the New Pantagruel

The Parliament of The World’s Religions and The Axis of Theism

by Mustafa Akyol

n July 7-13, 2004, in the beautiful city of Barcelona, there was an extraordinary international meeting that gathered some seven thousand people from all over the world. The meeting was for The Parliament of the World’s Religions and the attendees were believers from all different kind of traditions. From many denominations of Christians, Jews and Muslims to Buddhist, Sikhs, Hindus or even self-proclaimed pagans, it was truly a global coverage of the world’s faiths. During the seven days of the Parliament, hundreds of lectures, workshops, panels, concerts, prayers and rituals were performed. You could see Sikhs chanting with their orange tunics and curved swords in one auditorium, and then watch the whirling dervishes of Sufi Islam in another and then rush to catch the interactive workshops with titles like “The Methods of Interfaith Dialogue” or “Which Islam?”

The proceedings of the Parliament will definitely be a valuable source for many years to come. Yet, even the very existence of such an event is a remarkable phenomenon, since it implicitly manifests the fall of the modernist vision. That vision, which was basically the product of 18th century Enlightenment and 19th century positivism, defined religion as a superstition that would die out with the progress of science and human knowledge. Based on the philosophies of atheist thinkers like Nietzsche, Comte, Feuerbach, Marx or Engels, and supported by the theories of Darwin, Spencer or Freud, the modernist vision foresaw a totally secular world. However, in the last quarter of the 20th century, religion surprisingly emerged as a very powerful force in human lives and world affairs. The causes of this world-changing phenomenon — like the inadequacy of modern life to satisfy the human soul or the unexpected scientific discoveries that supported the theistic cosmology — is being studied by many scholars. The bitter fact for the modernists is that we are living in a “de-secularizing” world as social scientist Peter Berger — formerly a strong supporter of the “secularization theory” — calls it. The Parliament for the World’s Religions, which gathered so many “modern” yet religious scholars and intellectuals, has been a picturesque demonstration of this de-secularizing globe.

However, the return of “religion” per se does not necessarily mean a return to God. I have sensed this strongly at the Parliament of the World’s Religions. There was a big hall reserved for publishers and exhibitors and at least half of the booths presented a “spiritual” worldview in which there was little, if any, room for God. From Unitarians to Scientologists, or from pagans to Hare Krishna folks, there were many cults that disagreed with the shallowness of materialism but tried to fill it with exotic faiths in vague deities. I felt something similar to what St. Paul felt in the Areopagus of Athens. Like the “Unknown God” of those ancient Greeks, most of these post-modern spiritualists believe in a mere “universal energy”. Of course, “energies” don’t give us moral codes or listen to our prayers. Yet God does and He is real. This is why theists have to reach out to the spiritualists and help them to realize “The God that made the world and all things therein” (Acts, 17:24), or “He Who has created the heavens and the earth with truth” (Koran, 6:73)

In fact, the distinction at this point can be interpreted as the difference between humanism and theism. According to the former, religion has to be a set of beliefs and practices that we produce or at least modify to give us comfort in our lives. According to the latter, religion is a set of beliefs and practices that God has ordained to lead us to the truth. They may not be “comforting” at all times, they even ask for a lot of self-sacrifice, but they give us a deeper comfort by knowing that we are gratifying our Creator and Lord by following them.

The problem with humanism is not only that it ignores the truth, but also that it does not keep its promise to make us happy. As C. S. Lewis once well explained, “if you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: If you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth—only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair.”

Non-theistic spiritualism, like materialism, is a way that promises comfort but leads to despair. Theists have to deal with them both.

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