The Reverend Doctor Marcus Braybrooke has aptly been called the dean of interfaith historians. He has travelled hundreds of thousands of miles attending interfaith events for half a century. His work mining the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago and the subsequent evolution of the Parliament of the World’s Religions is where the student of interfaith history must begin. Amazon’s Marcus Braybrooke Page, which lists 37 of his books, introduces him this way: “Marcus Braybrooke is an Anglican priest, an interfaith activist and author. He is President of the World Congress of Faiths, Co-Founder of the Three Faiths Forum, and a Peace Councilor.”
Sri Ramakrishna: A Profile
Except for students of Hinduism, Sri Ramakrishna is a largely unknown figure in the West. Yet his teaching and influence have helped shape the global interfaith movement. His vision, if not his name, came to Europe and America through his student and devotee, Swami Vivekananda, whose electrifying contributions at the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions are invoked as the beginning of the interfaith movement. Marcus Braybrooke’s profile is so carefully researched that TIO is breaking its long habit of not using footnotes. For those who want to study Ramakrishna, they point the way.
Am I My Brother’s Keeper?
“Am I my brother’s keeper?” was Cain’s reply when God asked him where his brother Abel was. (Genesis 4:9) It is the same question being asked of wealthy nations by asylum seekers and migrants as they clamour to come in.
Science and Spirituality Join Forces for Water
Two hundred participants – scientists, clergy, spiritual practitioners, artists, and concerned citizens – gathered for an all-day teach-in on Sunday, March 8, 2015 at Loyola Marymount University, exploring practical solutions to the global climate crisis and water shortage. Organized by the Southern California Parliament of the World’s Religions, “Seeds of Peace: Honoring Water, Source of Life” offered spiritual practice, sacred ritual, social action, and climate-based workshops, as well as a vibrant communal marketplace with 40 vendors all focused on the life-sustaining role of water.
Is a World Faith Worth Dreaming About?
“A gradual assimilation of religions will in time function as a world faith” was the prophecy that the Indian philosopher Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan made more than 80 years ago.
“There is No Future without Forgiveness”
Holocaust Memorial Day 2014
High Tea with Marcus and Mary
by Ruth Broyde Sharone
The English landscape rushed by the bus window, lush green hills alternating with roads that twisted and turned through leafy glens.
Interfaith and Peace, Social Justice, and Respect for the Earth
“War no more.” That was the hope that inspired Charles Bonney as he explained in his opening address to the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions. Bonney believed that a major cause of conflict was “because the religious faiths of the world have most seriously misunderstood and misjudged each other.”i One hundred years later, Hans Küng declared that there would be “No peace in the world without peace between religions.”ii
Should People of Different Faiths Pray Together?
This question has become increasingly important with the growing interaction between members of the world religions at all levels of society. Still quite a new issue in the Western world, few churches have given it much attention. In most cases, practice is well in advance of thinking about interfaith worship. I write as a Christian, mainly from a British context, and it will be good to hear from other standpoints.
A Dream That Is Contagious
Once after a lecture on the 1893 World Parliament of Religions, I was asked by a sleepy student, ‘Were you there yourself?’ No one, I assume, who was at the 1993 Parliament of World Religions (note the slight change of name) had been in Chicago, a hundred years before. Yet because of its continuing influence, it is worthwhile to glance back to the pioneers of the interfaith pilgrimage. I can remember my own excitement when, looking in the library for another book, I chanced on Barrows’ two volume record of that historic event.
A TIO Interview with Marcus Braybrooke
TIO: When you first became involved in interfaith activities, few if any discerned how several decades of globalization would put religious diversity issues, for good and for ill, center stage in millions of communities. As a preeminent historian of this transformation and its best fruit, the interfaith movement, please share with us how you were drawn to this arena.