Atlanta's "Parliament Centenary"

As we "go to press" [1993], the Conference of World Religions here has just concluded. This two-day function organized jointly by the Chaplain's Office of Emory University, the Religion Department, Candler Theological Seminary, The Eternal Quest and other sponsors, was innovative of its type in this area and drew together over 200 participants on Sunday, Nov. 14.
Introduced by the Chaplain, Susan Henry-Crowe, a panel of six spokespersons for their respective faiths, Baha'i, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism, addressed the questions: "What is the essence of your faith?" and "What can it offer for transforming mutual suspicion into mutual respect?" (The theme of the Conference).
Each participant had already chosen a dialog-group to attend, and we now moved to our respective places for these which were as follows:
Christian-Baha'i/ Christian-Jewish/ Hindu-Sikh/ Hindu-Muslim/ Native American-Christian/ Jewish-Muslim. An hour and a half was allotted to these concurrent discussions, moderated by students; reports are that most of those attending felt rewarded, although many thought that the ones who ought to have been there were not.
The Keynote Address was given at 7:30 p.m., by Dr. Azim Nanji, Professor of Religion at the University of Florida, Gainesville, the essence of whose message was that it is more by pitching in and working together (on such affairs as the Atlanta Project) that faiths come to mutual understanding, than by sitting around doing dialog. Nothing unites so much as actual meeting and working with those of another faith, he said.
Celebration of our differences and our unities followed, in a service of candlelight, dance and music in which a student of each faith, lighting a candle, read a scripture passage about Light and Enlightenment. Fanning out into the audience they lighted our candles from theirs.
This Conference concluded on Monday evening with a two-hour "Teach-in," which was in some ways the most intense and fruitful portion of the entire program.