The Case Against the United
Religions Initiative
By Lee Penn
Summary:
This is a summary of the reasons why
Christians should oppose the United Religions
Initiative (URI).
Conditions of use:
This story is an extract from a book-length
manuscript by me titled "False Dawn, Real
Darkness: the Millennial Delusions of the
United Religions and the New Age Movement."
You may re-distribute this story by hard copy
or electronically, and you may abridge or
quote from this story - IF you give credit to
Lee Penn as the author, and IF you include -
in the body or as a footnote - the following
statement:
"An earlier version of this story appeared
in "The United Religions Initiative - A Bridge
Back to Gnosticism", published in December
1998 by the New Oxford Review. You may order
the complete story from the Review, or
subscribe to the Review, by calling (510)
526-5374, or by writing to the New Oxford
Review, 1069 Kains Ave., Berkeley, CA 94706.
Additionally, it also has been published as
part of "The United Religions Initiative:
Foundations for a World Religion" (Part 1),
published in May 1999 by the Journal of the
Spiritual Counterfeits Project, Vol.
22:4-23:1. The information in this extract is
a small portion of the information printed in
the SCP Journal. You may order the complete
story from the Journal, or subscribe to the
Journal, by calling (510) 540-0300, or by
writing to the Spiritual Counterfeits Project,
Post Office Box 4308, Berkeley, CA 94704, or
by visiting the SCP web site, http://www.scp-inc.org/."
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The United Religions Initiative (URI),
founded in 1995 by Episcopal Bishop William
Swing, intends to create a spiritual
equivalent of the United Nations, encompassing
all religions and all spiritual movements. The
stated goals of the URI include peace among
religions, social justice, and preservation of
the environment. Bishop Swing says, "The
nature of the United Religions would be to
focus on: 1) the whole human family; 2) the
whole health of our planet; and 3) the whole
realm of living species, and to offer the
unique gifts of religions." (1) The URI has
attracted some support among liberal
Protestants, dissident Catholics, and leaders
of the state-approved churches in China. The
Vatican and Evangelical Protestants oppose the
URI. Numerous leaders of Asian religions
support the URI, including the Dalai Lama. The
URI hopes to transform itself from the United
Religions Initiative to the United Religions
(UR) in June 2000, when the Charter of the UR
is signed. By that time, the URI hopes to have
the support of 60 million people worldwide.
The URI is becoming active worldwide, and
has some friends and funding sources in high
places - including George Soros, the
billionaire currency speculator, and Richard
Blum, the wealthy husband of Senator Dianne
Feinstein. URI allies include the star-studded
State of the World Forum, and the Earth
Council - headed by Maurice Strong, a wealthy
Canadian advocate of world government.
However, URI activities receive little
coverage in the press, and financial problems
forced the URI to reduce the size of its 1999
summit conference by half from the size of its
1997 and 1998 conferences. If the URI is to
meet its stated objectives and timetable, the
URI's allies will need to come forward quickly
with cash, friendly media coverage, and other
support.
Despite the stated goals of the URI - which
seem benign at first glance - there are many
reasons why Christians should oppose the
movement.
URI leaders and their allies repeatedly
equate evangelism to manipulative
"proselytizing" and violence. If the URI
vision prevails, Christian evangelism based on
the unique and saving identity, mission, and
acts of Christ would be ruled out. As Bishop
Swing says, "there will have to be a godly
cease-fire, a temporary truce where the
absolute exclusive claims of each [religion]
will be honored but an agreed upon neutrality
will be exercised in terms of proselytizing,
condemning, murdering, or dominating. These
will not be tolerated in the United Religions
zone"(2) - the whole world. URI leaders say
"proselytizing" is the work of
"fundamentalists," and URI board member Paul
Chafee says, "We can't afford fundamentalists
in a world this small."(3)
Despite the URI's repeated and insistent
denials that it intends to start a New
Religion, URI documents, URI worship
ceremonies, and the writings of New Age
supporters of the URI point in that very
direction. Lex orandi, lex credendi - the law
of praying is the law of believing. At the
1995 interfaith service that launched the URI,
"holy water from the Ganges, the Amazon, the
Red Sea, the River Jordan, and other sacred
streams" (4) was mixed in a single "bowl of
unity" on the altar of Grace Cathedral.(5)
During the service, Bishop Swing made the
meaning of the ritual clear. The San Francisco
Chronicle reported: " 'As these sacred waters
find confluence here,' said Episcopal Bishop
William Swing, 'may the city that chartered
the nations of the world bring together the
religions of the world'."(6)
The 1998/1999 version of the URI Draft
Charter said that we must "rediscover a
reverence for all life and respect for the
sacredness of the whole of Planet Earth."(7)
To get clergy and laity to accept the gradual
development of the New Religion, there would
be a "URI course to 'retool' both clergy and
lay religious leaders in the philosophy of
spiritual ecology."(8)
Bishop Swing has said, "The time comes,
though, when common language and a common
purpose for all religions and spiritual
movements must be discerned and agreed upon.
Merely respecting and understanding other
religions is not enough."(9) If all religions
are to have "a common purpose," and the
purpose of religion is to worship a god, then
Bishop Swing is calling "all religions and
spiritual movements" to worship a shared god.
If Mikhail Gorbachev's views gain influence,
the god of the New Religion will be nature.
Gorbachev has said, "I believe in the cosmos.
All of us are linked to the cosmos. Look at
the sun. If there is no sun, then we cannot
exist. So nature is my god. To me, nature is
sacred. Trees are my temples and forests are
my cathedrals."(10)
The URI's proposed "reverence for all life"
does not extend to the lives of the unborn.
Although URI documents denounce many of the
world's evils, they say nothing against
abortion or artificial contraception. This is
consistent with the statements by Bishop Swing
and other prominent URI supporters, who
repeatedly warn about the danger of
"overpopulation" and argue the need for
"reproductive health."
The URI supports efforts by Hans Küng and
others to create a new Global Ethic and a new
"Declaration of Human Responsibilities," and
supports the push by Maurice Strong and
Mikhail Gorbachev, founders of Green Cross
International, for an Earth Charter. Gorbachev
views this proposed Earth Charter as "a kind
of Ten Commandments, a 'Sermon on the Mount,'
that provides a guide for human behavior
toward the environment in the next century and
beyond."(11) These proposed codes of ethics
and international environmental charters have
many ambiguities. Those people who wish to use
government power to create a new society
according to their liking will be able to
exploit these textual loopholes to justify
their actions. However, the "Green Cross Earth
Charter Philosophy" makes the philosophy and
goals of these proposed new treaties clear:
"The protection of the Biosphere, as the
Common Interest of Humanity, must not be
subservient to the rules of state sovereignty,
demands of the free market or individual
rights."(12)
The URI incorporates and promotes several
modern belief systems that have undermined
orthodox Christian belief and practice. One of
these corrosive ideologies is feminism. Bishop
Swing said in 1997 that one reason the URI
expanded to include New Age movements (he
calls them "modern spiritual movements") is
that "If you go with the great religions, you
have men only. If you go with modern spiritual
movements, you have women as well."(13)
Cardinal Ratzinger has replied succinctly to
feminism in Salt of the Earth: feminism is an
example of an ideology that "traces all
existing institutions back to power politics.
And this ideology corrupts humanity and also
destroys the Church."(14)
Another false belief that the URI promotes
is religious relativism, the notion that all
religions are equally true and are equally
paths to God. In a July 1998 interview with a
journalist from the official newspaper for the
Lambeth conference (a once-a-decade worldwide
gathering of Anglican bishops), Bishop Swing
said, "The question is can we stand the
generosity of God in that he reveals himself
to other people in the world through other
symbols and through other stories?"(15) This
reduces the historical events of the
Incarnation, the Crucifixion, and the
Resurrection of Christ to the level of
"symbols" and "stories," allowing Bishop Swing
to equate non-Christian myths to the saving,
historical acts of Christ's ministry.
Yet another false belief that the URI
fosters is the notion that, as Anglican Bishop
Ottley (a URI supporter) says, "the world's
agenda is the agenda of the church." (16)
Bishop Swing - like other URI supporters -
says that a United Religions is what the world
demands of believers: "There is going to come
a time when the world is just going to insist
that religions grow up and begin to talk to
each other for the sake of global good and
global harmony."(17) The root of the problem
may be that URI leaders hold a worldly view of
what religion is. URI Vice President William
Rankin said, "J. M. Yinger defines religion as
'a system of beliefs and practices by means of
which a group of people struggles with
ultimate problems of human life. It expresses
their refusal to capitulate to death, to give
up in the face of frustration, to allow
hostility to tear apart their human
aspirations.' So far, so good."(18) Yinger's
definition reduces religion to psychology and
social action - and Rankin does not go beyond
it to a God-centered view of religion.
An earth-bound definition of religion is
the only way that Bishop Swing could argue
that "The United Religions will not be a
rejection of ancient religion but will be
found buried in the depths of these
religions."(19) If, indeed, United Religions
were to be found "buried in the depths" of the
Christian Faith, countless early martyrs could
have avoided agonizing deaths by burning
incense in front of the statue of the Roman
Emperor, and today's martyrs in Sudan and
China could apostatize with a calm conscience.
Maybe martyrs are passé, anyhow; URI Vice
President Rankin says that "The United
Religions Initiative exists to bring people
together from all the religions of the world,
to create a world where no one has to die
because of God, or for God, any more."(20)
The leaders of the URI do not place their
ultimate hope in God or in the saving acts of
Christ; they hope for an earthly utopia that
the United Religions will help bring into
being. In the letter that formally invited
delegates to the summer 1997 URI summit
conference, Bishop Swing wrote that United
Religions would be "a deep new source of hope
and healing for people and the earth
itself."(21) It would be hard to define a
larger earthly dream for a human enterprise.
The URI has not extended its mission to the
planets and to the stars - yet.
Bishop Swing told the 1997 URI summit
conference: "If you have come here because a
spirit of colossal energy is being born in the
loins of earth, then come here and be a
midwife. Assist, in awe, at the birth of new
hope."(22) The "new hope" will have the Earth
- and not the Virgin Mary - as its mother. The
Catholic Church speaks for all orthodox
Christians in rejecting such fantasies of a
man-made paradise: "The Antichrist's deception
already begins to take shape in the world
every time the claim is made to realize within
history that messianic hope which can be only
realized beyond history through the
eschatological judgment. The Church has
rejected even modified forms of this
falsification of the kingdom to come under the
name of millenarianism, especially the
'intrinsically perverse' political form of a
secular messianism."(23)
The URI made a fateful choice in 1996,
expanding its scope beyond the traditional
religions to embrace what its leaders call
"new spiritual movements" - and what the rest
of us call the New Age movement. Bishop Swing
still stands by this choice; he told the
Commonwealth Club of San Francisco in May 1999
that the three principles agreed upon by the
founders of the URI in 1996 were: "1. we will
be a grass roots movement; 2. it has to be men
and women together; 3. invite religions and
spiritual movements together - right from the
beginning."(24) Bishop Swing says that the URI
will remain open to new spiritual movements
and "cults": "Asked how the URI would handle
cults, Bishop Swing answered that the United
Religions would probably look a little like
Alcoholics Anonymous" 'very diffuse.' He added
that 'In United Religions, if you can abide by
the purpose and principle, then you can get
together. Once you open the door, you have to
keep it open.' "(25) Several New Age leaders,
including Robert Muller, Neale Donald Walsch,
and Barbara Marx Hubbard, are active and
enthusiastic supporters of the URI.
There's far more substance to the New Age
movement and New Age beliefs than astrology,
crystals, and psychobabble. Muller, Marx
Hubbard, and Walsch support world government
and a socialist economy, believe that the Fall
was really an ascent into knowledge for
humanity, and expect an imminent, apocalyptic
social transformation that will lead humanity
into the New Age. The problem is not a few
"smoking gun" quotes pulled from
otherwise-innocent writings; these New Age
leaders have provided an arsenal full of
smoking guns, all pointed in the same
direction. These New Age teachers - and their
theosophical mentors - propose a comprehensive
anti-Gospel, a modern revival of the Gnostic
heresy, and an inversion of Christian
morality.
Unfortunately, the New Age movement has
friends and customers in high places. The
State of the World Forum attracts almost 1,000
VIPs to San Francisco each year, and
encourages them to believe that they will
shape the emerging "new civilization." The
messages offered at the Forum are solidly New
Age and collectivist. Many prominent
corporations and foundations (from Archer
Daniels Midland to CNN, NASDAQ, and the
Rockefeller Brothers Fund) nevertheless see
fit to support the Forum's activities. Each
year, the list of these supporters gets
longer. Jean Houston, the New Age spiritual
adviser to Hillary Clinton, has led workshops
at companies such as Kraft, Xerox, General
Electric, and Beatrice Foods. Laurance S.
Rockefeller and his Fund for the Enhancement
of the Human Spirit have funded Matthew
Fox,(26) Grace Cathedral,(27) and Barbara Marx
Hubbard. Gerald Barney and the Millennium
Institute propose that the year 2000 should
become the "year zero of the sustainable era,"
and that "This must be the moment when humans
interchange bad and good, unreal and real, and
set themselves and Earth on a new course. ...
all 5 billion plus of us humans must prepare
to die to 20th century ways of thinking and
being."(28) Organizations and agencies that
have sent representatives to attend Millennium
Institute training sessions include "the
Inter-American Development Bank, the World
Bank, the Aerospace Corporation, the Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory, the President's
Council on Sustainable Development, [and]
Arthur Andersen & Co."(29)
The New Age leaders directly associated
with the URI - Muller, Walsch, and Marx
Hubbard - draw inspiration from Theosophy, an
occult movement started in 1875 by Helena
Petrovna Blavatsky. Theosophy has since had
significant influence on the New Age movement
in the US and worldwide. Its teachings include
praising Lucifer as the bringer of light to
humanity, denouncing orthodox Christianity and
Judaism as "separative" and "obsolete," and
forecasting a coming age of enlightened,
spiritual collectivism - after the cleansing
of earth to remove the people who do not
accept progress.
The followers of any movement with such
perverse beliefs should have been summarily
rejected from the URI. Instead, the URI has
welcomed New Age leaders, followers of
Theosophy, into its midst. Since the URI is a
young organization and still in its formative
stage, the presence of so many prominent New
Age leaders within and around the URI is
ominous. "As the twig is bent, so grows the
tree," and the strong New Age influence
ensures that a mature United Religions will be
very bent, indeed.
The appeal of the URI and its New Age
allies is based on some truths. Killing in the
name of God is an abomination. Badly managed
economic growth has harmed the natural
environment. Many people and societies appear
to have placed love of money and comfort above
love of God and neighbor. Churches and temples
in all faiths are tainted by hypocrisy and
bigotry among their adherents. These elements
of truth in the URI's critique of current
society may draw a wide audience for the rest
of the message of the URI and its allies. This
would fit with the usual pattern of
temptation; a mixture of lies and truth is
likely to draw more people away from God than
a message that has no prima facie appeal or
plausibility. So it has been from the
beginning; it was not a rotten, worm-eaten
fruit that the serpent offered to Eve.
Instead, "when the woman saw that the tree was
good for food, and that it was a delight to
the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired
to make one wise, she took of its fruit and
ate; and she also gave some to her husband,
and he ate." (Gen. 3:6)
As of mid-1999, it is uncertain whether the
United Religions Initiative will become a
significant worldwide religious movement, or
whether it will fade into oblivion, one more
of mankind's proud attempts to create
spiritual unity on mankind's own terms. Even
if the URI itself fails, the wealthy and
influential people associated with the New Age
and globalist movements are likely to try
again to achieve the same utopian goals within
the next few years. These people are devoted
and persistent, and will not be easily
deterred by the failure of one initiative.
By exposing the URI, I also hope to bring
to light the social, political, and spiritual
agenda of the movements that are associated
with the URI now - and the movements that may
later follow the trail blazed by the URI. I
have paid the URI the compliment of taking its
documents, its leaders, and its allies
seriously. Those who, like the URI and its
allies, have "a mouth speaking great things"
(Dan. 7: 8, 20) deserve such scrutiny and
exposure.
The URI has utopian goals, unorthodox
theology, and an expectation of imminent
social and spiritual transformation for the
world. In addition, like its globalist and New
Age allies, the URI plans to use the
millennial fervor associated with the year
2000 to assist in building the movement.
Therefore, the URI deserves to be known as a
millennial cult - a respectable,
well-connected, politically correct millennial
cult, but a cult nevertheless. Cultists who
set dates for the Second Coming, max out their
credit cards, and head for the hills to meet
Jesus in the air - the Rapture - do harm
primarily to themselves and their families,
and are the occasion for some press coverage
ridiculing the Church. The cult of United
Religions will, if it succeeds, do more damage
than any number of Rapture cults could do. A
successful United Religions would lead to the
spread of irrational New Age beliefs and
practices, and would repopulate the "naked
public square" of the West with a pantheon of
idols. The collectivist "global ethic"
fostered by the United Religions and its
allies would provide a fig leaf of
respectability for further expansion of
national and international government power at
the expense of individuals, families, and the
Church.
Let's give Bishop Swing the last word. On
September 11, 1996, he extolled the URI to a
meeting of 200 San Francisco Episcopal lay
leaders, and said: "We're talking about
salvation history here. If I'm wrong, I'm dead
wrong."(30) The Bishop has spoken; the case is
closed.
Footnotes:
NOTE: Internet document citations are based
on research done between September 1997 and
August 1999. Web citations are accurate as of
the time the Web page was printed, but some
documents may have been moved to a different
Web site since then, or they may have been
removed entirely from the Web.
1 Bishop William Swing, "The United
Religions Initiative," document issued in
April 1996 by the URI; p. 1
2 Bishop William Swing, The Coming United
Religions, United Religions Initiative and
CoNexus Press, 1998, ISBN 0-9637897-5-9; p. 31
3 Transcribed by Lee Penn from URI-provided
tape of URI forum at Grace Cathedral, held on
2/2/97
4 Don Lattin, "Religions of World
Celebrated With Prayers to Dozen Deities," San
Francisco Chronicle, June 26, 1995, p. A1,
front page section
5 Richard Scheinin, "Interfaith ceremony
promotes world peace," San Jose Mercury News,
June 26, 1995; Internet document, p. 2
6 Don Lattin, "Religions of World
Celebrated With Prayers to Dozen Deities," San
Francisco Chronicle, June 26, 1995, pp. A1 and
A11, front page section
7 United Religions Initiative, "Benchmark
Draft Charter," Internet document,
http://www.united-religions.org/charter/index.shtml,
Draft Agenda for Action, III. Ecological
Imperatives, Rationale, p. 10
8 United Religions Initiative, "Benchmark
Draft Charter," Internet document,
http://www.united-religions.org/charter/index.shtml,
Draft Agenda for Action, III. Ecological
Imperatives, Project Ideas, Project 7, p. 11
9 Bishop William Swing, The Coming United
Religions, United Religions Initiative and
CoNexus Press, 1998, ISBN 0-9637897-5-9; p. 63
10 Fred Matser, "Nature Is My God," an
interview with Mikhail Gorbachev, Resurgence
184, Internet document,
http://www.gn.apc.org/resurgence/184/gorbachev.htm,
p. 3
11 Green Cross International, "Interview,"
Los Angeles Times, May 8, 1997, Internet
document,
http://www4.gve.ch/gci/GreenCrossFamily/gorby/newspeeches/interviews/laTimes.html,
p. 4
12 The Earth Charter Campaign, "The Earth
Charter: The Green Cross Philosophy," Internet
document,
http://www.earthcharter.org/report/special/greencross.htm,
p. 5
13 Don Lattin, interview with Bishop
William Swing - "Bishop's Idea for a Leap of
Faiths," San Francisco Chronicle, June 22,
1997, p. 3/Z1
14 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Salt of the
Earth: Christianity and the Catholic Church at
the End of the Millennium - An Interview with
Peter Seewald, translated by Adrian Walker,
Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1997, ISBN
0-89870-640-8; p. 165
15 Carol Barnwell, " 'United Religions' is
Bishop Swing's goal," The Lambeth Daily, Issue
4, 22 July 1998; Internet document,
http://anglican.org/online/Lambeth-Daily/22/UR.html,
p. 1
16 Anglican Communion Office at the United
Nations, "Annual Report 1997," Internet
document,
http://www.aco.org/united-nations/annual97.htm,
p. 2
17 Baxter and Sax, (first names not
stated), "Exclusive Interview: Bishop William
Swing, Head of the United Religions
Organization," Endtime, July/August 1998,
Internet document,
http://www.endtime.com/bishop.htm, p. 11
18 The Center for Progressive Christianity,
"President's Report, February 1999," section
on the United Religions Initiative by William
Rankin, Internet document,
http://www.tcpc.org/newsFeb99.html, p. 6
19 Bishop William Swing, The Coming United
Religions, United Religions Initiative and
CoNexus Press, 1998, ISBN 0-9637897-5-9; p. 64
20 The Center for Progressive Christianity,
"President's Report, February 1999," section
on the United Religions Initiative by William
Rankin, Internet document,
http://www.tcpc.org/newsFeb99.html, p. 8
21 Bishop William Swing, "Invitation
Letter," Journal of the United Religions
Initiative, issue 3, Summer 1997, p. 3
22 Bishop William Swing, "Opening Address"
to the 1997 URI summit conference; Internet
document,
http://www.united-religions.org/youth/welcome/swingspeech.htm,
p. 2
23 Catechism Of The Catholic Church, Image
Books/Doubleday edition, 1995, ISBN
0-385-47967-0, sections 675-676, pp. 193-194
24 Dennis Delman, "For the Sake of the
Children, We've Got to Talk," Bishop Swing
Tells Commonwealth Club Gathering," Pacific
Church News, August/September 1999, p. 25
25 Dennis Delman, "For the Sake of the
Children, We've Got to Talk," Bishop Swing
Tells Commonwealth Club Gathering," Pacific
Church News, August/September 1999, p. 25
26 Matthew Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic
Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the
Birth of a Global Renaissance, Harper San
Francisco, 1988, ISBN 0-06-062915-0, p. xi
27 Donor list, Grace Cathedral Magazine,
Spring 1995, p. 9; covers donations made to
the Cathedral capital campaign as of March 1,
1995; Rockefeller donated at least $10,000,
according to this listing.
28 Gerald O. Barney, Global 2000 Revisited:
Changing Course, Internet document,
http://www.cgv.org/millennium/g2000r/course.html,
pp. 2-3
29 Millennium Institute, "Threshold 21
Update," December 1997, Vol. 1, no. 1,
Internet document,
http://www.igc.apc.org/millennium/news/t21upd01.html,
p. 8
30 From notes taken by Lee Penn of the
speech given by Bishop Swing at the 9/11/96
meeting of the San Francisco Deanery for the
Episcopal Diocese of California
