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A Global Ethic

Martin Forward

HIS ARTICLE LOOKS AT the Global Ethic project, its origins, achievements, and also criticisms of it.
The project became fairly widely known when 143 leaders from across the spectrum of the world's religions signed up to it
at the 1993 meeting of The Parliament of the World's Religions in
Chicago, held to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the original Chicago Parliament held as part of the Columbian Exposition in
1893. This 1993 parliament condemned the parlous state of the world,
such things as the looting of the planet's resources; widespread poverty, and particularly "aggression and hatred in the name of religion".
Those who signed up to it affirmed that "there is an irrevocable, unconditional norm for all areas of life, for families and communities,
for races, nations, and religions. There already exist ancient guidelines
for human behavior which are found in the teachings of the religions
of the world and which are the condition for a sustainable world order" (http://www.religioustolerance.org/parliame.htm). Behind this
declaration was the distinguished theologian Hans Kng, whose followers canvassed widely for signatures at the 1993 meeting.
Kng had written a book in 1990 called Global Responsibility
(English translation 1991) in which he argued that religions can contribute to world peace only if they reaffirm and live out their core
values. He spelled out his conviction that there can be

No peace among the nations without peace among the religions.

No peace among the religions without dialogue between the religions.

No dialogue between the religions without investigation of the foundations of the religions.

Dialogue & Alliance


Vol. 19, No. 2 Fall/Winter 2005/2006

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This was what he took to Chicago. He persuaded the Parliament to


affirm four directives:

Commitment to a culture of non-violence and respect for life.


Commitment to a culture of solidarity and a just economic order.
Commitment to a culture of tolerance and a life of truthfulness.
Commitment to a culture of equalrightsand partnership between
men and women.

In the wake of the Chicago Parliament, a number of scholars and


practitioners of interfaith dialogue took up the cause of the Global
Ethic. Books were written, some rather learned and others more popular in tone. One of the best attempts to convey the excitement of the
project to interested but uninformed laypeople was the publication
Testing the Global Ethic: Voices from the Religions on Moral Values, edited by Peggy Morgan and Marcus Braybrooke (International
Interfaith Centre, The World Congress of Faiths and CoNexus Press,
1998). This looked, simply but helpfully, at the four directives, and
provided material from the world's religions to illustrate them. It also
included a non-religious viewpoint, which was more toughly argued
and markedly more skeptical than the rest of the book. Given the rise
of religious fundamentalism and its disrespect for others' views and
sometimes even carelessness of their lives and wellbeing, there are
cogent reasons for this distrust of religious peoples' commitment to a
moral vision.
Yet it is important to stress how excited some scholars were a decade ago by the idea of a Global Ethic. Scholars are not immune from
jumping on the latest bandwagon, but their exhilaration seemed to
presage more than that. The fanaticism of religious fundamentalists in
many faiths seemed to them to be an ironic and malevolent betrayal
of the core-values of religions. For such discomfited souls, the Global
Ethic provided a focus for their convictions that religions are positive
forces for good, not exclusive clubs that are out-of-date and even dangerous in the (post-)modern world.
Open-minded and liberal religious people often lack an issue
around which to cluster in the ways in which the more confident and
assured (and, truth to tell, often more intolerant) do, so it was with

Forward: A Global Ethic

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some relief that they rediscovered the Golden Rule as a useful, generally-accepted religious teaching that seems more inclusive than partisan and exclusive. This notion or even directive that you should treat
others as you yourself wish to be treated can be found in many religions of the world. Lots of recent introductory books about religion
and dialogue include a chapter or a section on the Golden Rule, and
offer some examples from the scriptures and teachings of all the religions. (An important book at the time about this subject was Jeffrey
Wattles' The Golden Rule, OUP, 1996.)
As the 1990s developed, so did the range of issues that the Global
Ethic attempted to discuss from an inclusive, inter-religious position.
In 2000, an important book was published: Explorations in Global
Ethics: Comparative Religious Ethics and Interreligious Dialogue
(edited by S.B. Twiss and B. Grelle, Westview Press). This provided scholarly discussion by members of many world faiths of human
rights, distributive justice, the environment, issues of war and peace,
genocide and other pressing topics. In the manner of many current introductions to religious topics, issues of method and theory are given
weighty treatment in it. But glimmers of enthusiasm and animation
emergefromthe serious, rather ponderous tone of most of this work.
Meanwhile Kng had been actively pursuing his agenda to further the Global Ethic project. His Global Ethic Foundation opened in
1995; its website is at http://www.weltethos.org/dat_eng/index_e.htm.
Its three aims are to: carry out and encourage inter-cultural and interreligious research; stimulate and implement inter-cultural and interreligious education; enable and support such inter-cultural and interreligious encounter necessary for research and education. As part of
this educative strategy, Kng prepared a series of seven TV documentaries on Exploring the Tracks ofthe World Religions in the late 1990s.
He was also a consultant to the InterAction Council, a body of expoliticians (or elder statesmen, if you prefer), first chaired by Helmut
Schmidt, formerly Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany.
The Council produced a 'Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities' in time for thefiftiethanniversary in 1998 of the adoption of
the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.
Also in 1998, the President of Iran, Seyed Mohammad Khatami,
made a speech to the UN General Assembly, in effect proposing that
the Global Ethic should be discussed at the UN level. This resulted

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in the UN Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations in 2001. Kng was


one of twenty 'eminent persons' (including Prince Hasan of Jordan,
Hanan Ashrawi, Nadine Gordimer, Jacques Delors and Amartya Sen)
consulted about such a dialogue; they presented a report to the secretary-general at the end of 2001. This formed the basis of a resolution
adopted by the General Assembly on a 'Global Agenda for Dialogue
Among Civilizations' (which can be accessed at http://www.un.org/
documents/ares566e.pdf). This document has a particular importance,
coming as it did at the end of the year which saw the events of 9/11.
Its attempts to promote inter-cultural understanding, tolerance, justice
and dialogue, at odds with the (in some ways understandable) belligerent response of the Bush administration and its allies, spelled out an
alternative strategy of negotiation.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Association
(UNESCO) has continued to sponsor this theme of cross-cultural dialogue: for example by co-sponsoring a conference on Dialogue Among
Civilizations: Islam and the West in Quebec, Canada, in May 2005.
It is clear that the Global Ethic project has been noted and even
affirmed by politicians. Kng has persuaded politicians to take an interest in his passion to establish an ethic upon which all can agree. His
Foundation has sponsored four Global Ethics Lectures since 2000,
given by Tony Blair, Mary Robinson, Kofi Annan and the President
of Germany, Horst Khler. Even so, much of the debate about a universally acceptable ethic for the world has been parallel to (and in
some cases began before) Kng's project. The recent religious impetus behind the desire to define and live by a Global Ethic is just
one of a number ofrivuletsin a stream of attempts tofinda means of
co-existing creatively and peacefully. There are a dizzying number
of recent and forthcoming conferences to provide justice in the areas of, among many others: gender, ecology, children, senior citizens,
and animal rights. Some of these have been organized by groups that
have been inspired by the Global Ethic project. Some secular ones
are ignorant of it, or see it as another player in the same game, or
are even suspicious of it as an attempt to reinstate a phenomenon,
religion, which they assume to be exclusive and obsolete. Long-established interfaith organizations like the World Congress of Faiths and
the Council of Christians and Jews have often been content simply
to back Kng's initiative, though their inclusive and tolerant stances

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have in fact predated its attempts to encourage religious people to act


justly and inclusively to all others.
Temple University's Center for Global Ethics in Philadelphia, associated with Leonard Swidler, has not been quite so cutting-edge as
Kng's, but has made some interesting contributions to the debate,
not least in emphasizing the importance of creating a business code of
ethics. Furthermore, in his article 'Toward a Universal Declaration of
a Global Ethic' (http://astro.temple.edu/~dialogue/Center/intro.htm),
Swidler writes of moving from an age of monologue to an age of
dialogue, so that individual civilizations, which used to dominate and
control whenever they could, should now learn new skills of partnership and cooperation. He sees ours as a radical new age, arguing that
a paradigm shift has taken place that requires a new Global Ethic.
His article is much indebted to other writers, not just Kng but also
Thomas Kuhn, John Hick, and others. Although Swidler offers nothing new, his is a useful summary of certain issues. Like Kng, he
believes that religion has something useful to offer to a world hungry
for peace and justice.
However, both his and Kng's websites are in sore need of updating. Both give the impression that the Global Ethic project is, if not
running out of steam, at least saying the same things repeatedly. The
project is rather stale and in need of revitalizing.
Indeed, we should question its apparently greatest achievement,
that of involving politicians and diplomats in the process of establishing peace and goodwill upon earth. Even those who do not normally
hold a cynical view of politicians and their willingness to associate
themselves with high-sounding projects so long as they are not held
accountable to them can note certain ironies. For example, Mr. Blair's
first Global Ethic lecture in 1990 given at Kng's foundation did not
stop him from acting as President Bush's ally in the invasion of Iraq
only two years later, even though the UN and many religious organizations were unsympathetic to and condemnatory of it. The British
Prime Minister, himself a man of religious faith, made reference to
the power of religion for human good, noting that 'the basic premises
of our faiths; solidarity; justice; peace and the dignity of the human
person are what we need in the age of globalization'. Even so, much
of his speech reads less like a statesmanlike overview of human need
and political answers to it, and more like a party political broadcast on

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behalf of exaggerated achievements of his government. (See: http://


www.commongood.info/Blair.html.)
Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that the pursuit of a Global Ethic
seems to have foundered since the events of 2001: 9/11 and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The convictions and directives of
Kng, accepted by the Parliament of the World's Religions and aired
in many impressive public places simply do not have enough teeth to
survive the realpolitik of politicians when they abandon highfalutin
rhetoric. If the pursuit of a religious programme for a Global Ethic has
in fact proved to be unsuccessful, then it can be argued that there are
two reasons internal to the project that have contributed to this failure.
Thefirstis that it is not a popular pursuit, and the second is that much
reflection upon it has been surprisingly uncritical and superficial, given the credentials of some of its major proponents.
It would seem that the Global Ethic project is widely accepted
by members of the world's religions. In fact, the project has been
bedeviled by implicit but inaccurate claims to popularity. We have
seen that a large number of religious leaders signed up to it at the
1993 Parliament of the World's Religions. However, that 'parliament'
was hardly a representative body. Some attendees represented institutions but many others did not. People turned up who could afford to
pay. It was, for the most part, a large gathering of interfaith devotees.
Many religious leaders did attend, but others did not. Furthermore,
those leaders who signed up to the project were not widely consulted
about it in advance but were invited to sign up to what was virtually a
done deal. However honorable and good are the content of the commitments and directives, they are the work of Kng, to which other
religious grandees (mostly men) assented. This way of proceeding
smacks more of the work of one of Plato's guardians than of a believer
in grassroots democracy.
Perhaps a more serious criticism is that claims for religion's positive role in creating a universal ethic are somewhat naively expressed
by proponents of the Global Ethic. The four commitments outlined
above may be practiced by some religious people, but by no means
all. Take for instance the 'commitment to a culture of equal rights
and partnership between men and women'. The rise of contemporary
women's movements in the world religions illustrates how far most religions arefromfurthering this aim. It is just as tempting for religious

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people to define their religions idealistically as it is for secular critics


to view them gloomily at their worst.
Moreover, many religious proponents of a Global Ethic seem to
have abandoned nuanced theological reflection in favour of a view of
religion as the living out of the Golden Rule. Yet the Golden Rule is
not usually seen as the heart of religion by faith-full people, but simply
as the obvious starting point for a religious and humane vision of life.
Take the famous story in Judaism recorded in the Talmud: Shabbat 31 :
A certain heathen came to Shammai and said to him, "Make me a
proselyte, on condition that you teach me the whole Tor ah while I
stand on one foot " Thereupon he repulsed him with the rod which
was in his hand. When he went to Hillel, he said to him, "What is
hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor: that is the whole Torah;
all the rest of it is commentary; go and learn. "

It is hard not to sympathize with Shammai's response to a person


who trivializes and reduces a great religion to some simple slogan,
though perhaps Hillel was more sensible (and compassionate) to try
and draw that trivial interlocutor into abandoning sound-bites for the
joys and wisdom of paddling in the shallows of the ocean of truth.
Hillel suggests to him that he should learn the commentary which
would give him the means of figuring out why the Golden Rule is
important.
Even assuming that the Golden Rule could be developed into a
more nuanced pattern of behaving well in today's world, there would
still be issues for religious people to deal with. For whilst ethics is
an important dimension of religion, it does not exhaust its meaning.
There is a tendency for religious people in the West to play down or
even despise doctrine, but this is surely a passing fancy. It is important for religious people in every culture to inquire after the nature
of transcendence: its attitude towards humans and the created order,
and the demands that it makes. We cannot sensibly describe what is
demanded of us as important, without describing the source that wills
it and enables it to be lived out. Besides, the world would be a safer
place if we challenge paranoid and wicked visions of God with truer
and more generous ones, than if we abandon the naming and defining
of God to fearful and sociopathic persons.
Other religions and Christians in other cultures are more clearsighted about the importance of religious beliefs and structures as em-

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powering their members. The former President of Iran, Ali Khamenei,


said that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a 'collection
of mumbo-jumbo by disciples of Satan,' and 'What they call human
rights is nothing but a collection of corrupt rules worked out by Zionists to destroy all true religion.' One does not have to agree with him
to see that he is pointing to something important: religions should not
tether their teachings too close to a secular view of life. Religion may
have killed millions, but in the twentieth century secular ideologies of
Marxism and Nazism slew their tens of millions.
Yet Khamenei's foolish and wicked reference to Zionists, a commonplace form of anti-Semitism amongst Muslims, also reminds us
not to be simplistic about assuming, defining and emphasizing corevalues between religions. We need also to establish and implement
an ethic for coping with disagreement: as for instance, between Jews,
Christians and Muslims in the Middle East. Any attempt to formulate
a Global Ethic that papers over deep inequalities is not worth anything
at all.
If the Global Ethic project has anything further to contribute to the
world's wellbeing, it must move away from an optimistic and naive
assertion of religious values. The next step could be for some of its
major proponents to take seriously contemporary discussions, particularly by women scholars, of interfaith spirituality. (A good starting
point would be the article by Ursula King on 'Interfaith dialogue and
spirituality' in: Bowden, J. (ed.), Christianity: The Complete Guide,
Continuum, 2005.) This moves the emphasis awayfromthe interpretation of religion as institutional hierarchies, to viewing them as storehouses of wisdom, winnowed through time, that have enabled people
to construct their lives within the context of boundless divine grace.
This should prompt religious people into an intensive self-examination of the roots of violence as contrary to what faith has essentially
taught. In so doing, it would encourage them, in clearly defined ways,
to work with each other for the common good rather than sectarian
interest.

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