Parliament of the World's Religions 2009 - PWR2009

[Mitch]

Does anyone know who started the PWR???

[Delaine]

According to wikipedia the PWR started...

"In 1893, the city of Chicago hosted the World Columbian Exposition, an early world’s fair. So many people were coming to Chicago from all over the world that many smaller conferences, called Congresses and Parliaments, were scheduled to take advantage of this unprecedented gathering. A number of congresses were held in conjunction with the exposition, including those dealing with anthropology (one of the major themes of Exposition exhibits), labor, medicine, temperance, commerce and finance, literature, history, art, philosophy, and science. One of these was the World’s Parliament of Religions. The Parliament of Religions was by far the largest of the congresses held in conjunction with the Exposition.[1]

The 1893 Parliament, which ran from September 11 to September 27, had marked the first formal gathering of representatives of Eastern and Western spiritual traditions. Today it is recognized as the occasion of the birth of formal interreligious dialogue worldwide."

The World Columbian Exposition was...

"The World's Columbian Exposition — also known as The Chicago World's Fair — was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St. Louis, Missouri, for the honor of hosting the fair. The fair had a profound effect on architecture, the arts, Chicago's self-image, and American industrial optimism. The Chicago Columbian Exposition was, in large part, designed by Daniel Burnham and Frederick Law Olmsted. It was the prototype of what Burnham and his colleagues thought a city should be. It was designed to follow Beaux Arts principles of design, namely, European Classical Architecture principles based on symmetry and balance.

The exposition covered more than 600 acres (2.4 km2), featuring nearly 200 new buildings of classical architecture, canals and lagoons, and people and cultures from around the world. Over 27 million people (equivalent to about half the U.S. population) attended the exposition during its six-month run. Its scale and grandeur far exceeded the other world fairs, and it became a symbol of the emerging American Exceptionalism, much in the same way that the Great Exhibition became a symbol of the Victorian era United Kingdom."

[RevMichaelBrown]

Thanks, Sam and Delaine, for your positive comments about my blog. Here are my latest posts from the Parliament:

The Future of the Interreligious Movement
http://bit.ly/72ryoG

Stories of Women in Leadership
http://bit.ly/50NZSG

Obama Team Meets with Interfaith Leaders
http://bit.ly/8KDXKg

[Delaine]

You're very welcome RevMichaelBrown. It has been a pleasure to follow your blog and I thoroughly enjoyed your last 3 posts. It's so important to build relationships with others and work towards finding common ground solutions to issues of shared interest. Keep up the good work

I don't know if you already checked out these articles that I wrote for Interfaithing:

Paul Carus Award:
http://www.interfaithing.com/interfa...l-carus-award/

Charter for Compassion:
http://www.interfaithing.com/interfa...or-compassion/

[RevMichaelBrown]

Greetings all,
My latest blog post is a summary of the Dalai Lama's presentation at the close of the Parliament:
http://bit.ly/5vDlD3
Enjoy!

[Delaine]

Here's a good look at the closing ceremonies for the PWR2009. I so wish I could have been there, it looks like it was truly an enlightening and culturally rich event....Enjoy

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NPJ_bHRdrc[/ame]