Inter-Faith Peace Summit
14-19 October 2002 Johannesburg, South Africa
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Lorato from South Africa (African Traditional Religion) at the Inter-Faith Peace Summit in Africa. © LWF/P. Weinberg |
LWF General Secretary Noko Announces "The Johannesburg Inter-Faith Declaration"
A unique conference of leaders from religious communities across Africa on Friday, 18 October, unveiled an inter-faith peace declaration, affirming a joint commitment to bring about peace and prevent violent conflict through genuine inter-faith dialogue and intervention in different parts of the continent.
"There can be no future for Africa unless faith communities work together to promote co-existence," the Rev. Dr. Ishmael Noko, General Secretary of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) said, when he launched "The Johannesburg Inter-Faith Declaration - Embracing the Gift of Peace," during a press conference co-chaired by Ms Lucretia Warren from Botswana, representing the Baha'i Faith.
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Representatives of African Traditional
Religion, Baha'i faith, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism,
Islam and Judaism participate in the Inter-Faith Peace
Summit in Africa. |
Noko described the summit and its declaration as unique and a landmark in that this is the first time that representatives of different religions on the African continent had jointly stated their resolve to actively engage in promoting peace in a region rife with conflict and violence. "[For the first time], we witnessed different religious communities sit in one place and pray together. We did not go to individual places for our respective prayers, we jointly participated in the prayer offered by a different group each day," Noko said of the October 14-19 Inter-Faith Peace Summit in Africa taking place at the Kopanong Hotel and Conference Center in Benoni near Johannesburg.
The over 100 delegates drawn from 21 African countries adopted the declaration by consensus on October 17. The representatives from the African Traditional Religion, Baha'i Faith, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism committed themselves to embrace the vision of an "African renaissance," expressed in a new spirit for unity and development.
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Logo of the Inter-Faith Peace Summit. © LWF |
The summit provided an opportunity for people of different faith traditions to listen to each other, share their different understandings on common issues and "expose their failures without being defensive," Noko said. They would work for inter-religious understanding through a continuous process of genuine inter-faith encounter, discussion, and consultation, with the aim to promote respect for each other's religious traditions and refrain from denigrating them. An action plan based on the declaration will be worked out. The follow-up process will be translated in the respective contexts. More...
Please click to find the full text of the
Johannesburg Inter-Faith Peace Declaration "EMBRACING
THE GIFT OF PEACE" (Requires Adobe
Acrobat Reader). 
The
document is also available in French - "EMBRASSER
LE DON DE LA PAIX".
Other pages from the Inter-Faith Peace Summit in Africa:
