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Lee Penn has done an excellent job in bringing to public attention what is occurring behind the scenes with regard to the ecumenical movement.  As Mortimer Adler wrote, we cannot have a one world government without a one world religion.  Conspiracy theorists would like to present everything as a done deed, but the reality is that all activity takes much effort and while those pushing the global agenda are working very hard. Those opposing the changes seem to think that the end times are close, that no efforts can change things, that nothing important really is happening, that everything is for the good, that somebody is taking care of things for them, or nothing is critical yet. 

You should know that most of the very few of us who are care enough to pass this information on have burned out over time.  Over the last 20 years I've seen too many people burn out, leaving the information passing to others. So, in the history of the world, what else is new.
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This story summarizes the activities of the three global summit meetings which occurred in New York City in August and September of 2000 - the "Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders," the State of the World Forum, and the UN Millennium Summit. An abridged version of the story appeared in The Christian Challenge (a traditionalist Anglican magazine) in November 2000.  These summit meetings had few concrete results, but show that the supporters of globalism and religious syncretism have an anti-Christian agenda.

You may post the following story on the Net, and you may mail (and e-mail) it to others - as long as you credit me as the author, and give credit to Christian Challenge as the publisher of this story, and as long as you do not change any part of the story.  (If you wish to abridge or modify this story before re-posting it, contact me for prior approval.)

I am sending this story in three e-mails.  At the end of each section, there is a note: "End of part 1 of 3," "End of part 2 of 3,"  and "End of part 3 of 3."  If these notices do not appear at the end of your e-mail, the Net has truncated your copy.  If this occurs, e-mail me and I will send you an ASCII file of the entire story.

Lee Penn
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Three Global Summits - Much Leftist Talk, No Action

Lee Penn

World political and spiritual leaders held a hectic series of summit meetings at the United Nations in August and September.  There were few discernible results - other than providing additional proof that the United Nations (UN), many non-Christian "spiritual leaders," and most of the organizations associated with the UN ("non-governmental organizations," or NGOs in UN parlance) are hostile to traditional Christianity and support a government-regulated global economic system. 

Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders

The first of these meetings, the "Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders," was held at the UN and the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City from August 28 through August 31, 2000.  About 800 religious leaders and 1,000 observers from 100 countries attended.  Bawa Jain, the Secretary-General of the religious summit meeting, said that the goal of the meeting was to create a permanent religious advisory group for the UN Secretary-General and the General Assembly.  Members of this committee, "world religious and spiritual leaders," could "take concrete actions for the achievement of world peace" - including traveling to war zones to help settle conflicts.  Leaders invited to the summit also were asked to sign a "Commitment to Global Peace," and to pass resolutions on poverty and the environment. 

Austin Ruse, who covered the summit on-site for the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (a pro-life organization that lobbies the UN), reported, however, that the proposed "International Advisory Council of Religious and Spiritual Leaders" was not created at the religious summit.  In fact, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan himself did not agree to this proposal, since he was offered no details about the structure, function, and membership of the proposed religious advisory council.  As a result, there is no schedule set and no plan in place to establish this new, formal link between the UN and the world's religions.  This is a major setback for the interfaith movement.  At the start of the summit, Harvard Divinity School professor David Little had said, "the institutionalization of an advisory committee is enormously important … if the summit is not to be seen as a once-in-a-lifetime thing." 

Also in question is Jain's public request for Annan to create a permanent UN department for religious affairs, and to re-convene the religious summit meeting every ten years. With the limited results of the recent meeting, this may not occur - even if media mogul Ted Turner is willing to foot the bill again, as he did this time.

The religious summit ended, moreover, with mutual feelings of victimization among the participants. Austin Ruse reported one Catholic priest's description of the summit as a "Hindu-Jain show," as well as a Summit delegate's comment that the meeting may have been "India's attempt at getting a permanent slot on the Security Council."  According to Ruse, "a well-connected Muslim delegate complained of what he felt was only a token presence of both Christians and Muslims"; the delegate said, "this meeting was almost a complete waste of time."  However, Swami Vigananand, a Hindu monk from India, complained that the summit was dominated by the three monotheistic faiths, and that the Hindu presence was "more show than substance." 

These tensions led to what Ruse described as "a rugby scrum of mostly far eastern clerics" who were fighting to get access to a microphone during a forum on conflict resolution.  Six security guards broke up the "shoving match"; when order was restored, the chairman ended audience participation.

No resolutions - on poverty, the environment (including a proposal to endorse the Earth Charter), or anything else - were passed by the summit meeting.  Most who attended the summit did sign the "Commitment to Global Peace," which had been written long beforehand.  There was an important exception to this - Cardinal Francis Arinze, president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.  He did not sign the peace declaration, since some of its provisions - such as the assertion that all religions are equal - contradict Catholic teachings. 

Other religious leaders who attended the summit included Cambodian Buddhist leader Samdech Preah Maha Ghosananda; Mustafa Ceric, the Grand Mufti of Bosnia; Israel Meir Lau, the Chief Rabbi of Israel; Abdullah Salaih al-Obaida, Secretary-General of the World Muslim League; Konrad Raiser, Secretary-General of the World Council of Churches; and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.  Leaders of aboriginal peoples' religions also attended, including Chief Oren Lyons, of the Onondaga Nation in upstate New York. 

At other recent interfaith events, such as the 1999 Parliament of World Religions, and meetings of (California Episcopal Bishop William Swing's) United Religions Initiative (URI) since 1996, there had been significant participation by neo-pagans, cultists, and New Age devotees. But planners of the UN religious summit weeded out the oddballs, limiting invitations to leaders of major religions, and adding that "a general guideline is that the religion or faith be more than 100 years old, and its charismatic founder or leader [should be] no longer present in body."

Conspicuously absent from the religious summit was the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists and a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize; he was not invited at the insistence of the Chinese government, which sees the Buddhist leader as "a separatist and turmoil-maker." The exclusion of the Dalai Lama was termed "totally bizarre and quite unbelievable" by Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu (who had a prior engagement, and so did not attend the religious summit.)

Michael Fu Tieshan, leader of a 7-person, government-selected interfaith delegation from China, asserted on August 26 that "there is no religious persecution in China."  Tieshan, a bishop in the government-controlled Patriotic Catholic Church (which is not in communion with Rome), added that the "religions in China fully enjoy the right of the freedom of religious beliefs under the protection of the constitution" of the Communist regime.  On the same day that he said this, Chinese police arrested 130 members of an Evangelical Christian church that is not registered with or controlled by the government.  The Chinese delegation walked out of the General Assembly chamber on August 29 when a Tibetan monk delivered a message on behalf of the Dalai Lama.

The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., was not invited to send any representatives to the summit.  Few Evangelical Protestants attended, other than Anne Graham Lotz, the daughter of evangelist Billy Graham. Lotz told the summit that the way to world peace was through acceptance of Jesus as "the prince of peace."

Some orthodox Christians believe that Church leaders should not participate at all in interfaith events of this kind.  These critics of ecumenism believe that participation implies support for religious indifferentism - the belief that all religions convey equal truth and are equal as ways to God.  The Pope's message to Cardinal Arinze for the summit explained that the peace summit "is an exceptional opportunity to make it clear that the only religion worthy of the name is the religion that leads to peace and that true religion is mocked when it is tied to conflict and violence."  Cardinal Arinze said, "The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ is a Gospel of justice, love, respect, and peace.  The Church cannot fail to preach the Gospel.  Because of this, the Catholic Church offers not only her doctrine, but she also offers her life."  Thus, the Church works with leaders of other faiths to promote peace and the moral tenets that are common among many faiths.  At the UN, there has been a de facto alliance between Catholics and Muslims during the last 10 years, based on their mutual opposition to abortion, artificial contraception, and the Sexual Revolution.  This alliance has confronted - and often defeated - anti-life, anti-family policies favored by secular Western, Communist, and polytheist Asian governments.

End of part 1 of 3