Unity Walk 2009
By Rev. Mpho Tutu
priest, Holy Comforter Episcopal Church in Washington, DC
The events of September 11, 2001, shocked the world. For a moment the world seemed poised on the edge of a question, should we fly apart in fear or can we come together as a witness for peace. The creators and participants of the first 9/11 Unity Walk chose to answer the despair of those days with hope and humility. They came together as people of different faiths and no faith at all to show the world that with respect for each of our diverse beliefs we can build peace.
Each year since then, all the churches, temples, mosques and synagogues on Embassy Row in Washington, DC, and near Ground Zero in New York City, open their doors to continue this faithful witness. This Sunday, Oct. 18, a multi-faith throng will make the march again. We walk in memory those who died on that day, and on the days after. We walk to express our belief that religion can be and is a force for good. We walk side by side with people who believe differently than we do. We walk trusting that the people we walk with have something to teach us, as we have something to teach them. We walk because we refuse to be chained by ignorance and imprisoned by fear.
Along the way, through mutual respect, we sow the seeds of true and lasting peace.
In addition to our traditional stops at the Washington Hebrew Congregation, the Islamic Center and the Gandhi Memorial, this year participants will have the opportunity to tour other houses of worship they may never have entered before. They will be able to experience some of the riches of religious expression that Washington has to offer. Participants will chant with the Soka Gakkai Buddhist Congregation; they can try turban tying at the Sikh Gudwara; they can explore the Russian Orthodox cultural festival; and they can join Baha'i musicians at the Khalil Gibran Memorial. Children are also welcome to make artistic expressions of unity at the Children's Unity Wall.
Beyond this day on which we celebrate our faiths we will continue to unite in interfaith service to our community.
In January, the Youth Service Initiative of the 9/11 Unity Walk partnered with the Earth Conservation Corps to draw an inter-religious group of 175 young people together for a clean up of the banks of the Anacostia River and inter-faith dialogue. In April, young people of many faiths from around the region gathered for a weekend of environmental service projects for poverty alleviation. In September, the Unity Walk hosted "Fast 2 Feed": over two hundred people participated in an interfaith food drive and Iftar - a dinner that marks the end of the Muslim fasting day in the Holy month of Ramadan - at the Historic Synagogue at 6th and I. That effort collected hundreds of canned goods for the Salvation Army.
It is only by celebrating our faiths and uniting to serve that we can turn our world from the bloody violence that marked 9/11 to a hope-filled place of peace for all people. We can begin by taking a first step this Sunday at the Unity Walk.
Rev. Mpho Tutu is an Episcopal priest at Holy Comforter Episcopal Church in Washington, DC., and the founder and executive director of the Tutu Institute for Prayer and Pilgrimage. Go here to learn more about Sunday's Unity Walk.
By Mpho Tutu |
October 15, 2009; 1:18 PM ET
Share: Email a Friend |
Technorati
| Del.icio.us | Digg | Facebook
Previous: Climate Change: Debated Here, Devastating Elsewhere |
Next: Last Shall Be First in Line for H1N1 Vaccine
Posted by: ccnl1 | October 16, 2009 3:07 PM
Report Offensive Comment
It is all about the "foundations" of these disunified religions.
To wit: (for those eyes that have not seen)
1. Abraham founder/father of three major religions was either the embellishment of the lives of three different men or a
mythical character as was mythical Moses, the "Tablet-Man" who talked to burning bushes and made much magic in Egypt.
Many of the 1.5 million Conservative Jews and many of their rabbis have relegated Abraham to the myth pile along with most if not all the OT.
Current crisis:
Realization that the Jews are not god's chosen people.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20E1EFE35540C7A8CDDAA0894DA404482
2. Jesus was an illiterate Jewish peasant/carpenter/simple preacher man who suffered from hallucinations and who has been characterized anywhere from the Messiah from Nazareth to a mythical character from mythical Nazareth to a mamzer from Nazareth (Professor Bruce Chilton, in his book Rabbi Jesus). Analyses of Jesus’ life by many contemporary NT scholars (e.g. Professors Crossan, Borg and Fredriksen, On Faith panelists) via the NT and related documents have concluded that only about 30% of Jesus' sayings and ways noted in the NT were authentic. The rest being embellishments (e.g. miracles)/hallucinations made/had by the NT authors to impress various Christian, Jewish and Pagan sects.
The 30% of the NT that is "authentic Jesus" like everything in life was borrowed/plagiarized and/or improved from those who came before. In Jesus' case, it was the ways and sayings of the Babylonians, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Hittites, Canaanites, OT, John the Baptizer and possibly the ways and sayings of traveling Greek Cynics.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html
For added "pizzazz", Catholic/Christian theologians divided god the singularity into three persons and invented atonement as an added guilt trip for the "pew people" to go along with this trinity of overseers. By doing so, they made god the padre into god the "filicider".
Current crises:
Pedophiliac priests, atonement theology and original sin!!!!
3. Luther, Calvin, Joe Smith, Henry VIII, Wesley, Roger Williams, the Great “Babs” et al, founders of Christian-based religions or combination religions also suffered from the belief in/hallucinations of "pretty wingie thingie" visits and "prophecies" for profits analogous to the myths of Catholicism (resurrections, apparitions, ascensions and immaculate conceptions).
Current crises:
Adulterous preachers, "propheteering/ profiteering" evangelicals and atonement theology, all male hierarchies and strange banking and funding.
continued below:
Posted by: ccnl1 | October 16, 2009 3:06 PM
Report Offensive Comment
CCNL1: Perhaps you would benefit from attending the Unity Walk. You seem to have missed the point: a better understanding of each other's faith and solidarity despite relgious differences.
Posted by: ashwarr05 | October 16, 2009 2:38 PM
Report Offensive Comment
There will be no unity or peace with Islam until the "death to all infidel" passages are deleted from the koran. No Muslim can be trusted until this happens!!!!
Posted by: ccnl1 | October 16, 2009 12:47 PM
Report Offensive Comment

Twitter










4. Mohammed was an illiterate, womanizing, lust and greed-driven, warmongering, hallucinating Arab, who also had embellishing/hallucinating/plagiarizing scribal biographers who not only added "angels" and flying chariots to the koran but also a militaristic agenda to support the plundering and looting of the lands of non-believers.
This agenda continues as shown by the massacre in Mumbai, the assassinations of Bhutto and Theo Van Gogh, the conduct of the seven Muslim doctors in the UK, the 9/11 terrorists, the 24/7 Sunni suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers, the 24/7 Shiite suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers, the Islamic bombers of the trains in the UK and Spain, the Bali crazies, the Kenya crazies, the Pakistani “koranics”, the Palestine suicide bombers/rocketeers, the Lebanese nutcases, the Taliban nut jobs, and the Filipino “koranics”.
And who funds this muck and stench of terror? The warmongering, Islamic, Shiite terror and torture theocracy of Iran aka the Third Axis of Evil and also the Sunni "Wannabees" of Saudi Arabia.
Current crises:
The Sunni-Shiite blood feud and the warmongering, womanizing (11 wives), hallucinating founder.
5. Hinduism (from an online Hindu site) - "Hinduism cannot be described as an organized religion. It is not founded by any individual. Hinduism is God centered and therefore one can call Hinduism as founded by God, because the answer to the question ‘Who is behind the eternal principles and who makes them work?’ will have to be ‘Cosmic power, Divine power, God’."
The caste/laborer system, reincarnation and cow worship/reverence are problems when saying a fair and rational God founded Hinduism."
Current crises:
The caste system and cow worship/reverence.
6. Buddhism- "Buddhism began in India about 500 years before the birth of Christ. The people living at that time had become disillusioned with certain beliefs of Hinduism including the caste system, which had grown extremely complex. The number of outcasts (those who did not belong to any particular caste) was continuing to grow."
"However, in Buddhism, like so many other religions, fanciful stories arose concerning events in the life of the founder, Siddhartha Gautama (fifth century B.C.):"
Archaeological discoveries have proved, beyond a doubt, his historical character, but apart from the legends we know very little about the circumstances of his life. e.g. Buddha by one legend was supposedly talking when he came out of his mother's womb.
Bottom line: There are many good ways of living but be aware of the hallucinations, embellishments, lies, and myths surrounding the founders and foundations of said rules of life.
Then, apply the Five F rule: "First Find the Flaws, then Fix the Foundations". And finally there will be religious peace/unity in the world!!!!!