On eight Thursday evenings this spring, I negotiated the hills of San Francisco to attend a series of lectures on world religions at the Unitarian Universalist Church at Geary and Franklin streets. In the spirit of this progressive town, youthful activists with petitions for saving old-growth forests, along with collectors of blankets for the homeless, met the arriving crowd. Inside, people greeted each other like friends after only the first few lectures—the Jewish man with a yarmulke, the two Muslim women with head scarves, the 20 somethings with multiple earrings. High on the wall of the cavernous sanctuary, Jesus' words welcomed us all: "The kingdom of God is within you." Luke 17:21. Sponsored by the California Institute of Integrative Studies in San Francisco, the series took its title from religious historian Huston Smith's acclaimed book Why Religion Matters (reviewed in the Journal in September 2001). In addition to Smith, the seven other speakers included Islamic scholar Seyyed Nasr, Rabbi Rami Shapiro of the Center for Contemplative Judaism in Los Angeles, as well as writers on spiritual issues Marianne Williamson and Andrew Harvey; Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman; Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and memoirist Alice Walker; and Reverend Cecil Williams, long-time pastor of Glide Memorial United Methodist Church in San Francisco.
The notes that follow are by no means a definitive summary of the lectures, but I hope they convey something of the spirit of the conference. For me, and for a number of others I talked to at the lectures, this event was a positive example of coming together to listen to each other without judgment, and in order to appreciate the core truths in all the great wisdom traditions.
As the series progressed, several themes emerged, including the necessity to face honestly the evil in the world and in ourselves; the knowledge of God as the essence and goal of every religion; and the future of organized religion.
