The anti-secular religious performance and the Western challenge in the Parliament of the World's Religions : "No world peace without dialogue within the religions"

The subject of the thesis is interreligious dialogues and cooperation examined from a sociological point of view: To obtain higher status in the international systems it is in the interest of the various religious traditions to cooperate and appear as a united system, since interreligious dialogues and cooperation can be used as an anti-secular strategy. There is today a great number of interreligious social agencies, institutions and organisations that work to improve the world through projects in developing countries, fight against violations of human rights, and focus on environmental issues. Against the background of the secular international society, it is very likely that these socially engaged activities also may be used as one way for religion to once again become a power to reckon with. The thesis examines how religious adherents, on the basis of a common concern for humanitarian and ecological matters, can cooperate in an anti-secular agenda through an interreligious movement. One of the main points in this examination is to show how the partners engaged in these collaborations first and foremost are of the ‘liberal’ wings, and how the interreligious collaborations lack the participation of the ‘conservative’ wings. This absence shows the intrareligious difference. It is precisely the absence of intrareligious dialogues which may constitute the greatest challenge in the pursuit of the anti-secular goals and the wide support for the interreligious movement in general. To discuss these topics the thesis analyses the Parliament of the World’s Religions (in 1993, 1999 and 2004), which works as a reflection of the interreligious movement. At the Parliament in 1993 one of the paroles was ‘No world peace without dialogue between the religions’, but it is just as important to stress the ‘dialogue within the religions’. In addition, the thesis shows how the organisationing of the events has become closely connected to certain anti-secular agencies which work towards an increased religious influence on the UN system, and how acts of religious exclusivism/fundamentalism may have influenced the programs of the Parliament. The universalistic attitude promoted by the interreligious movement and the Parliament may be seen as expressions of Western ideas, since the majority of the participants have Western backgrounds. However, the intrareligious differences are not the result of cultural differences. For intrareligious dialogues between ‘liberals’ and ‘conservatives’ to work, a change from the essentialistic discourse to the processual discourse is required