WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS

WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS . Held in Chicago from September 11 to 18, 1893, in conjunction with the Columbian Exposition, the World's Parliament of Religions was a milestone in the history of interreligious dialogue, the study of world religions, and the impact of Eastern religious traditions on American culture. The parliament's several delegates from Asia were among the first authoritative representatives of their traditions to travel to the West. The earliest Vedāntist and Buddhist organizations in the United States to cater primarily to Westerners can be traced directly or indirectly to the conference and its delegates.

Though awakened by the "Yankee Hindoo" motif of New England transcendentalism during the early part of the nineteenth century and furthered by the educational efforts of the Theosophical Society (founded in New York in 1875), American interest in Eastern spirituality was enhanced by the publicity created by the conference. The number of courses in "comparative religion" at American colleges rose appreciably as a result of the event. At the same time the parliament provided an occasion for dialogue, enabling Christian apologists to present forceful counterarguments to those of their Eastern colleagues, linking faith in Christ with "progress" and moral superiority and justifying missionary endeavor. Indeed, while the parliament was undeniably liberal Protestant in tone, it was also a pioneering ecumenical event, international in scope. Roman Catholic and Jewish spokespeople took their places alongside representatives of those "mainstream" Protestant denominations that were, at that time, usually perceived as the dominant form of American religious life.

The idea of sponsoring a parliament of religions was proposed to the Columbian Exposition by Charles C. Bonney (1831–1903), a civic leader and devout layman of the Swedenborgian Church; his role could be said to epitomize the rising influence of the laity in American religion at the time. Paul Carus (1852–1919), the Open Court Press editor and publisher, influential through his early introduction of Eastern classics to Western readers, was also an active promoter of the event. The leadership of the parliament itself, however, was clerical—preeminently in the person of John Henry Barrows (1847–1902), a prominent Chicago Presbyterian minister.

Nonetheless, the most lasting impression at the conference was made by three colorful, articulate representatives of Hinduism and Buddhism: Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902), Anagārika Dharmapāla (1864–1933), and Shaku Sōen (1859–1919). Vivekananda, a disciple of the saintly Ramakrishna Paramahaṃsa (1836–1886), was the founder of the Ramakrishna Mission, which has planted outposts of intellectual Hinduism (frequently known as Vedanta Societies) throughout the West. Dharmapāla, a Singhalese reformer, was the founder of the Maha Bodhi Society, which aimed at revitalizing and promoting Buddhism in dialogue with modern thought; the society came to have a great deal of interaction with Western Buddhists. Shaku, a Japanese Zen priest, was particularly influential through his students, who included the first Zen monks to settle in America (a decade or so later) and the layman D. T. Suzuki (1870–1966), whose books have done much to introduce Zen to the West.

The parliament was not without difficulty or dissent. Islam was inadequately represented; the participation of Roman Catholics sparked much controversy within their church; and many conservative Protestants were horrified by the entire project. The gathering's coincidental connection with the American "triumphalism" of the Columbian Exposition, in the heyday of Western expansion, sent a strangely ambiguous message. But the parliament's American fruits, in the form of both increased academic study of world religion and non-Western religious presences in America, foreshadowed the religious pluralism of the twentieth century and remain visible in the twenty-first.

At the same time, non-Western delegates like Vivekananda (though often seen by conservative coreligionists as too prone to universalism and modernism) became key promoters of reform within their own faiths. Moreover, the parliament was viewed by nationalists as legitimating their homeland's spiritual culture against colonialism, and so played a role in the cultural and, ultimately, political renaissance of nations like India and Sri Lanka.

In 1993, on the centenary of the first parliament, a second Parliament of the World's Religions (apart from one or two smaller interreligious events called congresses or parliaments) brought some six thousand attendees to Chicago. The effects of a hundred years were evident. Among the most conspicuous delegates were Tibetan Buddhists, Western Neopagans, and Native Americans, all unrepresented in 1893. The distinguished student of American religious pluralism Diana Eck noted in a major address that when Swami Vivekananda came to Chicago there were no known Hindus in that city, while in 1993 some twenty Hindu temples served the Chicago area. The same was true also with Buddhism, Islam, and other religions once mysterious to most Americans.

The twentieth-century event was far more participatory than the earlier one, despite the dramatic opening procession in 1893. The halls of the hotel in which the 1993 event was held echoed with the sounds of chants, gongs, drums, and prayers as well as speeches. This parliament focused not only on getting acquainted but also on the application of the world's religious energies to the world's problems. A parliamentary document, "Toward a Global Ethic," called on the planet's spiritual leaders to work assiduously toward universal justice, peace, nonviolence, and ecological awareness. The major address at the closing ceremony was given by the Dalai Lama, who urged the implementation of these values.

For all that, it cannot be said that the 1993 parliament had the impact of the first. It was but one voice and one interreligious experience among many in the late-twentieth-century world, whereas the first parliament in a real sense created, or epitomized, a new era in world spiritual interaction.

A third Parliament of the World's Religions, inspired by the second, was held in Cape Town, South Africa, in December 1999. While inspiring for the some six thousand attendees, it too was of less historical significance than the first.

See Also

Ramakrishna; Suzuki, D. T.; Vivekananda.

Bibliography

Barrows, John Henry, ed. The World's Parliament of Religions. 2 vols. Chicago, 1893. Original publication of parliament talks and papers.

Seager, Richard Hughes. The World's Parliament of Religions. Bloomington, Ind., 1995. An excellent scholarly study of the parliament in historical context.

Seager, Richard Hughes, ed. The Dawn of Religious Pluralism. La Salle, Ill., 1993. A new collection of key parliament addresses.

Teasdale, Wayne, and George F. Cairns, eds. The Community of Religions: Voices and Images of the Parliament of the World's Religions. New York, 1996. Documents of the 1993 parliament.

Ziolkowski, Eric J., ed. A Museum of Faiths: Histories and Legacies of the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions. Atlanta, 1993. Collection of essays on the 1893 parliament, emphasizing its subsequent influence.

Robert S. Ellwood (1987 and 2005)