Diana Eck at the Parliament of the World's Religions

You asked the question of how religious traditions are being forced to adapt to this globalizing changing world and I think my first response would be that religious traditions now have the opportunity to adapt in ways that are remarkable. One of the things that uh globalization has enabled people to do is to communicate about themselves in ways that in previous eras weren't possible. For many centuries, uh people all over the world operated with secondhand information about people on the other side of the world and with uh probably fairly vivid and sometimes fearful stereotypes. Now, religious communities have their own websites and they can present themselves to uh to outsiders and say this is who we are. This is who we present ourselves to be. That's remarkable. Even 10 years ago, even 15 years ago, we didn't have websites that uh enabled people in one part of the world to explain what the Jamanti Islami in Pakistan is or what the United Methodist Church stands for in the United States. I don't know how many people take advantage of this but the opportunity that uh satellite communications has offered and that cable uh fiber optic cable running under the seas has given us is the opportunity of tremendous human connectivity. The human opportunity for connection including the connections that people make by flying in from all over the world to Barcelona is really fantastic. uh I think it is so far ahead in a way of our ability our imaginative ability to seize that opportunity and say we need to make something of this. um bankers and uh folks who are involved in uh all sorts of uh industrial schemes around the world are already taking full advantage of globalization and I think the need for a kind of interfaith interreligious infrastructure that really takes advantage of our connectivity is something that is is evident from a parliament like this. Right. Right. The challenges of course are many and one of the things I think is interesting to me is that what is defined as a religious issue here and in this place is not simply uh issues that are either theological or have to do with spiritual practice. Yes, those things are present. But water for example that water, clean water, drinking water, the availability of water, clean rivers, this is not simply an issue for scientists. This is also a religious issue. Refugees and homelessness, uh the vast movement of people as migrants who are forced from their homes by war and political chaos. This is a religious issue. So I think the definition of what religious people need to be addressing themselves to is also changing as our world presents us with really urgent problems. Are the ethical frameworks of the traditions sufficient to provide people with with what they need? And if so, are how are the traditions going to going to make themselves uh relevant to the majority of people these days? Do we do we need some kind of new new religion to emerge that's more uh embracing of the scientific worldview more up to-date? There are many things that are happening in in as religious people uh confront encounter a rapidly changing scientific modern post-modern world. Um among them uh is the fact that people are always now as as ever wrestling with the ways in which the ethics and beliefs that they have been brought up with enable them to encounter this world in a creative way. And uh there are some ways in which uh things that have been brought from the past are superseded or transcended and people are searching for meaning in new context. That doesn't mean that religion is necessarily transcended. But because religious traditions are dynamic, they are more like rivers than like uh boxes of beliefs. And religions have always changed. uh that change is evident more than ever today as people who are encountering not only other ways of being religious but uh other ways of thinking about and composing the world uh some of which are scientific and it may be that people feel there's a conflict and some do between science and religion but the bridges that are being built between people who are interested in science and whose world is composed largely by a scientific framework and religious people. Those bridges are now more than ever as well. One of the things that has been evident here is the ongoing dialogue of scientists and religionists so to speak and that takes many forms. It takes forms of uh uh research into the mind and um and states of consciousness that uh brings together people who are both uh religious practitioners and um scientific investigators. They're in this together. And the same thing with uh the the kinds of problems that people are tackling whether it's uh issues of water or the environment. uh there's a sense that there there's a companionship between scientists and people of faith that is extremely important. What do you see as the future of religion cuz we're in such a transition period as a planet right now? Now I mean it's hard to imagine the future period even technologically but what do you you know as we kind of see this this h hurtling into globalization that's happening and the the kind of connectivity you were speaking about where do you see it taking religion say 20 50 100 years from now what do you how do you imagine kind of the face of the planet if I if I were to look at the future of religion one thing I would certainly say is that it is going to be impossible to be religious in any religious tradition and imagine that you're the only way of being religious on God's uh green earth. That's that's impossible. We know too much of each other. We know too much of the world. One thing that has certainly happened with uh increasing rapidity in the last few decades and in the last few years has been the emergence of a multitude of ways of connecting across lines of faith of interfaith organizations, interfaith encounter associations, interfaith councils, interfaith networks that are local and national and regional and uh global. Now I see that as a major development in the history of religion. Um the intentional coming together to create instruments of relationship that uh bring people of different faiths together around common projects. One of those projects might be just getting to know each other. Another might be working on something like AIDS uh that affects people of every faith tradition. Um and uh another might be developing a means of communication, a kind of infrastructure that enables religious people to move into action when uh when there is violence or the breakdown of trust or um acts of hatred or uh or communal uh violence in cities and regions. So I do see this as an interfaith future. I think there's no other future for us. uh that doesn't mean leaving our own faith traditions behind but holding them not in isolation from each other but in relation to each other. So that's the future