Sophomores Maggie Olson and Margaret Koenig have been enjoying more than sun and surf in Melbourne, Australia. As the location for the 2009 Parliament of the World's Religions, Melbourne offered a diverse city for participants to address religious reconciliation and cross-cultural connection from Dec. 3 to 9.
The Parliament fulfills Olson and Koenig's junior year vocations project for the Civitas program, and allows these students to partake in an international and interreligious gathering.
The Parliament's goal is to engage religious and spiritual communities, educate global peace and justice and engage civil society. Recognizing that understanding people of different cultures and traditions is crucial to advancing global peace, the objective is to respond to world threats such as environmental changes, education and poverty.
"The Parliament is a gathering of religious and political leaders as well as everyday people from all over the world who are interested in initiating healthy, productive interreligious dialogue," Olson says. "The loose theme of the Parliament is ‘Hearing each other, healing the earth,' which outlines the common aim of all religions to protect our shared world from an environmental sense."
While trying to juggle being sick and attending the various sessions, Olson has been focusing her studies on how social media, like Facebook and Twitter, stimulates communication between different groups of people.
"The hope is to find out whether these avenues are a positive development forinterreglious dialogue because they enable so many people to be involved in the progress," Olson says. "However, I'm also looking to see if there is a dark side to this. Social media does indeed give a voice to those who are against dialogue, and so there remains a question as to whether social media enables more hate speech."
Koenig's studies have a similar slant, centering on the conflicts that arise out of meanings expressed in words. "I am focusing on interreligious dialogue issues concerning language," Koenig says. "It isn't about linguistics. It's about thinking about the ways we expressing meaning. Most religions are seeking to express similar things, but the words used to do the expressing often end up causing conflict."
The topics this year include Healing the Earth with Care and Concern, Reconciling with the Indigenous Peoples, Overcoming Poverty in a Patriarchal World, Creating Social Cohesion in Village and City, Sharing Wisdom in Search for Inner Peace, Securing Food and Water for All People and Building Peace in Pursuit of Justice. Using the binary of practical and spiritual life, the Parliament wishes to foster a common responsibility for the world to work toward a better future.
"I hope that this experience will help me get more ideas for my post-college plans, but going beyond just a career," Koenig says. "I am hoping to meet people who want to work on the same global problems. And yes, it is happening."
Be the first to comment on this article!