This past Thursday a group of Wartburg
West students made their way out of the apartment building by 7am, not because
they wanted to be up early, but to hit the road to attend the Parliament of the
World’s Religions held in Salt Lake City!
First, a bit of background for those of you who are not familiar with the Parliament of the World’s Religions. The first was held in Chicago in 1893, and exactly 100 years later the second Parliament was held again in Chicago. Since then, every five years the Parliament has been held in various places around the world, including South Africa, Spain, and Australia, and this year had returned back to the States. This gathering focuses on interfaith dialogue and bringing people of different faiths together to work towards solving the world’s troubles. Big themes of this year’s Parliament included women’s rights, climate change, and war, hate, and violence.
Now let me tell you, people watching at
the Parliament was better than people watching at airports. People from all
over the world and of all different faiths were gathered making for a
fascinating learning experience. Upon first walking in the convention center
there were Tibetan monks making a sand mandala and Jains praying in a small
temple. During the lunch hour, a group of Sikhs served a free lunch to
everyone, a practice called Langar. The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day
Saints, or the Mormons, were also present and hosted a Sacred Music concert in
the Tabernacle on Sunday.
Throughout the four days that our group
was there, we all went to sessions throughout the day ranging in topics from
the Ideology of Wealth, Inequality, and Compassion to Youth and Religious
Extremism to How to Effectively Use the Traditional and Social Media to Promote
Interfaith Work.
Attending the Parliament revealed to me what I appreciate from my own faith tradition, the differences I appreciate in other faith traditions, and the similarities between them all. I also tapped into my feminist theologian side by going to the Women’s Plenary and attending sessions on women’s various roles within religion. As a person who is interested in going into further religious studies both the things I listed above were helpful in figuring out the ‘what the heck do you want to do in the future’ process.
Other students reported the Parliament to
be eye-opening to all the different types of religions that were out there,
especially with the hands-on aspect of learning about faiths from the people
that practiced them. Another insight was listening to a message of peace and
justice coming from people of all religions. So often violence within religions
is what often makes the news, but to see that it is possible for people to
believe different things but come together as a whole for the good of humanity
was refreshing.
As a side note our group also went on an excursion to In-N-Out and Salt Lake garnering an appreciation for fast food, the beauty of the Salt Lake landscape, as well as some great photo ops J
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