The following is from a blog posted to PeaceNext, the official online community of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions,

From June 21 to June 23, a large collection of religious leaders representing the world’s faiths will meet at the University of Winnipeg in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The World Religions Summit will be held concurrent to the G8 Summit in Huntsville, Ontario.

The purpose of the World Religions Summit is to encourage the nations represented at the G8 Summit to remain committed to the UN Millennium Development Goals, enter into dialogue from a multi-faith perspective regarding these Goals, and further press the issues of poverty, environmental degradation, and international cooperation.

These events mark an important occasion for the cooperative goals shared between political and religious leaders. Not only that, the World Religions Summit further expresses the need for interfaith cooperation in addressing the most pressing issues facing our planet today. James Christie, Secretary General of the 2010 G8 Religious Leaders Summit and Dean of Theology at The University of Winnipeg stated, “For the first time in recorded history, the religious and political leadership of G8 nations have a common language, for a common agenda, for the advancement of the whole human community rather than for sectarian or political goals. This is extremely encouraging as we move from theory to practice in attaining the Millennium Development Goals.”

Click here to read the blog and find links related to the Summit.

From a recent e-mail sent to all members of PeaceNext.org,

Dear PeaceNext friend,

We’d like to thank you for strengthening the interfaith movement through your
presence on PeaceNext. We are happy to share the release of Desmond Tutu’s 2014 Parliament Bid address – made first available here to our PeaceNext community.

Now on to the video… on May 20, Archbishop Desmond Tutu shared an inspiring message with the 2014 Parliament Bid Teams. He addressed the 10^th Anniversary Celebration of the 1999 Cape Town Parliament and also recognized the Cape Town Interfaith Initiative’s celebration of the official launch of the Charter for Compassion in South Africa. To begin the celebration, Karen Armstrong, a featured speaker of the 2009 Parliament also delivered a compelling message. Representatives from the Bid Cities, now narrowed down to Brussels, Belgium; Dallas, Texas, U.S.A; and Guadalajara, Mexico, were in attendance at the Chicago viewing along with friends and Council Trustees.

Click here to watch the video. The video is also being featured on PeaceNext‘s main page.

From a blog entry posted on PeaceNext,

On Tuesday night, June 10th in Chicago, Dirk Ficca, Eboo Patel, and Afeefa Syeed convened as part of a panel discussion moderated by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs entitled, “Engaging Religious Communities Abroad: One Year Post-Cairo”.

For those unfamiliar with these speakers, Dirk Ficca is the executive director of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, Eboo Patel is the executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core, and Afeefa Syeed is a
senior advisor at the USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) Middle East and Asia sectors. The panel marked the anniversary of U.S. President Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo one year ago, wherein he made it an agenda of U.S. foreign policy to understand and promote religious diversity in its interactions with other nations. This would turn out to be an historic moment in U.S. foreign relations, as it admitted to its failure to adequately address the dynamics associated with an increasingly pluralistic world, as well as raising awareness of an inherent respect owed to religious and spiritual beliefs that had hitherto been, for the most part, ignored by the U.S. government.

The discussion was insightful and enlightening for those in attendance. It highlighted the great need for an appreciation of religious and spiritual life in foreign policy as well as society in general. Considering that each speaker is affiliated with different social and government agencies that do very different work, they were able to offer perspectives that allowed for a more comprehensive vision of what it means to promote public engagement of religious beliefs within a broad social context. Dirk Ficca noted the salience of religious and spiritual values in the human condition, its great contributions to political and social changes for present and past cultures, as well as the crisis it sometimes presents when a religion becomes embedded in political norms. Eboo Patel added to these comments by stressing the realities of a world becoming ever-more populated by youth who possess a power and presence in the global marketplace of ideas. Not only that, he appreciated the sensitivity of late adolescents and young adults who are searching for a sense of identity and a means for affecting a change in the world, all the while being influenced “by the winds of religion”, as he put it. Lastly, Afeefa Syeed added to these thoughts by offering her experience within a U.S. agency that is in the midst of a transition. This transition is intended to acknowledge religion as a major influencing factor in the areas U.S. representatives are working, and the ways in which the USAID is functioning more as a partner or mediator in communities, rather than as an authoritarian entity. One poignant description she had of this was working with a economically deprived community in Karachi, where her function was to ask the community leaders what was RIGHT or GOOD about their community, and working from that point forward in developing a plan to help.

Overall, each speaker agreed on the main points of their separate discussions. These points included the innate ability of religion to effect great good in the world, the increased need, now more than ever, for recognition among national and social entities regarding the value of religion and spirituality as a human quality that is neither diminishing nor able to be quenched, and the U.S.’s responsibility to respect and acknowledge this character in the myriad ways it is manifested in the world.

As with any discussion that is limited to only a few hours, however, there were several probing questions asked by both the moderators and members of the audience. One of these asked what the roles of non-profit organizations are for interfaith experiences. The moderator of the event, Rachel Bronson, asked a popular question, at least within the U.S., whether it might not be better to ignore or suppress religious identities, considering its tendency to influence violence in the world along with peace. Lastly, one question I was left with as an audience member was whether U.S. foreign policy is truly intent on becoming an active participant of religious dialogue for its fundamental worth, or whether this has simply been deemed an appropriate means for securing its own interests in a world it now recognizes as essentially religious. I leave these questions for you, users of PeaceNext, to ponder, as well as to comment on your perceptions of the panel discussion in general.

Click here to join PeaceNext and contribute to the conversation!

Delegates of the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne, Australia:

This is you!

To all sponsors, speakers, performers, organizers and delegates, we offer the heartfelt thanks of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions and all of our encouragement as you go forward to make a world of difference.

In the meantime, we hope to see you on PeaceNext, our official social network.

Please continue to visit our website, http://parliamentofreligions.org, for video, text, and photographic documentation of our Melbourne Parliament and details on developments to come!

For a week now, PeaceNext’s over 500 members have already been commenting, posting, organizing and connecting with each other.

A few of the highlights include:

• Groups: 29 Groups from the Portland-Vancouver Friends of the Parliament to the Food, Water and Climate Action Group.
• Blogs: Olivia Watts’ open-armed welcome to Melbourne.
• Blogs: Beth Blissman’s reunion with a fellow Oberlin alum.
• Photos: 400 member-uploaded photos, most of the Parliament-in-progress.
• Videos: Almost 60 videos, many in webcast format, providing connection and eyewitness accounts of the Parliament in progress.
• Above all our 586 members, many of whom have also added their location to our interactive map.

And this is just the beginning.  To connect and experience the digital voice of the interreligious movement, click here.

Social Networks have become a major phenomenon this decade, picking up hundreds of millions of users around the world.  During the development of the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne, Australia, our planning Council has made use of a variety of social networks to spread the word about the importance of interreligious work.  Here’s how you can connect up:

• If you only join one online network, it should be PeaceNext.  Specially built for the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, PeaceNext is the premiere online site for the interreligious movement.  We’ve added over 500 members in the last week!  To join up for free, click here.
• There are also two Facebook entities associated with the Parliament.  Our Facebook Group was created specifically for the Melbourne Parliament and already includes more than 3500 members sharing photos, videos, conversation and more.  We also maintain a Facebook Fan Page for the Council with over 1000 members and access to our deep archives of photos and videos from prior events.  We have also recently created a Myspace Group.
• Last but not least, we invite you to Follow PWR2009 on Twitter for timely, spontaneous, and bite-sized updates on all things interreligious.

Every five years, the world’s greatest interreligious event welcomes thousands of people to see the world through different eyes. People of different faiths come together to learn, grow and celebrate their diversity. They realize that despite their religious differences, they share a similar calling to build a more just, sustainable and peaceful world. Friendships are made. Wisdom is shared. Lessons are learned. Souls are touched.

Why wait another five years?

The Council of the Parliament of the World’s Religions is pleased to announce the creation of PeaceNext, our very own social network that will bring together the global interreligious community in dynamic and far-reaching ways.

Share a reflection.

Post a photograph.

Pass along a link.

Celebrate your community’s accomplishments.

Share your city’s interreligious concerns.

Find a friend you met at the Parliament on the other side of the globe.

Meet a new friend who lives on the other side of town.

PeaceNext is not the Parliament, but it’s the digital extension of the event. Friendships are made. Wisdom is shared. Lessons are learned. Souls are touched.

Not every five years, but every single day.