INTERFAITH CALL FOR TIBET EMBRACED BY THE ASSOCIATION FOR GLOBAL NEW THOUGHT AND THE SEASON FOR NONVIOLENCE
Contact Brahma Das: BrahmaDas@aol.com www.interfaithcall.com
At the urging of the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, The Association of Global New Thought churches with 67 thousand members took the lead at their annual conference in October in embracing the cause of freedom of worship and human rights for the Tibetan people. By publicly endorsing and observing the Interfaith Call for Freedom of Worship in Tibet, the Association for Global New Thought (AGNT) has taken the strongest stance so far by any major American religious organization in support of basic freedoms for the Tibetan people.
Dr. Arun Gandhi, director of the M.K. Gandhi Center for Nonviolence took an advocacy role for the Tibetan people this weekend at the national five day conference of AGNT in Palm Springs, California. Following his advice, AGNT's board of directors formally endorsed the Interfaith Call for Freedom of Worship in Tibet and Universal Religious Freedom, urging observance of the Call by AGNT's 133 member churches and the 900 other loosely affiliated New Thought churches.
The Interfaith Call was founded in 1998 by Brahma Das, a human rights activist and President of the World Tibet Day Foundation (an event observed this year in 54 cities in 19 countries); he founded the Call after receiving encouragement and the blessing of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. The Call was observed this October by over 70,000 people around the world, up from 8000 the previous year (this conservative figure does not include the 67,000 members of the Association for Global New Thought). Speaking at the AGNT conference, Brahma Das said one of his reasons for founding the Call was the sense of urgency he felt from recent predictions that "the religion and culture of the Tibetan people in occupied Tibet could be extinguished in less than five years by the genocidal practices of the Chinese government unless the world takes a stand, particularly the world's religions."
Dr. Gandhi explained his own reasons for supporting the Interfaith Call. "Everyone must enjoy the right to believe in and practice their religion. A denial of this unalienable right can destroy a nation's humanity." He added, "To be a silent witness to the deliberate destruction of an ancient culture is like being a party to a holocaust." Along with agreeing to observe the Interfaith Call annually in October, AGNT's Board of Directors also embraced it into the Season for Nonviolence, which AGNT helps to present in 120 cities along with the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence in Memphis, Tennessee and the Dr. Martin Luther King Center in Atlanta, Georgia. The Season for Nonviolence starts with the day Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated in January to the day Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in April, and it uses the principles of nonviolence exemplified so passionately by both men in many projects to advance causes like tolerance, social justice and the elimination of all forms of prejudice.
Barbara Bernstein, Executive Director of AGNT, said the Interfaith Call "will be a wonderful addition to the Season for Nonviolence, which we can use as a vehicle to reach out to other churches, synagogues, mosques and temples in support of religious freedom and human rights for everyone, and especially for the Tibetan people whose very existence is now being threatened."
Speaking for the Council for the Interfaith Call, Brahma Das said he expected that AGNT's endorsement of the Call will lead to similar actions by other religious institutions. He noted that although they haven't yet made formal endorsements, many other religious organizations did join in the worldwide observance of the Interfaith Call this past weekend, including 30,000 Tibetan students in India, Nepal and Bhutan (coordinated by the Department of Education for the Tibetan Government in Exile); 20,000 Zoroastrians in the U.S., at the direction of the Zoroastrian Association of North America.; and by 7000 members of the International Mahavir Jain Mission.
In addition the Call was observed by chaplains and students at many colleges and universities in the United States (organized by over 600 chapters of Students for a Free Tibet) as well as at numerous individual churches, synagogues, temples, mosques and gurdwaras. Many of these houses of worship had downloaded prayers for their observances from the Interfaith Call website (www.interfaithcall.com) contributed by such spiritual leaders as the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu, as well as the prayer services posted there from 13 faith traditions.
The President of the Association for Global New Thought, the Reverend Mary Manin Morrissey, from the Living Enrichment Center in Portland, Oregon, offered her perspective on AGNT's endorsement of the Call. "The New Thought movement embodies our basic belief in a deep honoring of all spiritual traditions and the commonality among them all - of which the central theme is the golden rule, which is the basis of all human rights. So it is totally appropriate to embrace the Interfaith Call among our church congregations and the community at large."
At AGNT's closing session in Palm Springs, Brahma Das helped the gathering observe the Interfaith Call by reading the Dalai Lama's favorite prayer (from Shantideva's Bodhisattvayatara), which His Holiness had contributed to the Call:
"For as long as space endures
And for as long as living beings remain
Until then may I too abide
To dispel the misery of the world."
