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Is the interfaith movement keeping up with new developments eg. Civic society taking on interfaith, often with better resources and wider impact?

Specifically oriented interfaith dialogue and activities, thus far, only touch a small percentage of religious people and have little hope of reaching into secular society.

So, as civic society increasingly brings people of faith together through varied programmes and initiatives that have a broader outreach than just inter-religious enquiry, are interfaith organisations being left behind, becoming redundant, stagnant, limited by their competitiveness, stifled by their struggle for funding, ineffective, ego-centric, out-dated, un-mindful of or even unsure what their task now is? Is the focus on religions just too narrow, a restriction that civic society is not burdened by?

Religions can be useful tools here and there but can also be divisive prisons. We feel they only belong to this world and not to any other reality so have limited use if we believe that we ourselves, as beings, span more than just this material self. Why then give them so much exclusive attention?

Interfaith activities will probably always span many levels but still the question remains: what is it really for, what do we and other species sharing this world with us really need to be happy and peaceful?

Maybe there is a more universal and unifying aspect on which to focus to bring greater understanding and co-operation in the world? That is what we are 'lookingfor' or waiting to receive inspiration about.

In our inter-religious work with the IIC and others, our dream was that it would help to decrease suffering on this planet; suffering caused, for example, by conflicts in which religions often play a role. Our idea was that dialogue between religions could have a special potency to prevent and/or end wars. We left interfaith when we no longer believed this to be true.

Religions could be compared with universities. Any dialogue between Cambridge and Oxford, for example, however productive it might be, will often be accompanied by competition, which shows itself via most aspects and individuals who are linked to these universities. The competition goes on even into the old age of students who left university many years before. Competition can lead to conflicts. As long as individuals who finished their university education keep an immature attitude of superiority or attachment to one university rather than just be grateful for the education they received, there will be narrowness of heart and spirit and seeds for division and conflict.

To decrease suffering on this planet, people of religion need to be able to take off their label. Their religion has helped them, like universities, to get some knowledge or qualification. With these one has to start life in human society, and experience the realities; learn and develop oneself.

So, our experience is, that to decrease competition, conflict and suffering, the setting of interfaith dialogue is inadequate. If human society likes to become more mature/civil, the dialogue has to be taken out of the context and power of religions, and representatives of religions.

Individuals need to become brave enough to leave behind identification with labels of nationality, religion, race etc. before being able to enter a real dialogue in respect and love for the other. To enable this, one has to go beyond religions.

As long as interfaith activities encourage people to 'belong' to their traditions, their impact will be as enclosed as the boundaries the labels bring with them.

The purpose of religion is surely not to tell each other all about what we believe in this or that tradition but to understand how what we believe can return us to our true Selves. Then we can change the world, by example!