The Global Economic Ethic - Medicine for a Sick System

I had the good fortune recently to hear eminent theologian Dr. Hans Küng present the principles of the newly launched manifesto titled "Global Economic Ethic - Consequences for Global Businesses" at the Parliament of the World's Religions. Küng has been a champion of global ethics work for decades and was the principal author of the Declaration Toward a Global Ethic statement developed at the 1993 Parliament. The Global Economic Ethic grows out of that work and is also a response to the recent economic collapse.

Küng argues that the recent collapse resulted from three related failures: the failure of markets to correct their own problems, the failure of institutions to perform their duties, and a widespread failure of morals. This shocking set of failures demonstrates the need for ethical guidelines in the economic world; to a great extent the crisis was caused by a failure of ethics.

We do not need to invent these ethical guidelines, according to Küng. They already exist in the great religious and cultural traditions of the world. In their simplest form, these principles boil down to two overarching imperatives: the principle of humanity, that every person must be treated humanely, and the principle of reciprocity, also known as the Golden Rule. (Take a look at my earlier post to read about Karen Armstrong's Charter for Compassion based on the Golden Rule.)

Based on these two foundational principles and the 1993 Declaration Toward a Global Ethic, Küng argues that all economic activity needs to abide by four practical core standards:
1) Respect and support of human rights
2) Fair and responsible labor standards
3) Protection of the environment
4) Working against corruption in all its forms

These are principles that can be adopted by all people and nations, whether religious or not. Dr. Küng emphasized that globalization requires a global ethic. There is hope that because of the recent failure of economic systems, the door may actually be open for these ideas to be taken seriously. The failure of ethics has now been shown to have far-reaching and disastrous results. The full text of the declaration can be found at www.globaleconomicethic.org.

In his response to Küng's presentation, Dr. Dipak Jain, professor and former dean of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, called for a new definition of sustainable capitalism: profits + people + planet. Dr. Katherine Marshall of Georgetown University raised the idea of a "greed line" (to parallel the poverty line), a level of wealth above which no one needs to rise. Attendees smiled at this idea, although we did not think it likely to be implemented.

These proposals, along with Karen Armstrong's Charter for Compassion and Rabbi Michael Lerner's call for a new bottom line (new post on this soon), show that there is palpable interest in the air for a rebirth of ethical commitment in the economic world. It is has become clear that greed, corruption, and regulatory failure do not work, not even for the affluent. Perhaps what really works after all are the age-old values of honesty, fairness, truthfulness, justice, and human rights. What a refreshing idea! Do you think it could possibly work?

Dalai Lama Closes Parliament with a Call to Action

The Dalai Lama, who has a kind of rock star status at this event, closed the 2009 Parliament of the World's Religions on December 9 in Melbourne. The aging spiritual leader was playful and self-deprecating at first, then became extraordinarily serious in his remarks. He called on the leaders of the world's diverse faiths to act together to address the pressing problems of war and climate change. He said we must not just gather together but also act together; otherwise people will say we just went home and went to sleep.

The spiritual leader urged the participants to develop a common ethic of compassion and mutual respect. Peace of mind cannot be purchased in a store; it must be developed within. We need to pursue a sense of peace within our own traditions, then move out into the world to spread that peace. Meeting together to share our experiences is a crucial part of this process. No one group can do this work alone.

The Dalai Lama made a particular point of saying that our shared community of compassion must include people who are not religious. He noted that China is not a religious country but must be drawn into the shared community of compassion. His call to compassion resonated powerfully with the Charter for Compassion proposal of Karen Armstrong and the Global Ethic work of Hans Küng.

The words of the Dalai Lama strongly reinforced the core message of the Parliament, which was that while our beliefs and traditions are delightfully different, our problems are shared in common, and the core teachings of our traditions are strikingly similar. We need to work with that core of shared values to bring a compassionate response to the pressing problems that threaten our ability to survive on this planet. This may sound like a simple message, but it is a striking turnaround from the all-too-common antagonism of the world's religions.

Amid much inspiring pageantry, the 2009 Parliament came to an end. All of the participants I talked to said that they had been profoundly moved and were ready to go home and find ways to make a difference.

The Charter for Compassion

This past week, Karen Armstrong, along with Desmond Tutu and other leaders, announced a campaign called the Charter for Compassion. The Charter for Compassion calls on the world community to adopt a global ethic of compassion based on what we often call the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

This moral guideline exists in virtually all of the world's religious traditions, which in itself is a rather remarkable fact. One question we might explore is how that came to be. There must be some deep resonance with our human nature and aspirations that is expressed in this simple maxim that does not belong to any one tradition, but to them all.

As Hans Küng and other religious leaders have passionately argued for years, the world urgently needs some kind of shared ethical framework. We are growing ever more interconnected, ever more part of the same village with everyone else on the planet. How are we going to live together on an ecologically and politically endangered planet without some common guideline for behavior? Karen Armstrong believes that compassion, as expressed in diverse ways that echo our Golden Rule, is the ethical guideline that can unite all of humanity.

The key to compassion is to set aside the selfishness and greed of our ego-centered tendencies and truly take seriously the needs of another. This dethroning of the ego has long been described as one of the ingredients of genuine spiritual experience. In compassion, we move beyond caring only about ourselves, and in so doing, discover a far wider world of meaning and satisfaction. We also find that our compassion is powerful and can change the world.

As we enter the festival season of the year, a season that takes compassion seriously, at least for a while, I invite you to explore the Charter for Compassion. You can find it at www.charterforcompassion.org. As the world searches for some way to find common ground, this ancient approach may point the way out of our confusion toward hope.

No World Peace Without Religious Peace

"No world peace without religious peace" is a quotation from Hans Küng, the Swiss Catholic theologian who has been so active in the work of worldwide interfaith reconciliation. When we look around the globe, we see that a high percentage of conflicts and wars have a religious dimension. Virtually all of the various wars in the Middle East are obvious examples, including America's seemingly endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Küng puts forward the argument that such conflicts will not be resolved by politics or weapons alone; the underlying religious issues must be addressed as well. It is not just nations that are at war, but religions too. If Küng is right, then interfaith reconciliation is a necessity for peace on earth.

I first became aware of Küng's work at the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago in 1993. It was at this historic global interfaith gathering that Küng put forth his idea of a global ethic, a set of principles that could be adopted by all of humanity, that would favor no one group over the others and could enable the human race to live in peace. The 1993 Parliament in Chicago was followed by Parliaments in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1999 and Barcelona, Spain, in 2004. The next Parliament will take place in Melbourne, Australia, December 3 through 9, 2009. Once again a movement will be made to bring the faith traditions of the earth into cooperative interchange of ideas, beliefs, and commitments.

At the 1999 Cape Town Parliament, Nelson Mandela proclaimed that the worldwide scourge of AIDS needed the cooperative effort of the world's religions to be conquered. Today the world, and Africa especially, are still ravaged by this disease. The 2004 Parliament in Barcelona focused on four major global issues: clean drinking water, religious violence, third world debt, and the plight of refugees. Significant projects were undertaken in all four areas by religious leaders.
The theme of the 2009 Parliament in Melbourne is "Hearing Each Other, Healing the Earth."
You still have time to go, and you might get to talk to Hans Küng yourself. Find out more at www.parliamentofreligions.org.

If it is true that the huge social problems of the world need religious cooperation to be overcome, or at least the cessation of the conflicts between religions that exacerbate these problems, then interfaith involvement becomes a kind of moral imperative. There are many ways to participate, and your church, mosque, temple, or synagogue may offer such programs. I have found the Interfaith Alliance, supported by the late Walter Cronkite, to be a creative, active group for interfaith issues within the United States, and the Parliament of the World's Religions to be the cutting edge movement for global interfaith dialogue and action. I encourage you to explore these two good options and others as well.

Religion, to be helpful to humanity in the 21st century, must lead to dialogue and peace, not hatred and war. Now we must each figure out how to contribute toward that goal. What are your ideas?