their special mark: prayer, friendship, and community.

Earlier that week, I had a conversation with Homa Sabet Tavangar about the challenges of giving today's children a sense that they belong to a common world community at the same time that they understand and savor diverse cultures. Her new book, "Growing up Global: Raising Children to be at Home in the World," is full of ideas for introducing children to the interconnected world they live in. Homa's vision and strength come in part from being part of the Baha'i community, whose members are scattered to the far corners of the world.

These two concepts of community -- Sant'Egidio and Baha'i -- are robust yet complex. In both instances, the sense of membership is strong but there's no signing on the dotted line. Both communities are grounded in faith but see themselves as profoundly part of the larger world, with responsibilities that call them to act on their beliefs, at both local and global levels.

The Community of Sant'Egidio has grown from a small group of high school students to something akin to a federation of locally grounded groups, in some 70 countries. Friendship is a word they use constantly. What they mean by it is a robust type of friendship that is deeply welcoming but not cloying. It encompasses humor, joy in life, and profound caring. Friendship is what draws the community to people who are lonely and excluded, down to living on the street or fleeing from war. They care, and show their caring by the time they spend and the true bond of knowing and appreciating each individual. The community is clearly religious - daily prayer is a central feature - and proudly Catholic. But they are grounded in the earth's problems and skilled in its very secular politics. One senior cleric said to me: "They are what we would like the Church to be."

The Baha'i community that Homa describes is a diverse group (with only about 5 million members worldwide) that, in whatever far flung corner, welcomes and supports those who are born into or adopt the faith. Baha'is have no clergy and no formal rituals, so much of this welcome takes place in homes. Once again, this personal quality of caring is something that conveys the sense of a community that transcends boundaries. The Baha'i belief in the oneness of mankind, in the common values among faiths, of true equality of men and women, lends the community a palpable sense of belonging and of mission, one that encompasses both the spiritual and the secular. The Baha'i are among the faith traditions who are most active in international settings, bringing always their belief that human rights are an integral part of their faith. At a time when understandings of what gender equality really means for daily life are rather convoluted in various faith traditions, the Baha'i conviction that equality means equality is striking.

Religious communities are extraordinarily diverse, of course, and the question of who belongs and what that suggests about those who do not is never easy to answer. Homa and I agreed that of all dimensions of diversity, differences in belief may be the hardest to address. What people believe is often deeply emotional, and deeply part of how they see their identity, on many dimensions. That challenge, however, makes it doubly important to reflect on how to balance belonging and exclusion, diverse community and common purpose. That's what gives the reflections about community by Sant'Egidio and the Baha'is a special significance.

Community is a common term these days but it's not always easy to pin down exactly what it really means. We are, most of us, part of several or many communities, bound by threads that are loose or strong. The language of community can be at the same time as familiar as the street sounds of Brooklyn and as elusive as the soft mutterings of a forgotten foreign language. Community is, in the first instance, the counter to the alienating anonymity that is so easy today, whether the individual is lost on a busy city street, lacking the identity papers that allow them to study or get a job, or dying in an isolated hut of HIV/AIDS or shamed by fistula.

Community is about friendship and caring. It is also about shared beliefs and sense of purpose. Community is one of the great gifts of religious traditions, offering welcome and comfort, and a sense of belonging. Within that framework, the robust, articulate, and welcoming ideas of community that come from two very different faith traditions and histories - the Community of Sant'Egidio and the Baha'i faith - offer a flash of welcome insight into what the social capital of religion can represent.

The "God Gulf," title of a chapter in Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn's book, "Half the Sky," describes one of the more contentious issues in American foreign policy, one where religion plays a profound role. The divide is around family planning, but it relates directly to broader questions of women's roles and the power they hold to direct their own lives. As Kristof and WuDunn put it, "secular liberals and conservative Christians regularly square off. Each side has the best of intentions, yet each is deeply suspicious of the other - and these suspicions make it difficult to forge a broad left-right coalition that would be far more effective in confronting trafficking and overcoming the worst forms of poverty."

Finding out you are pregnant can be one of life's most joyous moments. It can also seem to spell the end of life and security. I vividly remember moments of both kinds, in my own life and those of friends. I cannot easily forget the desperation that led some friends to seek abortions, in shame and secrecy, knowing it was illegal and dangerous.

But the painful dilemmas my generation faced and those that confront people in the United States today pale in comparison to what poor women face. My daughter Laura lived for two years in a village in Guinea, serving in the Peace Corps. She was devastated as young girls left her class, often because they were pregnant. Some got married, but more were ostracized, their lives ruined. Girls from Laura's village disappeared and she learned that they died from illegal abortions. Why did they take such risks? Some answers seem fairly clear. There were large gaps in their understanding of their bodies. Social pressures were ferocious. Money was sometimes part of the story. But most often these girls saw no real future for themselves and felt they had no power over their own lives.

Another insight came this summer, in Morocco, where I was visiting a program supporting young unmarried mothers. In a focus group, some girls were silent, their faces grim, hostages of the violence that had led to their situation: raped, cast out by families, alone with a baby. But others spoke of love, clinging to the hope that their boyfriends truly loved them and would, against all odds, marry them. Meanwhile they faced the reality of supporting themselves and caring for a demanding baby. The romantic dreams of young girls persist across widely different cultures. This determined hope in the face of extraordinary obstacles was for me the most enduring impression.

We know the dark side of the "God gulf": angry crowds outside abortion clinics and doctors assassinated. The unseemly "gag rule" that has cut off funds to groups that do vital work.

The "God gulf" has added bitterness to what should be thoughtful planning for future HIV/AIDS work. Perhaps even more insidious, it introduces doubts into one of today's proudest achievements: the global consensus around human rights. The Universal Declaration is crystal clear in endorsing equality of women and men and freedom of expression. But nagging doubts about what that really means surface when family planning and women's empowerment are on the table.

But there are real glimmers of light. Alliances between very different groups, led by strong religious as well as non-religious people, achieved wonders on anti-trafficking legislation and action and on HIV and AIDS. And the work on the ground, in Cambodia, Guatemala, Guinea, Yemen, Iran, Burma and so on, by religiously inspired people and groups is breath-taking. It shows a true commitment to human life and dignity and a capacity for sustained and courageous engagement.

So we are seeing two promising signs. The first is the heightened attention to changing the picture for women and girls. A coalition that includes Oprah Winfrey, journalists, public servants, political leaders, concerned citizens and non-profit groups seems more determined than ever to act on such horrors as fistula, female genital cutting, maternal death, and girls enslaved in brothels. And more and more people understand that the answers lie above all in giving hope to young girls, through education, knowledge about their bodies, the chance to make a living, respect and love.

And the bitter "God gulf" disputes have sobered passionate people on both sides of the debates. There's much more talk of finding common ground in sensible areas like "responsible parenthood" (as Pope Benedict XVI wrote in his encyclical), spacing children so each one has more attention and care, and helping women through programs that put them on a path to a fulfilling life.

I want to believe that we are indeed ready to bridge the gulf because the causes at issue are so vital and so compelling. With so many challenges on the table, women's issues frequently get bumped down the priority stairs. It will take sustained focus to end most maternal deaths, make domestic violence unthinkable, and give girls the chance to act on their dreams.

Newsweek has some edgy covers these days. How about, "The Case for Killing Granny"? Sure catches the eye. But "Is your Baby Racist?" on September 14, with an adorable little face staring innocently out, is equally disturbing.

The cover story, by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, outlines fascinating research about the nature and origins of racist attitudes. It came smack in the midst of the furor about whether today's nasty political "discourse" has racist roots or undercurrents. The research underscores that the desire to be part of an in-group is very strong, and this is evident even in very young children.

Children seem innately to latch onto differences to create divisions: whether it's red shirts versus blue (as in one experiment), skin color, or other visible differences. They tend to associate the positive characteristics they see in themselves - niceness, smarts, etc. - with "their" group, and they conclude that those who look different are also different in those ways. And, the article emphasizes, talking about topics like race in fuzzy terms (as most parents do) leaves a fuzzy impression. One woman told her five-year-old repeatedly, "Remember, everybody's equal." After seven months of such exhortations, the boy asked, "Mommy, what's 'equal' mean?"

Some similar issues emerge from Adam Gopnik's reflections (in the New Yorker) on the Dreyfus affair that rocked France at the turn of the twentieth century. Why does prejudice run so deep? What makes decent people act in ways that stray so far from their values? Are these biases a vestige of primitive urges or more tied to modernity? Religious prejudice, ethnic bias, nationalism, and reactions to immigrants are all part of the mix.

The Dreyfus affair involved an upright soldier, a family man with a long upstanding record, Jewish, from a formerly German part of France (Alsace), falsely convicted of treason. The case stirred up ferocious debate in France that left indelible marks to this day. It's an immensely complicated story that ended happily for Alfred Dreyfus, who was eventually exonerated and lived to a ripe old age. But, as Gopnik concludes, there's far more to it than one man's tale. "The urge to protect the nation from its enemies by going around the corner to get them is natural, but what you get is usually not the enemies, and, going around the corner, you bump into something worse."

Gopnik's rich analysis (a review of several books about the affair) weaves together these complex dimensions of the Dreyfus affair. It had threads of ancient anti-Semitism but also its more modern dimensions, brought into the open with the growing pains of the era's changing, more plural societies. Some linked Judaism to the nineteenth century artistic and cultural revolutions that seemed to threaten traditional life. Religion was involved, especially as debates turned on its role in national identity. Many Frenchmen explained France's humiliating loss of the 1870 war (against Germany) as the result of the nation's turning away from Christianity and France's "true" character and values. Immigration played a role, again presenting the question: who was truly French? France's self-conscious laïcité - roughly equivalent to secularism - owes much to the turmoil around the Dreyfus affair and the roles the Catholic Church then played in fanning the flames of prejudice. In 1905, France's famous separation of church and state was enacted into law. That law is central to the debates in France today about Muslim women's right to wear the headscarf and almost any other issue where church and state come into contact.

So the forces at work were at the same time primitive, like the racist urges of a small child accentuated by fear, and highly complex, part of the upheavals of modernization and changing political processes. At one level, writes Gopnik, the Dreyfus affair "showed that a huge number of Europeans, in a time largely smiling and prosperous, liked engaging in raw, animal religious hatred, and only felt fully alive when they did. Hatred and bigotry were not a vestige of the superstitious past but a living fire--just what comes, and burns, naturally." But in the end, the harsh images of racism and religious prejudice, forced into the intellectual and political discourse, changed France, for the better. It's significant that France's governments have seen more Jews in prominent roles than virtually any other.

The political story has another, complex twist. The happy ending--Dreyfus' exoneration--was the painful product of intense political debate and it seemed to mark the defeat of reactionary tendencies. But, Gopnik observes, "in any modernized country, the backward-looking party will always tend toward resentment and grievance. The key is to keep the conservatives feeling that they are an alternative party of modernity. .. When the conservative party comes to see itself as unfairly marginalized, it becomes a party of pure reaction." In France, the aftermath of the Dreyfus affair laid the seeds for Vichy.

One rabbi observed bitterly to me during a visit to the Polish concentration camp of Birkenau that people in that region had imbibed anti-Semitism with their mother's milk. He meant that there was a pervasive culture that fostered racism and religious prejudice. But stereotyping does indeed, as Bronson and Merryman observe, start very young. It's a complex blend of ancient and primitive urges, and the plural and dynamic nature of modern society, where identity is multi-layered and shifting. That makes for an explosive mix, and we are seeing it today in the United States. If there's any single lesson from the past and from the research, it's that nowhere is thoughtful and civil discourse more needed. That's because racist attitudes are far from inevitable, and addressing the topic of difference squarely and honestly can bring change.

It's the season of large international meetings. The General Assembly of the United Nations is in full swing in New York, the G20 is about to meet in Pittsburgh, and the ritual gathering of financial souls, the IMF and World Bank annual meeting, takes place in Istanbul in early October. So what's on the global agenda? And what grabs the most attention?

Hillary Clinton's September 18 speech at the Brookings Institution gives a glimpse. She traced a broad strategic framework, starting with Iran (the hottest topic these days) and traversing a wide terrain of geography and issues. The speech did not cover everything: climate got two words, religion zero. But she devoted two substantial, eloquent sections to development and women, stressing that both are central national strategic priorities.

The questions from the audience were all about Iran, Russia, the Middle East, corruption in Afghanistan, the domestic health agenda. Not a whisper about poverty or gender.

Similarly, so far the coverage of the General Assembly and lead-up to the G20 have focused on Ahmadinejad's hotel accommodations and classic geopolitics. Climate change is coming in for discussion--a heartening change--but it's hard to discern a burning passion to end world poverty.

Maybe that's not a fair screen, but it underscores how very hard it is to keep issues of social justice on the agenda when world affairs are discussed. And this is despite the colossal efforts that have gone into the Millennium Development Goals, with their detailed accountability structures and deadlines, all designed to ensure that promises made to end world poverty will be kept. And despite the huge efforts of Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn (whose book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide was just released) how hard it is to keep the spotlight on women's issues.

This bitter year of painful economic news has translated into billions of stories of disappointment and misery. The world's poorest people and societies have felt the impact most harshly. With hopes rising for recovery, there is a real danger that the challenge of poverty will be neglected in the scramble to put the crisis behind us.

Yet there's a powerful case to be made that peace and poverty, rights and justice, are tightly linked: we won't ever be safe in a deeply divided world. And the moral case is compelling: we can and should care that each human being has the chance to live life in dignity, developing their full potential. Ending poverty is a central spiritual quest for mankind. That is true in good times but still more in times of crisis.

I'm always frustrated that we know so much about financial and market transactions, down to the most intricate detail, but know so little about the human indicators that are the barometers of social welfare. The best indicator of a society's changing circumstances may be infant birth weights, but they are not reported in newspapers. We have no reliable data about how many children are living on the street. We rely on fragmentary reports and surveys to tell us about the impact of economic changes. We learn from the witness from faith communities how life is changing and where the sore points are, but that evidence is too scrappy to use very effectively.

But even without solid data we know that the impact of the economic crisis on the poor has been devastating. The first sign was a sharp increase in the price of food. Governments cut spending, and social programs are often the first to go. As families struggle to cope, children are pulled out of school and medical care is postponed. Tensions in families force children into the street, and spill over into violence. Women and children feel the brunt. Philanthropy is threatened and the promises of development assistance, always fragile and falling short, are at great risk.

I have four hopes for the global agendas as they emerge during these weeks.

Leaders can breathe new spirit and energy into the Millennium Development Goals. Caricatured or set aside as lofty or minimalist, abstract or mind-numbing in detail, the MDGs are a sacred covenant of all nations to keep their promises. They are an important scaffold for action.

The world leaders attending the meetings can demand hard information and use it. Unless we appreciate the difficulties and complexities of fighting poverty we cannot think clearly about solutions. For a start we need better information about what faith-inspired organizations are doing, how well and with what resources.

We need to face tough development issues like gender relations and corruption. Differing notions about what works, in markets and welfare programs, conflicting conceptions of what "rights" means in practice, and dueling concepts of gender roles get in the way of social action.

And there are topics where we know that action can enhance welfare: get girls into school, oppose the marriage of young children; speak with outrage against violence in the home and in institutions; fight passionately against stigma, especially for people living with HIV/AIDS, and stop trafficking in people.

"Don't give money to the beggar with a baby," a colleague cautioned me in Phnom Penh. "They rent them for around a dollar a day." I heard about little boys and girls with shocking injuries, about traffic in young housemaids, six and seven years old. The bar scene where anything is accepted. Families that sell their daughters so they can buy food or pay for an urgent operation.

These and countless other heart-rending stories I heard this summer, in several countries, reflect the dark recesses of the human condition. These are ancient abuses, but in our "modern" world, exploitation is happening on a far larger scale as barriers of distance and community restraints crumble. And today, we can't say we don't know about it.

Vienna has a lovely tradition: once each year the Vienna Philharmonic plays at Schonbrun, the grand palace complex that was a model for Versailles. It's a free outdoor concert and everyone comes. On June 4, Daniel Barenboim conducted and over 120,000 people, including Austria's president, reveled in beautiful music and fireworks.

Barenboim was exuberant and delivered three encores: a polka, a polka, and a tango. Thrilled by Barack Obama's speech in Cairo a few hours earlier, he quoted a sentence from it: "This cycle of suspicion and discord must end".

The crowd cheered. This in the very heart of "Old Europe" where, to put it mildly, skepticism about America has reigned. Barenboim and the crowd exalted in a hope that the blistering tensions among peoples, cultures, and religions that have caused such suffering , just maybe can be addressed. It was yet more evidence that Obama's magnificent Cairo speech hit a sweet spot.

Vienna has a proud heritage of mingling cultures and religions. It is no stranger to tensions: two Sikh factions clashed there recently, leaving one cleric dead, and sparking riots among Sikhs in India. So the Viennese response to Obama's Cairo speech demonstrated again Obama's capacity to evoke the kind of electric excitement that so many remember from John F. Kennedy's "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech so long ago.

Meanwhile, across town, the business of the moment was a colloquium on religion and development organized by Princeton University's Liechtenstein institute. Scholars and students, statesmen and NGO leaders, thinkers and actors, young and old, talked about identity and conflict, peace and tension, visions for the future, crises of the present. And there too, Obama's insights and challenges stirred the debate.

The nagging question (a persistent theme in these columns) was: what does religion have to do with it? And the clear answer was: it's important, probably more than ever, but it's very complicated. President Obama showed a sophisticated appreciation that incorporated religion into the broader social, political, and cultural context. And, through his seventh agenda point, he made clear that without development, without education, health and jobs, there is no hope and there can be no peace.

The colloquium labored to take a next step, starting with the challenge of breaking down perceived walls between secular and religious, between "people of faith" and people presumed to be without. Lebanese intellectual Ghassan Salamé, for example, challenged every phrase used to discuss religion: Religion, he said, is a faith, an institution, a language, and a market, with endless variants in each category. He deplored the fact that religion is frequently ignored in international affairs, but warned that as diplomats bring it into the mix, they should not expect it to solve everything.

Salamé called for dialogue not as mere words but as a struggle. The meaning of dialogue--and Obama's speech is a prime example--is an articulation of values and a search for understanding. Above all it entails a struggle against self, because it implies a willingness to change and be changed. "Words alone cannot meet the needs of our peoples," said Obama, but using words well is a way to start to address the challenge to "end the painful cycle of suspicion and discord".

The recent flare-up over whether American soldiers should be free to distribute bibles in Afghanistan highlights a simmering debate that comes to a boil every once in a while. It's not about whether people should be free to practice their faith, but how and when they should be free to share it. This knotty issue comes pretty high on the agenda for the new President's Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships Council which is shaping the new administration's approaches to public funding for faith-inspired organizations.

The most sensitive words are evangelizing and proselytizing. "Good news" is part of the root of the word evangelism, as in bringing the "good news" of the gospel. Proselytize has a more specific meaning: "to recruit or convert especially to a new faith, institution, or cause". In both instances active persuasion is of the essence. Conversion is part of world history, and the earliest waves of globalization trends spread Christianity and Islam especially to far corners of the world. But today, the debates enter the fraught domains of human rights, freedom of speech, and the boundary between religion and state.

The operative question is: when and where is it appropriate and wise to preach and "spread the word", especially when such preaching is linked to activities like distributing food, building wells, or running schools and hospitals? Many see it as fundamentally unethical to link good works to even the most subtle encouragement to talk about faith, while others hold that the spiritual and material cannot truly be separated. Some see faith-inspired organizations that work to end poverty as the angels of international development, truly devoted and passionate in their advocacy of the poor, while for others they are Trojan horses disguising religious motivations inside good works.

Some things are reasonably clear: it is just plain wrong, even immoral, to condition help to destitute people, for example in a humanitarian disaster, to listening to - much less accepting - any religious teaching. And most believe that discriminating by religion is wrong also - restricting aid to only Methodists or Muslims, for example. Many faith-inspired NGOs have signed onto codes of conduct that prohibit this kind of behavior.

But the boundaries are fuzzier in non-emergency situations. Development is about the kind of society we want to build. Spiritual and religious dimensions are part of the mix. What's in a school curriculum? How are issues of sex and HIV/AIDS prevention tackled? What about roles of women and minorities?

Tom Getman, recently retired after a long and distinguished career at World Vision, offered a wonderful window into these complex issues when he spoke at the Berkley Center at Georgetown University earlier this month. In an interview and in his talk, he traced a personal journey, in Washington, South Africa, the Holy Land, and Geneva, that has changed the way he sees evangelizing and proselytizing.

World Vision is a giant on the international NGO scene, explicitly Christian, working to help children and end poverty in over 100 countries. Founded very much as an evangelical organization, one of its "testing" challenges has been how to reconcile its deep Christian beliefs, a broadening understanding of the nature and causes of poverty, and respect for the wisdom and faith of different cultures and religions.

Getman argues, deeply and passionately, that nothing is more important today than meeting the needs of poor people and communities. He sees a void in evangelical Christianity that can be filled only by working for the needs of the vulnerable. Both Getman and World Vision President Richard Stearns, who recently published a book titled, "The Hole in our Gospel," argue that mainstream evangelism, which focuses on the afterlife and on "saving" souls from hell, is incomplete because it minimizes the importance of working to end suffering in this life. Getman sees inclusion as the watchword, by which he means not seeking the conversion of others but working together to bring about change and a better world. Inclusiveness takes work - the emergence of the "rainbow nation" of post-apartheid South Africa, positive changes in race relations in the U.S., and the steady diversification of World Vision's faith profile, have come about not by chance but through people working to build bridges and bring about change. Faiths working together, respecting their own traditions and finding common ground in common purpose and belief, is part of the story.

These are large questions and they deserve to be addressed with, as President Obama said at Notre Dame, "Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words." The spectrum of views on faith and social work is too wide and it impedes the work that needs to be done. Thoughtful views of people like Getman can help move towards informed dialogue, solid bridges, and better solutions.

One of the world's longest running and nastiest wars, in Sri Lanka, may be near an end. Sri Lankan government troops have cornered remnants of a force called terrorists by some, nationalist guerrillas by others: the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or LTTE. Over 70,000 people have died in a conflict that has raged, off and on, since 1983. Peace would indeed be a blessing.

But there are warnings of a "dark victory" and "a slaughter waiting to happen." The long-term prospects for peace are uncertain.

The immediate problem is that about 100,000 civilians are trapped in the area of the confrontation, human shields of the rebels. Humanitarian groups cannot reach them or ship supplies, both because of fighting and because the government will not allow free access. The United Nations estimates that 7,000 ethnic Tamil civilians were killed between January 20 and May 7 this year; doctors in the area say at least another 1,000 have been killed since then. Hundreds, if not thousands, of combatants have also reportedly died, though neither side releases casualty figures.

These numbers exceed the casualty tolls this year for the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Gaza combined. The fate of the trapped civilians is the current crisis.

The civilian catastrophe has led to fervent appeals for international action. The United Nations Security Council called for action last week, invoking the "Responsibility to Protect" or R2P; in 2005, world leaders agreed that states have a primary responsibility to protect their own populations and that the international community has a responsibility to act when these governments fail to do so. President Obama made an appeal along these lines on May 13. Yet the calls to protect civilians seem to fall on deaf ears.

The diplomats are hard at work but their frustration is obvious. Few governments seem interested in punishing a country they believe is justifiably trying to crush a stubborn insurgency, however much sympathy they may have for the Tamil cause. Remember that LTTE is notorious for brutal terrorist attacks and assassinations that include India's president Rajiv Gandhi, Sri Lankan president Ranasinghe Premadasa, a long list of politicians, and religious leaders. Also, the levers of influence are weak. Fueled in part by its military spending, Sri Lanka's government faces a looming financial crisis, and seeks a $1.9 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. This offers one pawn to prod the government into greater concern for the humanitarian crisis but it is a feeble one.

Stories of what is happening now and what has happened in the past are deeply worrying. Sri Lanka's generals are not known as humanitarian paragons, and they want to end the war by any means. Human rights groups believe the horror stories coming from the war zone because the government's campaign has been marked by gross disregard for the rule of law, especially as it applies to Tamils. But international criticism has sparked a backlash among many Sri Lankans, who see it as the work of rebel sympathizers in foreign capitals.

The immediate crisis is only part of the story. If, indeed, the guns are silenced this week, the real challenges begin. That's why so many are concerned about the brutal end game. A conventional victory will hardly address the root causes of the conflict. A pro-rebel website quotes a senior Tamil Tigers leader warning that the Colombo Government's effort to "finish the war in 48 hours through a carnage and bloodbath of civilians will never resolve a conflict of decades... On the contrary it will only escalate the crisis to unforeseen heights." Opinion among the millions of Tamils around the world, especially those in southern India, is dangerously radicalized by images and stories of intense civilian suffering.

Religion is very much "part of the problem" and can and must be "part of the solution". The Sri Lankan conflict is ferociously complex (the International Crisis Group has an excellent summary though it largely ignores the religious elements). Religion is part of the problem because the war draws heavily on ethnic and religious histories and narratives, with the government dominated by the Singhalist, mostly Buddhist population, the rebels mostly Hindu and Tamil, with significant Christian and Muslim minorities also involved.

That explains in part why some of the world's leading peacemakers are hard at work in Sri Lanka. Religions for Peace, the global interfaith institution, has long been active, in public and behind the scenes. The Sri Lankan National Peace Council (NPC) works both to bring the warring parties together and to build community networks dedicated to peace. They call for international intervention and support. The Community of Sant'Egidio, renowned for its thoughtful and skilled peace making work in many corners of the world, is involved in confidential discussions on next steps. The Catholic Order the Oblates of Mary Immaculate is actively lobbying the US government and the United Nations to intervene.

If this war ends with a government victory, as now seems likely, it will be urgent to find ways for the two warring communities to live together in a pluralist society. This work must obviously be grounded in Sri Lanka, but international support, both active and as a neutral party, seems essential. The interfaith groups can be critical actors. Among those who also might be part of the solution is the Sarvodaya movement; an organization grounded in philosophical tenets drawn from Buddhism and Gandhian thought. Sarvodaya's community work after the 2004 tsunami won worldwide admiration. Christian groups, though they are viewed with some suspicion, have an asset: Christianity is the only religion with both Tamils and Singhalese. The faith-inspired Non-violent Peace Force has made Sri Lanka one of its leading sites as it works to bring a Peace Corps like group of neutral international peace makers into action.

In the words of Bishop Gunnar Stalsett, long involved in Sri Lanka, with Religions for Peace and the Norwegian government, "in the aftermath of the present Armageddon, religious leaders can play an important role to bring together the various parties in the conflict."

Mother's Day sees outpourings of affection, funny stories, floral tributes on the Google home page, and a blizzard of phone calls and emails. There's something wonderfully universal in the sentiments, the ritual but warm tributes and the somewhat sheepish acknowledgment of the vital role that mothers play. They keep daily life together, serving up Cheerios and bandaging skinned knees, at the same time that they convey the basic values that guide our lives. Mothers like Ann Dunham Soetoro, who yanked Barack Obama out of bed at 4 a.m. to do extra lessons despite his grumbles, are recognized, for one day anyway, as the pillars of families and life.

So it is rather jarring to juxtapose Mother's Day sentiment with some grim realities of our world. Life for most mothers in today's world is pretty harsh.

In the year 2000 the world's leaders committed themselves to noble goals: "We will spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty, to which more than a billion of them are currently subjected. We are committed to making the right to development a reality for everyone and to freeing the entire human race from want", reads the Millennium Declaration. Specific goals were fixed, with deadlines, responsible parties, and numbers to make it possible to judge. The goals are bold - never in human history has the human race been free from want. Yet they can also be viewed as somewhat minimal and even tepid - is it good enough to halve poverty? To limit the education goal to primary level?

It is true and tragic that of all the goals the one with the least progress to show is one that seems so very basic - reducing maternal mortality. A woman dies every minute in pregnancy or childbirth. That means over 500,000 every year. An estimated one million newborns die within their first 24 hours of life.

The largest health inequity in the world is differences in the rates of maternal mortality: 99% of maternal deaths are in developing countries - half of them in Africa. A woman in Niger faces a 1 in 7 chance during her lifetime of dying of pregnancy-related causes; a woman in Sweden has 1 chance in 17,400.

We have the knowledge to change the situation, and we have a sacred global compact to do so, yet progress on MDG Goal 5, reducing maternal mortality by 75% and assuring family planning services to all, lags behind the pack.

The dramatic changes in many countries, the United States among them of course, that have made death in childbirth rare and horrifying, show that it is possible. What's needed is a specific focus on the problem. That includes a host of well known and tested measures like robust needs assessments, solid estimates of costs, family planning services, and training and compensation of qualified medical personnel. It's not easy but it is eminently possible.

So why does this goal which would seem so urgent and straightforward, lag behind? It may be that leaders and planners, and those who shape conscience and priorities, do not realize there's a problem. So let's remind them.

But it is also that these seemingly technical matters--allocations of budgets, decisions on who gets trained, how much people get paid, where clinics are built, and what equipment they have--are shaped by the deep attitudes that can't be divorced from the unequal treatment of women in many societies, still today. The end-of-the-line problem of inadequate budgets starts with failures to push for girls' education, to stop child marriage, to care about women's health and welfare. In short, with failure to take the steps that can lead to the true equality that world leaders profess is their earnest goal.

Women's issues simply do not top the priority lists. This should be an outrage to everyone's conscience because everyone plays a part.

So, on this Mother's Day, let's renew our common commitment to make mothers a true priority. We have a date for this time next year: let's ask ourselves how much progress has been made on maternal mortality as a test of whether we mean what we say when we make that wish for a "Happy Mother's Day".

Years ago, while traveling with my children in Africa, I heard about a Catholic charity that ran a home for witches. That sounded mysterious and interesting, so we stopped for an afternoon to visit. It was a rough compound where perhaps a hundred rather forlorn old women sat on the dirt floor staring into space or working with spindles and looms, mumbling to themselves. A few old men, too, sat with vacant stares.

In parts of Africa, it is not uncommon that a village will fix on an old woman as a witch--when a child dies or a cow wanders off, for example. Sometimes the witch is a man, even a child. The accused "witches" are expelled from the village, banished forever and left alone to die. A Catholic organization had stepped in to establish a refuge for them. I felt sadness, watching what seemed an ill-equipped home for the elderly and incapacitated, and admired the compassion of the nuns who were dedicated to their welfare. But I was shocked later to find that my colleagues, highly educated and intelligent though they were, were convinced that the mumblings we heard were curses, and believed that I had endangered my children by taking them there.

Memories of this visit to the home for witches were revived when Pope Benedict XVI spoke about witchcraft during his African visit in March. His message was that the Church must combat ancient superstitions with its teachings.

For all the surface rationality and modernity of lives everywhere, fear of witches is still widespread, a reminder that ancient superstitions are durable and widespread, triggered especially by fear of the unknown. In Africa, the juxtaposition of magic and reality is in your face, in markets where gris-gris (an extraordinary range of products used to ward off, or bring down, evil spirits) sit side by side with Chinese-made plastic cookware and corn and onions. But nowhere is the tendency to find a witch, to blame someone no matter how flimsy the evidence, very far away.

Throughout history, hard times have sparked sharp increases in superstition. Witch hunts seem to be part of crisis and turmoil. We are surely seeing that today and will see more as the economic and social storms intensify.

Accountability is a term on everyone's lips these days. As people cope with skyrocketing food prices, home foreclosures, sudden pink slips, and the disappearance of life savings in a shrinking retirement or college fund, they want to know who is responsible, whom to blame for the cataclysm. There's a real danger in this atmosphere that we will revert to ancient instincts to find the witches among us.

The video shows the brutal beating of a young girl, well covered in her burka and red trousers, screaming and struggling as she is held down by a man and a woman. The scene symbolizes the tensions tearing Pakistan apart and it raises a host of questions. Is this what Sharia law is about? What does this primitive justice by bearded Taliban leaders portend for Pakistan? For south Asia? What's caused the Swat Valley, a region celebrated for peace, civility, and beauty, to change so rapidly? And what can be done about it?

Make no mistake, these questions are of vital importance for the people concerned, but also for the United States and the world. Akbar Ahmed, professor at American University, has from day one (September 11, 2001) spoken relentlessly about the need to understand what is happening in the Islamic world and to act on that understanding. A Pakistani who has studied the region deeply, he is passionate and unequivocal when he says that the stakes in Pakistan's struggles could not be higher. Pakistan, a country of 170-175 million people, is the epicenter of a much larger and volatile region. It has nuclear arms and a long established hierarchically controlled military. It influences Muslim populations far beyond its borders. And Pakistan today is in deep trouble, it is sinking in quicksand.

The irony is that Pakistan had such a hopeful start. One of contemporary history's great leaders, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan's founder, set out to create a modern Islamic nation. The two central issues for Pakistan today, the rule of law and education, were at the heart of his vision. He was convinced that a state could truly be both Islamic and modern, not uneasily but drawing the best from Pakistan's founding faith and from the world of modernity. That's Pakistan's potential and its ideal.

The turmoil in Pakistan stems in part from the broader struggle within Muslim communities worldwide about the fundamental question of how this ancient faith, which valued ideas and learning from the start, can adapt to the changes sweeping today's world. It is also about manifest failures in implementing Jinnah's ideals. Pakistan's real potential remains an unfulfilled dream.

Pakistan's abysmal performance on education is at the heart of the problem. Parents want decent schools for their children, now. Pakistan lags behind most countries in the most basic educational performance indicators; it ranks 132nd in the Human Development index.

The education system perpetuates and exacerbates deep class cleavages. Impeccable top-grade schools contrast with a lumbering non-performing state system, while a chaotic array of unregulated private schools tumble into the void. And then there is the madrasa system, thousands of schools (no one knows how many) run by a wide range of Muslim institutions and leaders. There's lots of myth around madrasas, and some are abominations. But there are excellent madrasas (the word simply means school) and they respond to real needs. Greg Mortenson (Three Cups of Tea) and former U.S. diplomat Douglas Johnston, coming from very different angles, have shown on the ground in Pakistan that the educators and parents of madrasa schools can and will change given the right framework.

The perversion of Pakistan's police forces and judicial systems, incompetent and weakened administrative structures, and widespread and worsening corruption also explain the current turmoil. People who have lost faith in their government turn to pretty much anyone who promises basic security from murder and theft. In the case of the Swat valley, it's the bearded chiefs and mullahs in the video. But, Pakistanis from many places argue, this is out of desperation, not desire.

These are problems for Pakistanis to address, but the United States is no tepid bystander. The annual U.S. tab for support to Pakistan is about $5 billion a year. The consequences of Pakistan's further disintegration are horrendous. With such high stakes, nowhere is smart power more in demand. And talking truth is vital as a start.

So what's needed? First off, restore law and order. Ironically, the best model appears to be the inherited colonial system of district administrators, who were able to balance interests including police, army, local tribal chiefs, and the mullahs. That system was renowned as tough and fair, able to act and to respond. It represents an ideal of honesty, justice, and action. It's there and it's known. Then, at the same time, move swiftly and effectively to modernize education.

The video of brutal retrograde frontier "order" is not what modern Islam is about. Pakistan has some of the world's finest Muslim ideals and traditions to build on. But the Swat scene should be our wakeup call, demanding our urgent, and sustained attention.

It's hard to find any silver linings in the dark gathering clouds in Darfur. It's the time of year that many parts of Africa call the "hungry season" or the "soudure" (a joint whose parts are welded together and thus is liable to break). The rains are about to begin, and with them comes planting season. Mud roads and tracks become impassable. Food from last harvest is gone and the new harvest is months off.

How can the United States harness the extraordinary organizational capacity of global religions and turn them into a force for peace and welfare? That's a question the Obama administration should confront early on. The faith factor can and should be a critical part of America's public diplomacy--and not a piece apart but integrally linked to the core question of how the "smart" new diplomacy needs to unfold.

President Obama has yet to put forth the specifics of his faith-based policies. But as they develop, he should not shrink from using them on the international stage. He should not let divisive topics dominate the conversation--topics like reproductive health or religious conflicts. The main purpose needs to be service and the religious drive to "perfect the world" - embodied in the Jewish tradition of Tikkum Olam. The reason for engaging faith-inspired organizations, after all, is that they have so much to give.

The array of potential for good is enormous. Name a pressing topic (climate change, sanitation, tuberculosis, well management, microcredit) and there are faith groups working on it. In Uganda, schools and hospitals founded by an array of Christian entities are celebrating their centenary anniversaries - a testimony to the deep roots of religious work in Africa. The courage of faith leaders who speak out against abuse of power and for human rights is often inspirational - monks in Burma, priests and nuns in Zimbabwe, and Jewish groups who refuse to let the complexities of Darfur's challenge obscure the horrors taking place there. Every time I visit orphan programs or soup kitchens for the homeless and elderly run by very different religious groups, I am awed by the human capacity for good.

That's not to say that all goes smoothly; shoddy work and slippery financial practices happen among faith groups too, intolerance creeps in all too often, and human capacities for tension, squabbling, and self-aggrandizement are too common. Partnering with faith-inspired organizations is rarely easy, partly because they are NOT contractors at the beck and call of public authorities, but complex institutions with an array of objectives. But the complexities should never be allowed to drown out the central message: that a vast array of people and institutions are deeply committed to making a better world. Working together, working through the many issues and different perspectives, offers huge potential for good. And for presenting the best faces of America to a world that is ready for hope and change.

This Friday, April 17, in New York, Georgetown University is hosting a Global Forum addressing the leading issues on the global agenda. The Forum, an annual Georgetown tradition, offers an exciting line up: President Clinton, Mohamed Yunus, Wendy Kopp, and Greg Mortenson are among the best known speakers. The Forum starts with the economic crisis, highlights the theme of bold new partnerships among public and private, corporate and civil society.

One panel (which I will chair) focuses on the faith factor. It will grapple with the issues but above all look to the potential that faith-inspired leaders and organizations offer for change.

Tim Shriver urged in a recent column that we "take another chance at life because whether we be Jew or Christian, believer or non-believer, from east or west, we are pulled toward a hope that cannot be dashed, driven by a love that cannot be ended, strengthened by a source we cannot name."

That's what the faith-inspired approach to hope and change should be about.

Visit www.GeorgetownGlobalForum.com for information on the Global Forum; participate in the live webcast (available at the site). Georgetown is also on Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, and Fora.TV:

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First the steep jump in food prices, then in gas prices, now a world-wide credit crunch: for the world's poor, these three shocks have dealt a crippling blow. Yet at the London meetings of the G20 last week, there was barely a nod to this harsh reality. Instead, the focus was on stimulus and bailouts, certainly not meeting the promises of the year 2000 Millennium Summit, to end hunger and halve poverty by 2015.

Two billion people are struggling with poverty, yet the subject is strangely absent from current political discourse. Financial pages and wires track stock prices second by second, but signs of worsening poverty-infant and maternal death rates, lower infant birth weights, malnutrition, crime, disease-take months to emerge. So we can, sadly, expect more evidence of the "four horsemen of the apocalypse" that protesters in London last week carried in effigy: war, climate chaos, financial crimes and homelessness.

Religious communities see the economic crisis as an issue that is tightly linked to justice and ethics, and the recent G20 discussions have prompted outraged responses from a new chorus of faith leaders. "It is difficult to understand," said Peruvian interfaith leader Elias Szczytnicki, "how earlier, resources to fight hunger could not be found, but now far larger sums are being mobilized to save the international financial system."

Wise and angry, shocked and forlorn, the voices from churches, mosques, and synagogues are demanding that technocrats confront the human face of the crisis. The huge income gaps in our societies signal something fundamentally amiss, they say, and demands are mounting for deep changes in the international financial system so it can provide far more generous help to poor countries.

"In the context of these massive stimulus and bailout packages," said Rick Stearns, who heads World Vision, "the $4 billion increase that the president has requested [for foreign assistance] is the equivalent of throwing a five cent tip into the tin cup of the world's poorest 2 billion people who are the most affected by the global economic crisis."

Some of these voices can be impractical - I would put the calls of the World Council of Churches in that category; a declaration after the Belem World Social Forum in January had noble but improbable calls for a brand new financial system centered around the United Nations. But in general, we need to listen attentively to the voices that are coming from the networks of faith communities. They are the closest to poor communities, and their voices are the ones that the G20, the ministers descending on Washington in April, the G8 leaders meeting in July and the United Nations need to hear.

The cartoonists had a field day with the Pope's trip to Africa earlier this month. One cartoon showed Pope Benedict on a charger attacking a giant killer condom with his staff. Another had a large condom as the banana peel on his elegant Italian shoe. And a London Times cartoon showing the Pope with a large condom hat pierced by a hatpin drew an angry response from Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor. The Washington Post got heat for its March 21 cartoon showing the Pope in an AIDS ward blessing the sick because they did not use condoms.

I came across all these cartoons while searching for one that appeared in the French newspaper Le Monde. It showed the Pope speaking to a group of African leaders, the word corruption forming in his mouth; his listeners' response was that he should stick to condoms.

The Le Monde image highlights the dual narratives of the Papal visit to Cameroon and Angola--one story inspired (or consumed) by condoms, the other by Africa, its estimated 130 million Catholics, and the host of issues the visit addressed: women's roles, witchcraft, corruption, greed, war and peace, health and education. When I wrote about the AIDS wars last year, I was aghast at the anger and nastiness surrounding the issue, and especially condoms. That rage is fully on display in the current controversy, epitomized in the cartoons.

Even the Vatican's most ardent admirers have to wonder how the Pope's communications team could have allowed his comments about condoms on the papal plane en route to Africa to convey such an insensitive image - little compassion expressed, no appreciation for the complexities of human sexuality, nary a nod to the 2 million children who live short painful lives with HIV and AIDS, or to the young girls forced into sex with infected older men. An outraged response from the community that cares about HIV/AIDS was the predictable result. (I shudder at the coming reaction to reports that a French bishop pontificated again about the silly hypothesis that the virus can pass through the pores of condoms.)

This is a story of a tragic missed opportunity, because it just reinforces the views of many in the development community that the Church is out of touch (even as Catholic groups perform extraordinary work in AIDS programs.) Many Catholics and their friends had hoped for a more nuanced Vatican view.

The condom diversion overshadowed the huge excitement and huge crowds (a million in Angola) generated by the Pope's visit. His speeches were far-ranging , and contained much wisdom and courage. Especially important were his comments on the evils of corruption. The story could have been about a dynamic, diverse, complex Church, growing and working towards an African pluralism whose lines are still taking shape. That narrative would highlight the importance of religion and how it links to every facet of Africa's challenges, tragedies, and hopes.

The condom controversy won't go away and it should not. While no group maintains that condoms are the whole answer, most agree that they are a key part of the arsenal.

But the Le Monde cartoon highlights the way the condom debate took over a story that was far bigger and more important than pieces of latex. The papal visit was a chance for us to focus on Africa from a different angle. Condom wars muddied the messages about fighting corruption and witchcraft, addressing gender issues, and working more aggressively for peace.

It's taken far too long to put Africa's HIV/AIDS pandemic high on the world's agenda. The condom wars are only a distraction that gets in the way of meaningful action - on AIDS as well as the continent's other problems. Time to shift the agenda.

Gender, sexuality, and religion have plenty of third rails - topics where passions run high and thoughtful dialogue seems a forlorn hope. Female genital cutting, also referred to as mutilation or female circumcision, is one. Between 100 and 140 million girls and women have had this "procedure"; about 3 million girls each year are cut.

The World Health Organization (WHO) describes the process this way: "Female genital mutilation comprises all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. It has no health benefits and harms girls and women in many ways." If you want the gory details go to the WHO website or other sources which describe a pretty wide range of techniques that range from a symbolic nick to major cutting and sewing. To make matters worse, many traditions have the process done in public, on young girls who have no inkling of the pain and danger they are facing.

And what does it have to do with religion? Almost nothing. Virtually all religious scholars state categorically that no religious text or teaching prescribes cutting, yet millions believe that the process has religious origins and is mandated by religious teachings. The issue demonstrates how difficult it can be to disentangle culture and religion. FGC has no benefits, it is clearly a violation of child rights, and it does real harm. But tell that to a group of women from affected countries and you may find them seething in indignation at the audacity of Westerners seeking to impose their values.

We can start by trying to understand what's behind it. That's not easy. Cutting largely, but not completely, coincides with Muslim majority communities. There are, however, some Christian and other communities that practice it and some Muslim communities that do not.

Some people will tell you that cutting is about cleanliness and purity. In some cultures men will not eat food prepared by a woman who has not been cut. Supporters argue that it controls women's tendency to promiscuity. And a profession of traditional cutters has grown up who play other important community roles and "preserve the culture." The practice seems to embody discomfort with women's sexuality and a desire to make sure women are not tempted to sexual affairs. And women often are the ones who perpetuate the practice and most resist change.

A Senegalese non-governmental organization called Tostan, founded by a former American Peace Corps volunteer, Molly Melching, offers both the most plausible understanding of the baffling process and the most effective approach to ending it that I know of. The practice is, like the ancient Chinese practice of foot-binding, linked to marriagability of daughters. Since mothers want their daughters to marry, and thus to preserve their line and insure their old age, they willingly adhere to community norms.

So Tostan works to bring the community both to understand the harm in the practice and to commit to change. They start with the religious leaders and elders, and seek their support. With a constant focus on knowledge and understanding, they work towards a public declaration by community members that they will end the practice.

The good news is that change can happen - Chinese footbinding ended in the space of a generation through a similar process of community buy-in. Thousands of African communities have made their public declarations. Religious leaders are increasingly speaking out forthrightly, as are political leaders. The less good news is that the numbers affected are still staggering and for too many stopping this unkind cut is a low priority.

The Vatican seems to be going through some tough waters; last weekend's article in the Vatican paper, Osservatore Romano, honoring International Women's Day is a vivid example. The headline: "The washing machine and the emancipation of women: put in the powder, close the lid and relax".

Women lead church attendance in many if not most societies. They affirm strongly in polls that faith is deeply important to them. Women faith leaders are more visible and vocal. Calls for social justice resonate. And yet there's a shroud of discomfort around issues of women's rights when religion comes into the picture.

The Niwano Peace Prize isn't nearly as well known as its Nobel counterpart, but the work of its recipients is just ast important and meaningful, as exemplified by this year's winner, Rev. Canon Gideon Byamugisha, an Anglican priest in Uganda.

Depending on who you listen to, the Common Word is an extraordinary opportunity, a watershed event that promises to counter threats of a "clash of civilizations," or yet another interfaith dialogue in which narrow groups argue about the meaning of life and how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Poverty statistics can be numbing. We scrabble for tangible images to translate sterile estimates of poverty's effects -- hungry, homeless, jobless - into terms people can grasp: daily deaths from AIDS are equivalent to x number of 747s crashing, avoidable deaths in childbirth to y hurricanes. But it's still pretty abstract.

Washington is still basking in the euphoria of the inaugural week. It's one of those times engraved on memories, young and old: "Where were you when Barack Obama was sworn in?" There are millions of stories, Facebook photos, emails of congratulations from every corner of the world.

Political discourse these days seems more fitted to Halloween than All Saints Day. Angels and devils, witches and shamans. Rancid prose. We all wonder and worry at the nastiness that shows up in political campaign ads, the polarized news outlets, and beyond.

Yet much as we yearn for civil discourse, we need to recognize that this strain of vitriol is, and has been, very much part of the American scene. Commentator Bill Moyers recently observed: "I would say it's more deranged than delirious, and definitely not un-American. Those crackpots on the right praying for Obama to die and be sent to hell -- they're the warp and woof of home-grown nuttiness. So is the creature from the Second Amendment who showed up at the President's rally armed to the teeth. He's certainly one of us. Red, white, and blue kooks are as American as apple pie and conspiracy theories."

A kind of road rage seems to have taken over. Anyone with a differing opinion is demonized. But is there another way? Surely a more civil discourse and reasoned ethics is as deeply part of the American tradition.

I had the good fortune this week to be a fly on the wall at a phenomenon that tackles tough issues of ethical principles and choices in a different way. Sitting in on a weekly "Ethics Consult" at the Chicago Medical School, I witnessed a passionate and reasoned effort to deal with situations that present ethical choices. Every week, one or more physicians present a case that they see as having difficult ethical elements.

I was a privileged observer, invited because I had lectured earlier in the day, at the invitation of Dr. Mark Siegler, a renowned medical ethics scholar. Mark established the consult and moderates it. The details are confidential but I have his agreement that I can share my impressions. The day I participated, the issues turned around organ transplant choices, care of a very sick infant, and treatment of a difficult and homeless patient.

The scene: a room with about 50 people, most in white coats. Constant eruption of buzzing demands from pagers as doctors responded to urgent calls (they left the room and quickly returned). The consult started with someone reading a short presentation of the situation, followed by an intense, engaged, and caring discussion of the issues and choices. Technical, medical exchanges were very much at the fore. The issues were real and immediate; decisions were in the offing.

What struck me most forcibly was that this discourse was serious, engaged and respectful. People listened to each other. They were asking for help and listening to a wide range of suggestions, not shyly or cagily advanced, but put forth in clear and opinionated terms. People asked questions to understand the cases better. These were tough issues that can be seen in different ways, but these doctors had to make a choice. They had no way to duck the matter; the responsibility lay on their shoulders. They listened to others' advice but made their decisions alone after they left the room.

Everyone learns from the process. And at the end of the two-hour meeting, the papers outlining the cases are collected (so nothing leaks) and everyone leaves, rushing to their next obligation.

I came away with two thoughts.

The first is that the ethics consult formula could and should have much wider application. I can readily imagine it at the World Bank or the United Nations Security Council or Judge Goldstone's commission on Gaza. People who are grappling with complex ethical choices need a safe, demanding, and respectful space to thrash out the issues and options.

And second, the kind of discourse I was privileged to witness among deeply engaged and committed doctors is what we need in the public policy sphere. It's about facts first, about curiosity and a readiness to listen. It's about hearing different views. It's about a willingness to change opinion and then take responsibility. It's an idealistic pragmatism that is surely as much part of the American tradition as mud-slinging invective.

And it's about realizing that ethics, whether inspired by the theological principles of love, or by a physician's determination to help people, is about real choices nuanced by daily realities, more than absolutes and unbending principles.

As the new year dawns, India is massing troops near its border with Pakistan after the Mumbai tragedy, and Israel is wreaking havoc in Gaza to stop the rocket attacks from its hostile neighbor. Just days ago, the political scientist Sam Huntington died, bringing his controversial theory of "the clash of civilizations" back into the public consciousness.

Journalists rarely pursue stories of interfaith dialogue with much enthusiasm. A yawn is the more common reaction. And in the circles of those who work to promote such dialogue, the foibles of journalists are the topic of much grumbling: No matter how noble the objective, no matter how significant the interfaith breakthrough, there is barely a mention in the press.

This is grading season in universities so I was interested to hear a respected colleague suggest that Tony Blair's speech to a packed Council on Foreign Relations meeting merited an A. That's impressive considering the topic was the Israel-Palestine conflict.

There's a long line of people and organizations impatient to meet America's President-elect and to place their issues high on his agenda. The Community of Sant'Egidio is right there, pressing for early meetings with Barack Obama's new foreign policy and national security teams.

Markets, economics, and economists may still command some respect in Washington but as many eminent religious leaders met in Cyprus November 16-18, few if any had a good word to say about them. Relentlessly, the world's economic system was described as valueless, harsh, erratic, and arbitrary, serving only the interests of the rich and driving the poor into deeper misery.

After the euphoria that greeted America's presidential election, I was a bit taken aback to discern a tremor of concern rippling through a group of religious leaders from every corner of the world gathered in Cyprus this week. Their worry: expectations are so high that Barack Obama simply cannot meet them. As I pushed back against that assumption, I could see that our historic election has raised not just expectations for what the United States will do, but what people hope and expect from their own governments.

Diana Eck, Harvard scholar, has documented the stunning religious change that America is experiencing. I glimpsed a piece of it last Saturday night.

Around the world, religious leaders have often been at the forefront of fighting corruption, but you would never know that from looking around the International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC) held recently in Athens.

Messages from all corners of the world are flooding in, expressing wonder, joy, and hearty congratulations.

The long road to the U.S. presidential election has gripped people all over the world. Millions have followed the horse race minute by minute, puzzled over the gaffes and slogans, and figuratively scratched their heads. This campaign has challenged the deeply held image of a racist America.

A remarkable woman died this week - Soeur Emmanuelle, an indomitable nun who topped surveys time and again as France's most admired woman. Nora Boustany wrote a wonderful obituary in Friday's Washington Post. If you want to know what Faith in Action is about, look at her life and work.

Soeur Emmanuelle was a beacon at interfaith meetings, especially the annual Prayer for Peace that the Community of Sant'Egidio organizes each year (the next in Cyprus November 16-18). There, among somber and almost exclusively male religious leaders, this small feisty woman could not be missed, striding rapidly along in sturdy sneakers, wisps of hair escaping a headscarf, with two women, one on each side, supporting her. Age did not wither her (she was 99 when she died), and neither did protocol.

The scene was a muggy hotel conference room in Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia, last week. The topic was grand: "Building Peace, Cooperation, and Harmony through Interfaith Dialogue." The audience was a somber group of Buddhist, Muslim, and Christian leaders, government officials, students and a smattering of international speakers. The tone was utterly serious - no backslapping or chitchat. The organizer was a small new group called the Asian Faiths Development Dialogue.

Jesuit schools around the world have educated an amazing array of world leaders and citizens and are renowned for their excellence and discipline. That is true of places like Georgetown University--but also, around the world, in very poor communities "where the asphalt ends."

The most shocking comment for me in last week's Vice Presidential debate was Joe Biden's rather casual suggestion that foreign assistance would be the first budget item to cut in the face of the current financial meltdown. Sadly, there has been no storm of protest, scarcely a whimper from secular or religious leaders. It was another sign that global poverty is plummeting to the bottom of the developed world's agenda once again.

WCRP (the World Conference on Religions for Peace, known more commonly as Religions for Peace) is the world's largest interfaith organization, and it is increasingly engaged in mobilizing religious communities in support of the Millennium Development Goals. Thus during what has become an annual stocktaking of progress towards the MDGs that is integrally part of the annual United Nations General Assembly meetings, WCRP organized a series of events to advance the cause. The centerpiece was a half day meeting on September 24, aimed to bring together government leaders and representatives from the UN agencies with religious leaders. A declaration that stressed the moral imperatives of honoring the pledges that all world nations and governments have undertaken through the 2000 Millennium Declaration was circulated after the meeting.

There's a sharp new focus in international circles on an ancient plague: malaria. Despite huge advances made against the disease, hundreds of millions of cases occur each year and a million people die, most of them children in Africa. Most worrying, in some regions, the disease seems to be making a comeback.

A fat envelope from my son's school this week had a slim letter with a reproachful tone and a bunch of remedial forms: I had missed a critical meeting about the college application process. I missed the meeting because I was in Chicago for a meeting of a task force on religion and public life.

Pretty much any public matter can be linked to faith - if you don't think so, take a look at Ghana's interfaith initiative against garbage. Recently its leaders got together in Accra to take stock of their somewhat improbable project - an effort they call their "Crusade against Filth".

In the midst of the gripping political dramas dominating our news cycle, images of Bhutan (where I was earlier this month) color my processing of the news. Bhutan is about as far as you can get from contemporary American life - a small Himalayan kingdom where ferocious deities are part of daily life and serfdom is a living memory (it was abolished in 1956). Nevertheless, parallels there are.

Summary Outcome

Teams from the World Council of Churches (WCC), the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) met for two days in Accra Ghana to address core issues of strategies towards development and poverty alleviation. The meeting was under discussion for several years and represented a continuation of a dialogue process initiated in 2002 . The meeting was deemed a success by all, challenging preconceived ideas and opening the path to continuing exchange. The core idea behind the Ghana event - that dialogue about development strategy can not really budge unless it is brought to a country level - proved its merit. The event also benefitted from the constructive moderating role played by Gerrie Ter Haar, from the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague.

Out of the small Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan came a concept that has enthralled the international development community: Gross National Happiness. GNH offers up a different way to measure a country's well-being, based on the common welfare and infused with a good dose of spirituality--in contrast to the materialism represented by the Gross National Product (GNP). In a time dominated by anxiety about recession, climate change and spiraling energy and food prices, GNH seems to offer a respite, an alternative vision.

Your work in the coming days to promote integrity, honesty, and efficiency in the public and private sectors is a critical part of the fight against poverty. This is very much a global effort and it involves all sectors of societies, all countries, and many different kinds of intellectual approaches. You will be touching on many different dimensions here. I am sorry that I cannot be with you in person to learn from you all, but am honored to share my reflections with you and I look forward to learning of your work over the next days and your vision of the important work still to come.

Far away on a remote border between Cambodia and Thailand, an international conflict is brewing. The United Nations Security Council has been notified. Newspapers in Thailand and Cambodia report on hourly developments and, at least in Cambodia, the Ministry of Education warned students to remain calm in the face of nationalist fervor, recalling past violence triggered by similar disputes.

Tolstoy wrote that every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. The same could be said about the ethnic and religious conflicts that cause so much strife in the world--in Burundi, Sri Lanka, the Ivory Coast and the Middle East. Memories run deep, and anyone who attempts to mediate finds bitterness, conflicting narratives and wounded people. Efforts to find common threads that could lead to solutions can be slow, fitful, and full of pain.

Last week (July 9, 2008), I attended (on behalf of the World Bank) a long planned interagency meeting in New York, organized and hosted by UNFPA. The meeting was described as a UN Interagency Consultation on Engagement with Faith Groups. Brady Walkinshaw and Marisa Van Saanen also participated. There were two particularly interesting conclusions: first, that the topic of religion as an ingredient in public affairs is emerging across many agencies, and many are seeking strategic directions in response. And second, the Bank emerges as a leader among agencies in terms of its experience and particularly its strategic reflection.

This meeting, the first of its kind, had, we understand, been in prospect for almost two years and reflected the leadership of Thoraya Obaid, Executive Director of UNFPA. She has been an active partner in the Bank's faith work and the World Faiths Development Dialogue (WFDD), and participated in both Canterbury and Dublin Leader meetings. We had discussed the importance of an interagency stock taking on several occasions so we were part of the meeting's conception. The meeting was also planned together with UNAIDS, which in April convened a meeting in Geneva to reflect on how faith institutions were engaged on HIV/AIDS, so the outcomes of that meeting were also a focus. Finally, the meeting looked at the UN system wide, with active participation of the Alliance of Civilizations and DESA including the author of the upcoming Secretary General's report to the General Assembly. The issue ties in particularly to planned UN focus on intercultural dialogue.

The meeting brought together representatives from UNDP, UN-Habitat, UNAIDS, UNICEF, UNIFEM, UNDESA, and the Alliance of Civilizations, in addition to the World Bank. The central theme was a sharing of experience in efforts to ramp up work with faith leaders and faith communities on key development and diplomatic issues.

The discussion highlighted several noteworthy points: first, there was consensus and much energy among the UN agencies represented about the need to engage with faith leaders and faith communities and to improve and streamline communication and partnership with these organizations. While the agencies are not without internal dissent, there is consensus on the critical need to find inroads for dialogue and partnership with faith-based partners and to explore how this can best be done consistent with the mission of the United Nations and of each specialized agency. One representative from each agency was tasked to give the group an informal status update on their work with faith groups and plans for the future: it was interesting to hear many similar themes (e.g. high among them that it is critical to work with faith groups as they are such key service providers, with important roles in advocacy and strong links to local communities), and also similar institutional challenges (e.g. concerns about veering too far into work with faith groups and recognition that faith groups cannot be grouped with larger "civil society" partnership efforts given their particularities). There was also shared concern to ensure that these issues are taken seriously and approached thoughtfully by the various agencies.

It is also notable the degree to which the World Bank's work with faith groups and institutions is well recognized to be ahead of the curve and the Bank an important leader on these issues. That the Bank has renewed its commitment to the work with faith groups is an important development and reassuring to the agencies that are at earlier stages of developing their work in this area.

It was agreed that the work of coming together around these faith issues was an important step for the UN agencies and that there should be continued conversation and dialogue moving forward. One of the ideas floated was to devise a common set of principles to guide the agencies' work with faith leaders and institutions—to keep them from becoming political or politicized and to keep them focused on development goals. While there was rich discussion on this issue, there was no consensus at this time given concerns about overly limiting faith partnerships at this time, when there is still much to be explored in these relationships.

There was also much discussion around the strategic framework that UNAIDS devised in collaboration with faith groups in a meeting in April, 2008, in Geneva, to guide the relationship of UNAIDS and faith-based organizations. The strategy is focused around a three-level approach to religious leaders, faith-inspired organizations, and local faith communities, and is intended to outline desired outcomes from partnership and action on HIV in nine thematic areas: working with people living with HIV, human rights/justice, gender, youth, work with marginalized communities, stigma and discrimination, prevention, treatment, and care and respect. There was some discussion about how this strategic framework might be further developed and how it might be applicable for the work of other agencies.

Overall, there were important strides made in inter-agency communication and much interest in continuing the dialogue and ensuring that there is collaboration and linkages moving forward.

Global warming makes strange bedfellows.

That’s the basic explanation of why Richard Cizik, a prominent evangelical pastor, could be found for two days last month closeted at the World Bank and on Capitol Hill with a group of other evangelicals and a delegation of Moroccan Muslims, led by their ambassador to the U.S., Aziz Mekouar.

Cizik is propelled by his conviction that no issue is more urgent and carries a stronger moral imperative than global warming. He casts a wide net in his effort to make common cause and galvanize effective partnerships to persuade and mobilize. The Moroccans were willing to sign on to a dialogue because for them, also, climate change is not an abstraction; it means drought, hunger and acute water shortages.

World leaders are heading for Japan for the annual ritual known as the Group of Eight meeting. Last week a different group of leaders met, also in Japan, also to take stock of the leading issues that face the world.

They were religious leaders, and their gathering took place in two Japanese cities with spiritual roots, Osaka and Kyoto. The meeting is part of a tradition, now three years old, of a religious summit on the eve of the grand G8 summit.

Religious leaders don’t make policy, but they wield tremendous influence on billions of people. So their meeting, echoing the summit of states, could have real significance. If, for example, religious leaders were to agree on needed action to address climate change, they could truly make a difference.

Planting churches in The Hague?

I admit I was a bit baffled to hear a Nigerian pastor discussing this subject at a conference in the rather staid and orderly capital of the Netherlands. But meeting Dele Olowu in person, I came away with new respect for the phenomenon that some call the “reverse missionary movement”—Africans bringing religion to Europe. He upsets plenty of notions about religion and proselytizing, which he calls planting churches.

Background

The Bank responded to a request from both the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) and the Moroccan government to host an event on June 19. The Bank was invited largely to offer technical expertise on climate change strategy, but also because of our long-standing commitment to development faith partnerships. What made this event unusual was the effort to address underlying issues of West/Muslim work tensions generally and Christian/Muslim more specifically by means of a dialogue about an issues of patent common concern, climate change. The key personality involved in promoting this dialogue process has been Rev. Richard Cizik, a prominent leader in the US evangelical movement who has passionately espoused the cause of global warming. The Moroccan ambassador to the US was also intimately involved, as was Michael Kirtley who heads an NGO called Friendship Caravan. The two day dialogue (one at the Bank, the other on Capitol Hill and Mount Vernon) was meticulously planned.

Meetings at the World Bank

On Thursday, June 19, 2008, delegations from the Kingdom of Morocco and the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) met at the World Bank for a day-long discussion centering on the topic of "Creation Care," or religiously-inspired care for the environment. The meetings represented a continuation of an engagement between a significant segment of the US evangelical community and Moroccan leaders, The NAE delegation was led by President Leith Anderson and Vice President for Governmental Affairs Richard Cizik, both well known for their involvement in climate change activism. The Moroccan delegation, led by Ambassador Aziz Mekouar, included several prominent Moroccan academics and government figures who have been involved in environmental work.

The morning session featured presentations from the World Bank's climate change experts. Warren Evans, Director of the Environment Department, welcomed the dialogue and noted the vital importance of this constituency. Speaking about the contrasting strategies of mitigation (halting the causes of climate change) and adaptation (helping those affected by climate change to cope), he highlighted the fact that the World Bank has come to view climate change as a crucially important development issue. The Bank's goal is to help developing countries, which are the most vulnerable and least resilient to environmental changes, to foster economic growth while adapting to negative impacts. Richard Damania and Michele de Nevers further detailed the evidence on climate change and the Bank's response in their presentations, while Luis Constantino specifically addressed how the MENA region will be affected.

Each member of the Moroccan team of six gave presentations, covering a range of topics, some at the opening dinner on June 18 and some during the event itself. Asma El Kasmi of Al-Akhawayn University spoke about the average Moroccan's perception of climate change and how it is influenced by the global media. She also described a project that she had led dealing with women and water use in a Berber village. Youssef Enadifi of Holcim Morocco spoke about his company's work in promoting the creation of M'goun Geopark, which they hope will achieve the international UNESCO Geopark label for protecting natural and cultural heritage. Over lunch, Asma Chaabi, mayor of Essaouira and the first female mayor elected in Morocco, spoke about women's leadership issues.

The lunch discussion was also noteworthy for its exploration of issues of religious freedom as it affects particularly Moroccan Muslims and evangelical Christians. Rick Love, currently in the Reconciliation Program at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, gave a presentation addressing the "ethics of dawa and evangelism" and the importance of interfaith dialogue.

The afternoon session took the form of an open discussion between the two delegations around a series of pre-planned questions. Three main themes emerged from the conversation. First, many delegates emphasized the importance of interfaith dialogue, even in the face of criticism from others (such as more conservative members of the Evangelical or Muslim communities) who oppose such initiatives. Although neither side was willing to speak on behalf of their entire faith, they agreed that their coming together was important in promoting understanding between their constituencies. Second, the importance of changing people's negative views – on climate change and on interfaith dialogue – and how to go about it were discussed. Third, the delegates touched on future projects and areas of cooperation, including a possible meeting at Al-Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco and possible collaboration on a television project. Several people emphasized the need to take advantage of the power of the media and of youth voices among both constituencies.

Next Steps

A premise of the meetings was that they would not be confined to talk and follow up is expected. Its form is yet to be defined but is likely to include some media and communication efforts as well as continuing meetings, the next most likely in Morocco, to include a larger group of stakeholders.

The blitz of publicity around the launch of the new Tony Blair Faith Foundation hammered home one core theme: Religion matters. Public policy makers and intelligent citizens should give it due attention.

I participated as a panelist (theme, cultural dialogue and media roles) in a large international conference in Fes, Morocco that ran June 3-6. It involved a lively and sometimes quite fractious debate about the proposed new Union, and was a lead up to the planned meeting of Mediterranean heads of state in Paris on July 13. The meeting was timed to conclude just on the eve of the opening of the Fes Festival of Global Sacred Music, now in its 14th year, and a substantial draw. However, there were no formal links between the two events.

The disconnects among different worlds come through powerfully at World Economic Forum (WEF) meetings. Bringing everyone together under one tent is a feat all by itself, but once they get there they can talk quite different languages.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) holds its principal, and best known, meeting at Davos each January but regional meetings in different parts of the world are taking on increasing importance. The annual Middle East meeting, which has for the past few years alternated between the Dead Sea complex in Jordan and Sharm El Sheikh, in Egypt, took place this year at Sharm El Sheikh, from May 18-20. As part of this large gathering (some 1300 participants plus staff), a series of private meetings about the state of West Islam dialogue was organized by the WEF; Tom Banchoff and Katherine Marshall from the Berkley Center participated.

West Islam issues were discussed at Sharm El Sheikh primarily by a special group organized over the past few years by the WEF: the Council of 100 Leaders on West Islam Dialogue. The discussions focused on the January 2008 report: Islam and the West: the State of Dialogue and on leading issues that emerged from it; President Jack DeGioia was its lead author and Georgetown University's Berkley Center, led by Professor Tom Banchoff, coordinated this multi-partner effort that included Gallup work on polling attitudes, Media Tenor analysis of media, a Berkley Center review of dialogue efforts across the world, and commentary by some 32 public intellectuals.

The World Economic Forum on the Middle East at Sharm El Sheikh reeks of solemnity. There is a sense that the people who attend this annual business-driven meeting carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. With speeches by three heads of state (Presidents Hosni Mubarak and George W. Bush and King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud) at the opening event Sunday, with 1,500 world leaders from many different sectors, the gravity of the issues at hand seemed overwhelming.

Seamus Finn OMI is a priest with the Catholic religious order, Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. He spends a good amount of his time on investment issues. He is a “socially responsible investing” (SRI) consultant and a leader in a new international effort to bring different religious traditions together in using their financial muscle for worthy causes. I asked him what is most on his mind these days: Wheat subsidies? Mining ventures? Gas prices? No, he said, outrage in his voice, it's the credit crisis. The current financial meltdown in the United States reflects failures to look at the ethical implications of basic lending practices right up and down the line. And millions of real people are hurting as a result.

The global food crisis came like a tsunami, with amazing speed and stealth. Development institutions everywhere are scrambling to face the urgent problems and questions that come in its wake.

There’s the immediate problem: How to find funds to buy enough food to meet steep increases in demand to feed hungry people here and now.

Music is a well known path for crossing wide cultural divides. Music speaks without words. It can epitomize a mood as well as a culture. And it can stir up emotions and preconceptions. There’s a fascinating venture afoot in Fes, Morocco, to use those very qualities to bridge divides between the Muslim world and western cultures and faiths. The idea is that people can, through their love of music, explore new realms and appreciate the world’s wonderful diversity. But even more, the hope is that with emotions roused through music and art, people will open their minds as well as their hearts to new ideas.

For guts combined with grace, Thoraya Obaid has few rivals. A proud Saudi Muslim, she leads what is probably the United Nations' most controversial agency, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) – which addresses women's reproductive health. Recently she was the speaker at the Washington National Cathedral's Sunday Forum, arguing that religious leaders must address the sorry state of women in much of the developing world.

The landmark “Breakthrough” summit at the National Cathedral had a clear goal; to bring together faith, development, and women’s organizations in order to create a powerful new force for reducing poverty by improving the lives of women and girls around the world.

The event, held April 13-14, had two distinct parts. The first was a grand and moving show that drew in the crowd in both a spiritual and sensory way. In the morning a forum in the Cathedral nave featured Thoraya Obaid, who heads UNFPA and the sermon at the 11:15 service was preached by Agnes Aboum, who heads the All Africa Council of Churches. At 2pm the 2,000 person audience in the National Cathedral was treated to inspirational speeches with Madeleine Albright standing out: her comment “some people call domestic violence cultural; I call it criminal” was perhaps the most memorable of the day.

Sloshing through Hezekiah’s tunnel near the City of David in Jerusalem brings home what fear and faith can do. The 530-meter-long tunnel was chiseled out of rock over 2500 years ago, deep underground, by men without flashlights or scientific instruments to guide them. They knew that if they were attacked they could survive only if they were sure of their water source. To this day water flows through the tunnel from a spring to a reservoir.

This note, just for information, reports on an interesting meeting that form part both of an emerging dimension of the World Bank faith/ethics dialogue and a broader evolution of coalitions for change, especially in the US but also more broadly - that is, the growing interest of the vast community of faith institutions in climate change and their increasing activism.

On April 22, 2008, a delegation of leaders from the National Religious Coalition on Climate Change, joined representatives of the Bank's Development Dialogue on Values and Ethics, Environment team, and External Affairs for a consultation on climate issues. The meeting followed from the Development Dialogue's ongoing relationships with faith leaders on areas of climate and environment more generally. It was in fact the fourth meeting over a period of five years with a similarly constituted interfaith group, which convenes about once a year in Washington DC. The most recent meeting at the Bank was in January 2005.

Because of a suggestion from James Wolfensohn while he was in Israel, I was part of an exciting workshop in Neve Ilan at the end of last month. In a nutshell, the meeting was presented as the second designed to reflect on and to revitalize both Jewish and Israeli development work, and to draw together both religious and secular experience and approaches.

Avoid religion and politics at the dinner table -- so goes the conventional wisdom. Tempers will flare and appetites curdle with the passions that both topics so often arouse. But in reality we need to get the kind of dinner-table discussions going that can help overcome some deep and poorly understood prejudices about religion in American life.

You can't miss rising food prices if you do the grocery shopping or listen to the radio these days. They are causing real pain all around the world as family budgets everywhere are squeezed. There's no end in sight, though hunger is much more prominent at least in policy discussions, from Davos to U.S. political campaigns.

Where are the passionate moderates in Islam, Madeleine Albright wanted to know. Why does all the passion seem to come from extremists? The former secretary of State was speaking at the recent U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha, sponsored by the Brookings Institution. To the Islamic world, her message was that what we need now is “moderates on the march, moderates with swagger.”

I should have been prepared for the backlash! I stepped right into the middle of a heated controversy when I co-authored a report for Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs in November about the role of religious organizations in the battle against HIV/AIDS. Just last week, an angry letter from the Gerard Health Foundation in Boston to Georgetown University’s president actually called for the report’s withdrawal, with a litany of accusations. The complaint? That our report gives insufficient “credit” to promoting abstinence and faithfulness as a central approach to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and that it reveals an “anti-Catholic bias” in its treatment of Church teaching on condoms. Perhaps nowhere is the role of religion in public policy and service delivery more significant than in the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The storm around the Berkley Center report is a depressing illustration of how hard dialogue can be. And how important.

Three Catholic bishops from three West African countries (Mali, Senegal, and Burkina Faso) crisscrossed Washington last month. Their purpose was to put a human face on Congressional deliberations about the farm bill. They trekked from office to office, all over Washington, to make the point that a very American piece of legislation, that Congress has wrangled over for months (and which is now in Conference), has profound effects that go far beyond American farmers and other Americans who are slated for support. The bill’s provisions for subsidies that will benefit above all some 13,000 American cotton farmers will affect world cotton prices. And world cotton prices are a matter of the keenest interest for about 13 million West African farmers, because cotton is often their only source of cash income.

If Muslim leaders were underrepresented in Naples at the Catholic Church's International Encounter for Peace last month, it must be said that there were also remarkably few women religious leaders nominated to represent their faiths. The predominance of males reflects a power reality that deserves careful consideration. It is, after all, obvious that women are critical for all the religions, and that religion is of deep importance for many women. But what troubles me more is how few issues for women make it onto the agenda at meetings like this one, issues such as domestic violence, education for girls, ways to balance families, and nurture children. What kind of picture would we hope to see when religious leaders gather 10 years from now?

The concludes with a striking ceremony where religious leaders sit on a platform grouped by religion, in ceremonial garb. The colors are vivid, crimson, white, black, and saffron. The symbolism is also vivid, as they light candles together for peace. This year's visual pageant showed some of the complexities of encouraging dialog among very different kinds of religions and religious organizations. The Catholic hierarchy was marked by differing colors and robes. The ranks of Orthodox recalled their ancient history with varied, yet distinctive robes and headgear. Protestants generally wore more sober hues, but visible symbols marked their office. Other faiths, and especially Islam, were represented more sparingly, and underscored the broader question of who can speak for Islam. Ezzeddin Ibrahim, founder of the University of the United Arab Emirates, was the principal spokesman for Islam at the inter-religious gathering and Muslims were outnumbered and, by some measures, outranked. The challenge of representing this diverse global religion was vividly apparent.

Forty years ago, Andrea Riccardi dedicated himself in Rome to helping his poorest neighbors. Last month in Naples, he challenged leading religious officials and members of the Catholic lay group he founded to confront terrorism and the "idealized" violence of war, as well as the "culture of contempt" that feeds them both. Speaking at the opening of this year's International Encounter for Peace, organized by the Community of Sant'Egidio, Riccardi acknowledged the difficulty in overcoming "the mist of pessimism that often clouds our vision." However, the gentle-aired, erudite history professor also reminded those in attendance that faith requires them to overcome pessimism and to act. "Anyone who uses the name of God to hate the other, to practice violence, or to wage war, is cursing the name of God," said Riccardi. "We commit ourselves to learn the art of living together and to offer it to our fellow believers."

Faith is more than beliefs. It is about right and wrong, justice and injustice -- about remaking the world. "Faith in Action" tracks the activities of people of faith across the globe and across religious traditions. It maps their engagement around critical issues, from global health to the environment -- from AIDS to zebras. It explores the struggles, alliances, and common efforts of people of faith, public and private, local and global. And it highlights how important it is for Americans to look beyond their borders and to appreciate the struggles of the "bottom billion" people in today's globalized world.

Katherine Marshall, a Berkley Center Senior Fellow and Director of the World Faiths Development Dialogue, attended the Monterrey Religious Encounter, September 21-24, 2007.

The Interreligious Encounter hit its full stride Sunday, with speakers and participants well into routines of speeches, panels, and the like. Overall there were three full days of events, with the closing plenary on Monday evening. The International Interreligious Encounter then concludes, and in Monterrey, the Cultural Forum shifts its focus from religion to other dimensions of culture, over its 80 day life. For the Parliament of the World Religions, the focus will shift to the major global event on its calendar, the meeting in Melbourne Australia in December 2009.

There are some 60 people that the Parliament of Religions has invited to be part of the Interreligious Encounter (40+ plus speakers plus people accompanying them). This is a truly "global" group, coming from all over the world, and from an extraordinary span of religious traditions. It includes Christian leaders, a woman who works with Muslim Sufi networks, several Jain representatives, Sikhs, from the UK and California, filmmakers, Baha'is, and a few who resist simple categories (myself among them - I introduced myself as coming from a tradition of Episcopal Christianity with faith in the development of human potential). Perhaps most striking, visually, to an observer is the group of Buddhists, as Dharma Master Hsin Tao Shih from Taiwan (creator of the remarkable museum of World Religions there) came with 11 nuns, all in identical grey robes, their heads shaved, and with the same backpacks. The indigenous group includes a Hopi from Arizona, several Yorubas from Nigeria, and a representative of Paganism, who traces his roots to the Celtic world.

Interreligious gatherings have very different flavors – I have been to many in recent years and each evokes vivid yet very different memories. But all have some special, common qualities. The united presence of people from all corners of the earth, many wearing visible symbols of their faith and cultures, makes a poignant tapestry of the diversity of humanity. It is history come alive, but also today’s plural reality in living color. A side product is a sea of cameras seeking to capture the color, life and diversity. Another is a vibrant feel of diversity – such meetings are particularly tough to organize as participants come with very different habits, not to speak of dietary needs, daily rhythms, and expectations. “Herding cats” is a common analogy.

That's the theme phrase for the Monterrey International Interreligious Encounter that had its formal opening last night. The event took place in Monterrey's cavernous arena, where concerts and sports events are often held; there was an eerie smell of popcorn in the air.

The streets of Monterrey were clogged this evening as Mexico’s president arrived to open an 80 day named the Universal FORUM of Cultures, Monterrey 2007. The hotel lobby of the Holiday Inn swarmed with bagpipe groups in kilts, and a group that looked like medieval troubadours. I am here to participate in a first event of the Forum, which is an interfaith meeting, called the International Interreligious Encounter. A group of about 40 people from all over the world, scholars, practitioners, preachers, from a feast of different faiths, are arriving. We received a program book with a dizzying array of events – plenaries, performances, panels, life stories, introductions to religious traditions, and so on. Some 15,000 people, we were told, will attend a program with up to 15 sessions running in parallel.

I participated in an inaugural event in Fes, Morocco earlier this week, focused on Sufism and Human Development. Faouzi Skali, creator and founder of the Fes Festival and Forum, is the leader and inspirer. The Festival/Forum attracted much attention, despite its newness and quite recent planning - attention from media (Moroccan and foreign), attendees from several continents, and considerable engagement from different Moroccan social and political currents .

Marisa Van Saanen (World Bank Ethics and Values unit) and I participated in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives round table on malaria, aimed at highlighting the vital and central role of faith-based organizations in fighting malaria. The participation of Mrs. Bush, Ambassador Randall Tobias, Georgetown University President John DeGioia, Admiral R. Timothy Ziemer, US Malaria Coordinator, and Jay Hein, Director of the White House Faith-Based office gave a clear indication of the level and focus of the meeting. Participants (some 100) came from faith organizations, private sector, academia, NGOs, and the US government; while the meeting focused on Africa, few if any Africans were there. The two hour meeting consisted of a series of quite short presentations that highlighted US commitment to the malaria program and tangible successes of faith led programs. The roundtable was a follow-on to the December 2006 White House Summit on Malaria hosted by President and Mrs. Bush, which launched the Malaria Communities Program, a $30 million initiative to advance grassroots malaria-control projects in Africa, as part of the PMI (a $1.2 billion program directed to 15 countries).

The Executive Group of the Council of 100 met as part of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos; the C100, briefly, is a WEF initiative (rather atypical among WEF activities) that aims to further dialogue and understanding between "the Islamic World" and "the West". At present the group includes some 86 people, and the intent is that they be drawn from both the Islamic world and western societies, and from five major sectors: business, politics, religion, media, and civil society. The C100 meetings are thus a rare place, perhaps unique, where such broad cross sector representation engages on the complex issues for West Islamic relations. The co-chairs are Lord Carey (former Archbishop of Canterbury) and Princess Lolwah (Saudi Arabia) - who recently succeeded Prince Turki. I have been part of the group over the past three years, and am an Executive Group member, with specific responsibility for an education sub-group; I was at Davos in that capacity.

In accordance with the TORs dated Oct. 27, 2006, I participated on behalf of the Bank, as a panelist and speaker at two events in Geneva commemorating the 20th Anniversary of the Declaration on the Right to Development (RTD). Both events were co-sponsored by the Frederich Ebert Foundation and the UN. The first was held as a parallel event to the third session of the UN Human Rights Council and included participants from country delegations and NGOs accredited to the Council (some 70 participants). The second was a closed experts meeting bringing together a number of speakers and senior representatives from several donor agencies, both bilateral and multilateral.

Responding to a long-standing invitation from the Institute of Social Studies, based in the Hague, I visited the Netherlands this week. The trip was essentially in my "new life" as a professor, but because the World Bank and its work, and the issues of religion and development were so very central, I summarize the discussions for both Bank and Georgetown colleagues.

An "out of the box" meeting at the UN last week presented some interesting features. Its full title was "Our Common Humanity in the Information Age: Principles and Values for Development". Full information can be found at the special website.

The World Economic Forum's annual Europe regional meeting was held in Istanbul for two days earlier this week. It was (as appears to be traditional for WEF regional meetings) heavily focused on Turkey, the host country, though ostensibly it covered all Europe. I was there because the Core Group (now renamed Executive Committee) of the WEF's Council of 100 Leaders on West Islamic Dialogue met as part of the meeting. But I was also part of a panel on education challenges for Turkey, and then did a lengthy, live CNN Turkey interview (with the meeting's co-chair Guler Sabaci) on issues for education.

Timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Azusa Church, considered the first formally established Pentecostal Church, this conference brought together a fascinating blend of scholars and "practitioners", in this instance preachers and activists in the Pentecostal arena. Among luminaries at the meeting were Rev. Harold Caballeros (Guatemalan preacher and candidate for President), Peter Berger, David Martin, Luis Lugo, Eugene Rivers, and Jack Miles.

Today marked the formal launch of the Tripartite Interfaith Forum, and involved inspirational speeches and wise comments from global and UN leaders and the wide range of participants, from member states, from United Nations agencies, and from many Religious bodies and NGOs. My colleagues as moderators, Sister Joan Kirby and Stein Villumstad, have highlighted some key points. My summary briefly reviews what we have achieved, in the form of a stock-taking, starting from a set of fundamental questions about when, how much, why, where, who, what, and how.

At the April Oxford Ethics Forum, I met Tunku Aziz who I had worked with some years ago in the context of the Asia Anti-Corruption Advisory Group. He is currently serving at the United Nations as Ethics Officer, in an assignment reporting to the Secretary General, with the objective of launching a UN ethics office and recommending a future course of action to the SG (his assignment ends in December). Mr. Aziz invited me to give a presentation to his team. After some months of trying to coordinate schedules with INT I took advantage of being in New York to follow up.

Last week I traveled far off the beaten track in western Guatemala. The only news of the world that registered there was the path of hurricanes heading in our direction (the area is still recovering from Hurricane Stan two years ago) and the Peruvian earthquake (the area’s history is full of earthquakes and volcano eruptions) . But the central question on my mind was a global issue: what can religious communities do about the stark poverty that is so obvious there?

Awraham Soetendorp is a household name in the Netherlands so an English language symposium to celebrate his life and mark his formal retirement as rabbi of a Reform Jewish congregation in the Hague last month was quickly over-subscribed. Those lucky enough to attend were in for an eclectic treat: wise words, history, politics, provocative suggestions, music, and theology all woven together with good humor. It was a well timed reminder, at a time when Dutch politics are often tense and polarized and many Muslim immigrants meet intolerance, of what is finest in the Dutch traditions of pragmatism and spirit.