herbswanson.com

The purpose of this essay is to share personal observations and thoughts concerning Payap University's Conference on Religion & Globalization. Some of what follows is celebratory and positive, some of it is more critical and less enthusiastic. There were high points to this conference that inspired and challenged the participants, and there were also moments that left me, at least, troubled; but, in any event, the Payap conference was an important one—a rich opportunity to learn—and worthy of reflection. In the course of formulating my own reactions to the conference, I benefited greatly from daily discussions with our house guest for the week and my good friend, Dr. Philip Hughes and comments on an earlier draft by Dr. Don Swearer, another good friend who is no stranger to the readers of HeRB; but, the views expressed here are my own, based on the sessions I attended and the people I came into contact with during the week.

Unfortunately, I did not hear Don Swearer's keynote address. The text of his address, which I did have an opportunity to read before he delivered it, indicates that Don presented a balanced, insightful reading of globalization, helpfully demonstrating how global forces impact religion through the example of Buddhism and Protestant Christianity in Thailand. (See "A Keynote" in this issue of HeRB for a brief excerpt from the address). This was one of a relatively few instances in which conference speakers consciously sought to see globalization from a local perspective. Evidently, the question and answer period was not as balanced, and the conference began with a decidedly negative view of globalization. The question of whether the conference would place a positive, neutral, mixed, or negative value on globalization was, obviously, one of the central issues facing it.

A crucial moment in the conference's collective consideration of how to judge globalization came in an exchange after the plenary presentation by Dharma Master Hsin Tao, from Taiwan, who spoke in Chinese but had an excellent translator. The Dharma Master presented the first of the plenary speeches, on Monday, and in that speech he argued that we should not look on globalization in absolute terms as being either good or evil. Globalization presents us, he suggested, with a set of choices that we must each make. He told the assembly that people of faith should not waste their time with anti-globalization movements and should develop instead a concept of positive, beneficial globalization consisting of the deepest human and religious values. Such globalization would focus on a conceptualizing a harmonious global community, and the work of the world's religions is to create just such a world community. Religion, he argued, should function as an antidote to the more negative, evil side of globalization.

The crucial moment came when one of the participants from Iran responded with an observation-question, which asserted that "globalization" really means "globalism," which actually means "Westernism," which means "Americanism." Globalization is not a neutral term, he argued, but rather an ideological one. He then asked the Dharma Master in what sense we need to fight against the hidden ideologies of globalization. The Dharma Master responded immediately that there is no use to finger pointing and blame making. People of faith must be aware of their own inner attitudes and must accept globalization as it is if they want to then respond to it effectively and positively. The Dharma Master repeatedly urged the importance of taking a pragmatic approach, which he seemed to think begins with a balanced, non-combative attitude towards globalization. He did see some aspects of globalization as being the moral and social equivalent of a disease, and religion again is the antidote—but a positive, effective, practical one.

In this exchange, the conference heard proposals for two very different approaches to globalization. One treats globalization as an evil moral phenomenon and believes that people of faith must fight it. The other point of view argues that globalization is a neutral phenomenon that the religious must first embrace and then, where necessary, transform it. As the days went on, the conference clearly and collectively accepted the pragmatic, intentionally balanced attitude of the Dharma

Master, and while speakers presented any number of negative assessments of globalization, they generally did so in the same "balanced" manner as the Dharma Master.

This collective "decision" to treat globalization as neither essentially good or evil reflected the largely moderately conservative tone of the conference throughout. Although self-consciously liberal and dialogical, the conference generally failed to articulate new directions for religious praxis. Some of the Asian Buddhist speakers, like the Dharma Master himself, seemed to be proposing a restoration of primitive Buddhism as the answer to the challenge of globalization. Western Christians and Western Buddhists seemed largely committed to interfaith dialogue as the hope of the future, even though one plenary speaker, as will be seen below, argued from year's of experience with dialogue that traditional interfaith dialogue has not led to greater understanding between the world's religions.

Recent research from Europe, Britain, and Australia suggests, meanwhile, that religious reformation and dialogue are not adequate responses to changes taking place in global religiosity. Philip Hughes, in his paper on religion and social capital in the global context, noted that there two key religious reactions to globalization are emerging. One is the "fundamentalist" reaction, which retreats into closed religious traditions described by clear, absolute boundaries. The second reaction is the growing number of people who mix and match pieces of various religions into a personal religion, a "buffet" attitude. The speakers and participants in the conference, with a few notable individual exceptions, did not address either of these trends in any direct way.

It would not be fair, however, to say that the speakers and participants failed entirely to address the key challenges globalization poses for religion today. In strikingly different and yet highly effective ways, two of the plenary speakers articulated cogent religious responses to globalization. They are Dr. Wesley Ariarajah, a professor at Drew University, and the Rev. John Spong, a retired bishop of the Episcopal Church. For me personally and for many other participants, Dr. Ariarajah's presentation was the high point of the conference. Bishop Spong,

meanwhile, provided the conference with a little drama as well as plenty of zest and spice. This is not to say that other plenary speakers and panels had nothing to offer. They did. I was particularly taken with the panel presentation of Dr. Vasudha Narayanan on American Hinduism and Dr. Chandra Mustafa's excellent address on the issues of globalization from an Islamic perspective. Spong and Ariarajah, however, deserve particular attention.

Dr. Ariarajah spoke on the topic, "Religious Diversity and Interfaith Relations in a Global Age." His remarks were directly relevant to the conference's theme, well-delivered, and broke new ground even for those who have expertise in the study of globalization. Where Bishop Spong injected vim and fire into the proceedings, Dr. Ariarajah offered a cogent analysis of where we are and where we have to go when it comes to globalization.

Dr. Ariarajah prefaced his speech by observing that humanity is biologically global, a species that can adapt itself to many different environments. Globalization, thus, has been a human reality since the beginning of the human race and remains so today, in an accelerated version that is ambiguously both "good" and "bad." After emphasizing the importance of globalization to the contemporary world community, he went on to observe that religion has long played an important role in processes of globalization, especially because most religions have a universalizing component that fosters a global sense. Dr. Ariarajah then argued that globalization today presents several challenges to the world's religions. Positively, it is dissolving the hard and fast boundaries between religious communities in a number of ways, and many people have begun to draw on elements from several religions to form their own personal faith, a phenomenon he calls "multiple religious belonging." On the other hand, negatively, globalization threatens the world's culture and religious diversity, attacks certain religious values, and destroys local communal identities including religious identities. There is a negative universalizing tendency in globalization that the various religious traditions feel they must resist.

This dual nature of globalization, both positive and negative, has a number of important implications for interfaith relations according to Dr. Ariarajah. First, hard won experience in the global context has shown that interfaith dialogue does not in and of itself lead to a better world. He said that those engaged in dialogue have been

"cured of our innocence" about what dialogue can accomplish; interfaith relations are very complex, and just meeting and talking does not build strong interfaith relationships in a deeper sense. Second, globalization teaches us the importance of communal identities. Religious conflict is between communities, not individuals, and in our contemporary situation religious communities are frequently being motivated to hate each other and riot violently against each other. Those engaged in interfaith dialogue to date have not considered how to bring communities into dialogue and have not considered the need for new tools to achieve communal dialogue. Third, those taking part in interfaith dialogue need to see the dialogical process as not being confined to "religion" alone. Asians have long understood that "religion" involves all of life; the idea of something distinctively called "religion" was invented by Europeans to deal with their historic conflict between Catholics and Protestants. Dr. Ariarajah called on us to reject this European view of religion and to understand, furthermore, that there is no such things as essential religions. There is no "Islam" or "Buddhism," but only a multiplicity of particular faiths within each of the world's religions. Interfaith dialogue, in any event, must deal with life issues—such as the environment, poverty, justice—if it is to be fruitful. Fourth, religion today has returned from the margins to the center of public, political discourse, which means that religious traditions themselves must discover a positive attitude towards religious plurality and diversity. They must also work out a holistic vision for healing the world.

Dr. Ariarajah summarized his remarks by calling on all peoples of faith to allow something new to arise in terms of our relations with each other, something that is life-giving. He argued that no one religious tradition by itself has the resources to bring this new "thing" to life. If the world is to be healed and made whole, all the world's religions need to work together to that end.

In the question and answer period, one person asked, "What about fundamentalism?" Dr. Ariarajah responded that in our world today there are two general religious reactions to globalization. One he styled a "positive negative" reaction that sees globalization as a danger to global diversity and seeks to preserve diversity and the quality of human life by working together in a positive unity that does not destroy particularity. This is the reaction we want. The other religious

reaction to globalization he termed a "negative negative" reaction, which he described as being based on fear of diversity and the religious other. Those who display this reaction seek to destroy diversity by turning everyone into people who think and believe like they do. They are intolerant fundamentalists, and however successful they may be in the short term they have no future. Speaking in Christian terms, Ariarajah urged that achieving an understanding of the value of plurality in religious faith is a pastoral task.

Another participant asked Dr. Ariarajah about the Christian belief that Christ is the only way to salvation. By way of an answer, he spoke briefly to the early Christian experience of Roman persecution and of tension with Judaism, which forced the church to aggressively declare the uniqueness of Christ In our own age, he observed, Christians need to continue to affirm that Christ is Lord but also to see that the declaration of that lordship does not negate other faith systems. Christians need to move, that is, beyond the conditioning of their early historical experience as they confront a radically globalized world.

In response to other questions, Dr. Ariarajah declared that liberal Christians must take a vocal, proactive public role knowing full well that we will never be the majority voice. He argued that the future of the Christian church depends on its ability to build good relations with peoples of other faiths. He observed that in Asia truth is not a single thing; it is many, multitudinous. For this reason, Asians have long emphasized harmony rather than unity. Christian intolerance, he reasoned, was born out of the European philosophical intolerance of plurality (one is "right": many is "wrong"), and Christians today have to learn tolerance and the beauty of plurality.

Dr. Ariarajah spoke simply, directly, and movingly. He challenged us to think communally rather than individually, realistically rather than theoretically, holistically and pluralistically rather than exclusivistically. He also called on us to rethink the boundaries of what we mean by religion and to come out from behind our philosophical barriers to share in the task of peacemaking with our sisters and brothers of many faiths. He was calling particularly on Christians to cease to depend on parochial attitudes towards the world, ones that fear plurality and press for domination. His presentation was excellent in every sense of the word.

Dr. Ariarajah challenged those who share a liberal, ecumenical vision of religion to take bold, public stands for that vision; we must not leave the public arena in the sole hands of the anti-liberals and fundamentalists. Bishop Spong has taken up that challenge and responded to it with a will. For many years now, he has engaged in a highly-publicized assault on the Christian right, taking its adherents to task for their failure to understand and communicate the Christian faith truthfully and relevantly. The bishop's strong personality and strong words stir people up. I confess that my first impression of Bishop Spong was more than a little negative. Much of what he says is not new, although he tries to make it sound new. Some of his "historical" interpretations of the Bible are over-stated and simply cannot be substantiated. He seems to relish aggressive, one-sided statements of opinion. Finally, in this conference Spong was outside of his usual embattled American Christian context, and at least some of what he said was not relevant to most of those participating in the conference.

The thing that I did not realize and should have is that Spong is publicizing liberal ideas that have hitherto been largely hidden away in academic books, articles, and symposia. He stated, for example, that the Christian understanding of Christ's divinity has been socially constructed by the church over the centuries and the earliest generations of "Christians" did not at first think of him as divine. Scholars have tossed such ideas back and forth for a long time, but when stated baldly and boldly where the world can hear it such sentiments are scandalous to some—and soothing spiritual medicine to others. It took a fascinating exchange during the question and answer period to teach me a better appreciation for Spong's role and importance.

After his presentation, one woman stood up and began to offer comments from a conservative Christian perspective to the effect that she felt personally ill-judged by the bishop's presentation. Spong immediately and bluntly interrupted her with a long, rather condescending explanation of something he thought she misunderstood. She then tried to proceed with her statement and again ran afoul of a long interruption, during which Spong virtually labeled her as a "person with a problem." A third attempt on her part to make a point met with yet another interruption, and finally she gave up but not without a parting shot that suggested that Spong himself might have a few psychological problems. At first blush, Spong seemed rude and showed a

striking failure to listen, particularly in the context of a conference dedicated to interfaith understanding.

Yet, sitting two or three rows in front of me there was a young woman who, half-way through the rather brittle liberal versus conservative exchange of opinions, began to raise her hand. Eventually, she got up and went to the nearest microphone, and when Spong finally called for another question her hand shot up and she spoke immediately. She was clearly agitated, and—on the verge of tears—she thanked Spong. She explained that she has long been disaffected from the Christian faith. She acknowledges herself to be what Bishop Spong calls a "Christian in exile," and she said that his work has allowed her to reexamine and reclaim the Christian faith as her own. She still feels that she is a Christian in exile, but she avowed that because of Spong she again thought of herself as a Christian. Her remarks recalled the brief thanks a gay Christian woman had given to Spong earlier in the conference, telling him how important his strong stand for gay rights in the church was to her.

Bishops are pastors, and right there in the midst of that conference Bishop Spong gave pastoral consolation to two American women. He enabled one's participation in the life of the church and brought reconciliation to the other's sense of alienation from the faith. Thinking back now, it is clear that Spong has a great deal of experience with conservative criticism and sees no point in trying to dialogue with the right. In his exchanges with the conservative individual, he was not talking to her at all. He knew that nothing he could say would change her mind and he certainly was not about to change his. Rather, he was speaking to the Christians in exile, those who have lost heart with the organized church, and those who believe "outside the walls" of the traditional religiosity. In the course of this conference, he was the only speaker that I heard who actually spoke (and healed) across the boundary between organized religion and those people of faith who are not connected to institutional religion.

The professor and the bishop, taken together, provided a remarkable mini-clinic on possible tactics for liberal, ecumenical responses to globalization. First, such responses have to be bold and addressed to the larger world. It is a waste of time, for example, to carry on with in-house interfaith dialogue between ecumenicals, be they Christian, Muslim, or Buddhist. Liberal, ecumenical perspectives on Scripture and faith, meanwhile, cannot be hidden away in learned treatise and

journals. There is an ecumenical, liberal reading of the Good News, and it must be shared more widely, boldly, and wisely than it is today. Second, in Asia, at least, new approaches to interfaith relations are required, ones that emphasize communities rather than individuals. In the West, finally, the ecumenical faithful must also look beyond denominational and institutional boundaries and reach out to the "faithful-in-exile" as well as the many, many millions who are not interested in institutional religion and/or consider it to be a silly, useless, old-fashioned game.

Democratic Spirituality

Dr. Ariarajah and Bishop Spong pointed to possible ways for people of faith to respond to globalization. They recommended greater, more politically and socially relevant interfaith cooperation in communal peacemaking and more bold, creative attempts to communicate with people of no faith or of strictly personal, non-traditional faiths. Both of their presentations sparked a responsive cord in most of the participants, which reflected a shared sense of what can best be called a "democratic spirituality." No one at the Payap conference actually spoke about the spiritual nature of democratic values, but those values and that spirituality suffused the conference.

Democratic spirituality manifested itself in a number of ways. During the question and answer period for the panel on "Religion and the Media in a Global Age," one of those taking part asserted that "we are all equal" in the midst of a statement regarding spirituality. Implied in the speaker's words was an assumed, virtually unconscious link between the democratic value of equality and religious spirituality. In his plenary speech on the need for reform of the Buddhist monkhood in Thailand, Phra Paisal Visalo, argued that monks still lived too much apart from society, and, thus, one of the necessary reforms that is needed is for Thai monks to develop closer ties to the people. Chandra Mustafa, a Malaysian Muslim, speaking on the topic of "Religion and Society in a Global Age" spiced his remarks with numerous allusions to the democratic values of inclusiveness, accommodation, and emancipation of the powerless, esp. women. At one point he virtually equated the religious struggle of our times with the struggle against patriarchy, racism, injustice, inequality, and imperialism. One of the most striking examples of democratized spirituality was provided by a panelist, Dr. Vasudha Narayanan. She described the development of Hinduism in the United States and told a delightful little story about

how one American temple decided which gods it would include in the local pantheon by holding an election. She said that the temple choose this method as a conscious way to "be American." In this conference, then, when participants spoke about the spiritual values of their respective faith traditions they frequently drew on a democratic vocabulary to express themselves.

It is hardly surprising, I suppose, to find participants from several nations, faiths, and languages sharing in the values, hopes, and aspirations of democracy. Even though so often honored in the breach, democratic self-government is one of the most cherished ideals of much of the world. It is seen as the cure for many ills and a source of hope for the world's poor. The American historical experience offers a fascinating parallel and, perhaps, a cautionary note about simply equating religious spirituality with a particular form of government. In the wake of the American Revolution, American Christians, particularly evangelical Protestants, appropriated and even helped promote American republican values and attitudes, which values eschewed the gentrified, established religion of the American colonies. It is clear, on the one hand, that a relevant religious faith in post-Revolutionary America had to be republican in its sentiments. It is also clear, on the other hand, that by the early twentieth century, republican spirituality had so blended religious faith and political patriotism that national loyalty had become equated with "being a good Christian."

In the early twenty-first century, it is probably inevitable that vital religiosity will frequently express itself in the rhythms of democracy, but it seems to me that we should beware of a close identification of any political ideology with the life of faith. The will of the people is not the will of God. Jesus and the Hebrew prophets repeatedly opposed the "common wisdom" of their day, sometimes with lethal consequences. It is not that identifying democracy with Islamic, Buddhist, and Christian spirituality is "wrong," so much as that we should be carefully self-aware in our use of political vocabulary. Otherwise, it can easily become an ideological idol of human fashioning.

Voices Not Heard

In many ways, the Payap conference provided a remarkable forum for a diversity of perspectives. It still may be said, nonetheless, that in the main the

preponderance of speakers represented an ecumenical combination of liberal Christian, reform Buddhist, and moderate Islamic voices. Fundamentalists were not heard from nor was there any regret at their absence. Identifiably conservative perspectives were all but missing as well, and again the participants collectively did not show any remorse in not hearing from self-conscious conservatives. While there is a need for serious dialogue across the religious ideologies of the right and the left, the Payap conference was not designed for such dialogue and was not the place for it.

There were other voices, however, that were also largely missing or very muted to our loss. Obviously, no one conference can encompass every perspective and include every viewpoint that it "should," but our conference would have been enriched by some of those who were absent. There was no input from Africa (three Nigerian participants were denied visas to enter Thailand) or Latin America. Hindus were hardly in evidence, and Catholic voices were only occasionally in evidence in spite of the vast Catholic membership globally. Still, it is to be expected that a conference held in Chiang Mai is not likely to hear a great deal from Latin America or Africa, and while we would have benefited a larger, more substantial Catholic representation one conference really cannot include everybody.

Personally, however, I do regret the general absence of two other voices that I feel would have added substantially to our deliberations; they are the perspective and contributions from tribal peoples, of which northern Thailand has a rich variety, and of postmodern Europeans. It was Dharma Master Hsin Tao who called my attention to the absence of tribal peoples in his comment to the conference that they are the ones who best exemplify the values and life ways of "positive globalization" and who should be models for the rest of us. He cited the Hopi, a Native American tribe, as an example of a people who live at peace with their environment and exemplify a holistic relationship with their natural and social worlds. Far from being "primitives," they set a path, a direction the world will do well to follow. The destruction of tribal traditional ways of living is a tragic loss of wisdom for the whole world. The Dharma Master, I think, was correct in these observations, and so far as I could tell there was only one tribal speaker, Thra'mu Esther Danpongpi, at this conference. Thra'mu Esther spoke for only fifteen minutes as a part of a panel, but even in that short time she was able to convey the pain and distress of tribal peoples in Southeast Asia.

The low point of the Payap conference, for me personally, came during the question and answer period after a plenary panel on interfaith dialogue. A French participant stood up and explained that he is a man of personal faith, which he described as eclectic, postmodern, and non-institutional. He noted that although France is nominally a Catholic country the vast majority of its citizens are, like him, raised apart from the church. Do postmoderns from Europe, he asked, have a place in the dialogue process? "Do you plan to dialogue with postmodern Europeans?" This could have been a fine moment of dialogue across the boundaries of faith that divide us into institutional and non-institutional people of faith. It could have been. The panelists gave what can only be described as an luke-warm response during which one them actually said that "our" concern in the conference is not "with you" but with trying to dialogue across institutional religious boundaries. It is clear that the panelists did not know how to respond to this man and had never thought about ways to talk about faith issues with non-institutional religious people. A person of personal but not institutional faith asked the institutionalists, "Do you want to talk?" and institutional religion answered, "No, not now." It would not be fair to load too much on this unprogrammed and unexpected moment; had the panelists had a bit of time to think about their response, I am confident that they would have responded in a more open way. But, one small opportunity to see the non-institutional, non-traditional faithful as a legitimate, even exciting partner in dialogue was lost, and we were the poorer for the loss.

Tripping Over the Essence of Religion

One of the things, it seems to me, that we are being called upon to do is seriously rethink what is meant by "religion." While the Payap conference did involve at least some attempts to define globalization, it seemed that the participants thought that the definition of "religion" is already clear. By "religion," we meant Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. We did not mean the traditional faiths of tribal peoples, and we did not include in our assumed definition the anti-institutional religiosity of modern Europe. By religion, that is, the conference largely meant the great World Religions, so-called. In a dictionary sense, this definition is a correct one; the second definition my computer dictionary gives for religion is that it is "a particular institutionalized or personal system of beliefs and practices relating to

the divine." Significantly, however, the first definition it gives is that religion is "people's beliefs and opinions concerning the existence, nature, and worship of a deity or deities, and divine involvement in the universe and human life." (Encarta World English Dictionary 1999 Microsoft Corporation). Both of these definitions emphasize what people believe and both definitions look upon religion as being, above all else, plural and personal.

The speakers and participants in the Payap conference, collectively, articulated a more complex and contradictory view of religion that, at times, formally acknowledged that religion is plural and that it is impossible to speak meaningfully about Christianity, Buddhism, or Islam as actual unitary realities. There are many Hinduisms, many Islams. Yet, time and again, speakers and panelists spoke of each religion as if it is a single entity, a unitary reality that can be adequately encompassed in a sentence or a paragraph.

I felt particularly aware of the contradiction between essential and pluralistic views of religion in the closing address of Dr. Michael von Brueck. In that address, von Brueck discussed the "Buddhist" historical understanding of justice and how it squares with the more Western, contemporary understandings contained in many international statements on justice. He treated Buddhism as a single religion, a single religious category. Yet, later in the presentation he went on to argue that all religions are in and of themselves highly pluralistic. That is to say, early on von Brueck discussed an essentialized, unitary, single entity called "Buddhism" as if it were a historical reality; but then, later in his address, he himself argued that in effect there is no such singular entity. There is no such thing as "Buddhism": there are only "Buddhisms." The contradiction seems clear, and von Brueck was not the only participant in the conference by any means guilty of it; indeed, in fairness to him, his address was not about the issue of essentialism and particularity at all. Most of those of us who addressed the conference, in any event, generally spoke as if there is a single category called "Christianity" and another one called "Islam" and still another one termed "Buddhism." Yet, several speakers, like von Brueck, also stated that there is no one central essence to each of the different faiths. I heard only one speaker, Carool Kersten on the panel entitled, "Islam, Social Justice, and Globalization," who clearly objected to the tendency of the conference to essentialize the world's religions.

In both his presentation and during the question and answer period that followed, he warned against the fallacies of making broad generalizations regarding Islam. He repeated his warning against essentializing Islam during the question and answer period in direct response to the tone of the exchanges going on during the period, which were making generalizations about a unitary "Islam" that he took to be rash and incorrect.

The danger, to be clear on the matter, is that when we speak about "Islam" or "Hinduism" as unitary entities we create something that does not and never did exist for the convenience of our own arguments and expressions of attitude. By using such false constructions, we think we understand things that we do not understand. False understanding has the very nasty tendency of encouraging faulty praxis. Among other things, essentializing the world's religions leads to a false definition of religion that can shut us off from key trends in modern religious expression, as was seen in the failure to respond positvely to the European postmodernist offer to dialogue. It is, furthermore, only a short step from speaking about "Islam" collectively to speaking about "Muslims" as if they are also a collective entity, and then it is just one more short step to deciding how Muslims think, act, and are in their essence. Such collective-speak about Islam and Muslims actually does take place and is a major stumbling block to the quest for international peace.

This is not to accuse the Payap conference participants, of which I was one, with taking part in a nefarious plot against global religions or of having done something "bad." Consciously most of the participants seem to have agreed with the emerging awareness of the plurality of religions and the massive individuality and complexity of reality itself. It is to say that of us those who seek to express a post-Enlightenment consciousness still fall back, from time to time, into Enlightenment patterns of thinking and speaking; and while intellectual consistency isn't always a necessity—or even that important most of the time—in this case consistency of expression and thought is wiser and more likely to encourage peaceable encounters with other peoples of other faiths.

Parting Thoughts

The Conference on Religion and Globalization held at Payap University from July 27th through August 2nd, 2003, was one of the most intense and demanding conferences I've ever attended. Technically, it went very well. The food was good. The facilities provided by the university are excellent. Some of the speakers and panelists were outstanding, as were a few of the individual papers I heard delivered. The days were long, however, and there was so much to hear that no one could take it all in. In retrospect, it might have been better to have reduced the number of papers presented and put some of the plenary panels head to head, leaving time for small group discussions and more time for rest. Some, at least, felt that the conference lacked direction and that discussion periods in smaller groups might have been one way to encourage a direction to emerge. But, that's in retrospect.

As it was, the Payap conference provided a great deal of fuel for thought. It allowed the participants to "listen in" on the thinking of key religious thinkers from several faith traditions. There were some dramatic moments of tension. There was, as well, far more to the conference than I've been able to include here, including especially consideration of women's and of international justice issues. There were, as well, many interesting personal conversations over lunch, at the coffee breaks, and at other times. The final kunthok dinner on Friday evening was a memorable event. And I am particularly grateful to the conference organizers for including our panel of religious vocations and globalization.