What is the Crisis of the Holy?
Museum of World Religions, Wu-Lai, Taiwan
28 November – 2 December, 2005
Crisis of the Holy – 2nd Meeting of Elijah Board of World Religious Leaders
Taipei, Taiwan, November 2005
The world’s religions have evolved in response to numerous internal and external factors, but over time each has retained a solid (if constantly changing) outlook on life and the proper way to conduct it. Even throughout the political turmoil that sometimes shocked religions or their individual communities, a sense of purpose remained.The modern era,including but not limited to the pervasive intrusion of globalizing political and economic developments; the often simplistic, polarized and morally equivalent presentations seen in the media; and the sense of surety demanded in and promised by a culture dominated by science, has caused a threat to the foundations of the world’s religions and the cohesive assurances of their societies.The members of the Elijah Interfaith Institute Think-tank see this crisis as a confluence of threats, challenges and opportunities for religions, indeed for Religion. Some of the opportunities provided by the crisis are: providing contexts in which to rectify old wrongs; stimulating the rethinking of long standing religious postures, allowing for adopting inclusive rather than exclusionary positions, and providing both the means and the methods to ensure the creative and spiritual strengthening of religions.
