Decolonizing the Golden Rule: Towards a Rainbow Rule for the Global Ethic

Quaker and other spirit-led, interfaith methods for research are used to critique and reformulate the Parliament’s Global Ethic principle, “What you wish done to yourself, do to others!” This Golden Rule legitimates the imposition of values of colonizing cultures, inviting us to “Do to others as we would have them do unto us.” While helpful in dealing with homogeneous neighbors, it misguides us when dealing with Others. We explore wiser, more respectful practices of nonviolent dialogue which apply a Rainbow Rule: “Do to others as they would have you do unto them.” To strengthen this interfaith work, we sponsor WPR participation by 4-6 young people nominated by leaders from diverse faith traditions like Valerie Kaur and Robin Kimmerer. To deepen discernment and develop a useful proposal during the WPR, we also focus on this work in sessions of religious observance in the form of “Meetings for Worship for the Conduct of Research” sponsored by the Quaker Institute for the Future.