1. Beginnings
There are several roots from which the World Congress of Faiths (WCF) was to grow. One was the World’s Parliament of Religions, which was held in Chicago in 1893. A second root was the Religions of Empire Conference, held in London in 1924. A third root was the unusual spiritual experiences of Francis Younghusband.
Religions of Empire Conference.
British society has been transformed in the sixty-five years during which the World Congress of Faiths has been in existence. In 1936, London was the centre of an Empire, which included people of many races and religions. Some thirty years later, Britain itself was starting to become multi-ethnic and multi-faith.
It was during the period of Empire that a number of people in Britain began to become interested in religions other than Christianity. A considerable number of British people lived and worked in different parts of the Empire. Many took little interest in the ‘natives’, but some learned a lot about the languages, cultures and religions of the people amongst whom they lived. Interest was also aroused amongst supporters of the missionary work of the Church. Some Christians regarded other religions as the sphere of darkness, but some missionaries made careful studies of the religions of Asia (1). Missionaries on furlough spoke to a large number of congregations, many of whom gave money to support missionary work. Both the imperial and missionary interest were often from a vantage point of assumed superiority - but at least there was an interest.
The imperial context is also relevant because Francis Younghusband, who was to found WCF, has been described as ‘the last great imperial adventurer’ (2). Indeed, in his opening address at the Religions of Empire Conference, Younghusband claimed that the ultimate basis on which the Empire would stand was religion. Indians, he said, respected Queen Victoria, because she stood for religion (3).
The Religions of Empire Conference, which was held in connection with the British Empire Exhibition, clearly illustrated the importance to the Empire, in some people’s minds, of mutual understanding between members of different religions. Publicity for the conference made much of the fact that Christians were in a minority in the Empire. They accounted for about one sixth of the Empire’s population. Of the Empire’s 460 million people, about 210 million were Hindus, about 100 million were Muslims and about 12 million were Buddhists.
The Conference was sponsored by the School of Oriental Studies and the Sociological Society. The Chairman, Sir Denison Ross, insisted that the ‘spokesman of each religion should be one who professed such religion’(4). This gave a distinctive character to the conference and was to be copied at the World Congress of Faiths in 1936. European scholars took the chair at different sessions, but were not the main speakers.
Following the Religions of Empire Conference, Sir Denison Ross, Sir Francis Younghusband and others formed The Society for Promoting the Study of Religions. It was in its offices that some years later the preparatory committee for the World Congress of Faiths was to meet.
The World Fellowship of Faiths.
In some of the preparatory literature, the World Congress of Faiths was billed as the Second International Congress of the World Fellowship of Faiths. The World Fellowship of Faiths First International Congress was itself also called a Second Parliament of Religions. The Second Parliament, held in Chicago in 1933, was in conscious imitation of the World’s Parliament of Religions held at Chicago forty years before - so one root of WCF leads back to that landmark event.
Memories of the 1893 Parliament, which for many years were largely forgotten, have recently been revived by celebration of its centenary. As part of the World Fair held in Chicago to mark the four hundredth anniversary of the ‘discovery’ of America by Christopher Columbus, a World’s Parliament of Religions was held, at the suggestion of Charles Bonney. The invitation to members of all major religions to participate made the event significant. The 1893 Parliament, which I have described in Pilgrimage of Hope is widely regarded as the beginning of the interfaith movement, although no continuing body was established (5). The organization now known as the International Association for Religious Freedom, was formed in 1900, although at that time it drew most of its support from Unitarians and Universalists and was only in embryonic form an interfaith organization. The International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR) held its first Congress in Paris in 1901. This was devoted to the scientific and historical study of religions and at the time was for European scholars in this field.
At the 1933 Parliament - still a forgotten event - twenty seven gatherings were held in Chicago, with a massive total attendance of 44,000 people. Sir Francis Younghusband, in an address to the Parliament, stressed that ‘the spirit of active good-will had now to be applied on a far larger - on a world wide - scale. Out of the very agony of war and out of the despair of economic problems we have, of set design, to make good come. Otherwise, we shall be no worthy agents of the World Spirit’ (6).
Younghusband seems to have been encouraged by the organizers to arrange the World Fellowship of Faiths’ second international congress in London. The World Congress of Faiths of 1936 did indeed maintain the objects of the World Fellowship of Faiths and the name of the Fellowship’s International President, HH The Maharaja Gaekwar of Baroda, was shown on the literature. Subsequently, when after the 1936 Congress, the World Congress of Faiths Continuation Movement was established, WCF became an independent body.
2.
Younghusband's life
Because
the World Congress of Faiths both in its origins and throughout its history has
been inspired by Younghusband's vision, some outline of his life is in place.
It
was perhaps fitting that Francis Younghusband was in India. His father, John
Younghusband, was in the Indian army. He taught his son to show respect to
people of all races and religions (1).
His
mother was Clara Jane Shaw. Her brother was Robert Shaw, an explorer of Central
Asia, who as a teenager encouraged Francis to be an explorer (2).
Francis
was born on May 31st, 1863. As
an infant, he was taken home to Britain to Bath by his mother, who wished to
care for her dying mother. When she returned to India Francis, now four and a
half, was sent to live with two austere and strictly religious aunts. Three
years later, Francis' parents returned to England and the reunited family moved
back to Bath but the strict religious regime continued. In 1873, when he was
ten, he travelled out to India with his parents. Three years later he returned
to Britain to start at Clifton
College, Bristol. There he was expected to conform to the rather conventional
public school version of Christianity.
Yet already at his confirmation he was thinking for himself.
He had some doubts about the virgin birth and the
The following year in 1882, Younghusband set sail for
India. His choice of reading
for the journey showed that already he had considerable interest in religion.
The highlights of these years of military service were
his journeys of exploration to Manchuria and across the Gobi Desert.
He was in his element as an explorer, but even at this time spoke of
leaving the service and devoting his life to the conduct of a spiritual
campaign. In 1894 he wrote in his
diary ‘I think I have had from time to time the feeling that I was born to
recognise the divine spark within me... I shall
through my life be carrying out God's Divine message to mankind' (4) . A little
after this entry, he was thrown from his horse and lay unconscious for fourteen
hours. As he began to recover, he read Leo Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is
Within You - a book which deeply impressed him and was also to influence
Mahatma Gandhi profoundly. Younghusband had been reading books
on evolution by Herbert Spencer, who almost convinced him, but did not
inspire him. Tolstoy made his heart leap.
With Lord Curzon’s appointment as Viceroy of India in
1899, Younghusband’s prospects improved and in 1903, he was asked by Lord
Curzon to lead a mission to Tibet. This
was a difficult and dangerous undertaking.
Controversy has continued to surround what happened.
At Lhasa, where he met the Dalai Lama’s Regent, he successfully signed
a treaty, but his work was repudiated by the politicians. It
was as he was leaving Lhasa that he had the
spiritual experience, which was to be a decisive turning point, and which
he describes in one of his books, Vital Religion.
The
day after leaving Lhasa I went off alone to the mountainside, and there gave
myself up to all the emotions of this eventful time.
Every anxiety was over - I was full of good-will as my former foes were
converted into stalwart friends. But
now there grew up in me something infinitely greater than mere elation and
good-will. Elation grew to
exultation, exultation to an exaltation which thrilled through me with
overpowering intensity. I was
beside myself with untellable joy. The
whole world was ablaze with the same ineffable bliss that was burning within me.
I felt in touch with the flaming heart of the world.
What was glowing in all creation and in every single human being was a
joy far beyond mere goodness as the glory of the sun is beyond the glow of a
candle. A mighty joy-giving Power was at work in the world - at
work in all about me and at work in every living thing. So it was revealed.
Never again could I think evil.
Never again could I bear enmity.
Joy had begotten love (5).
Elsewhere
he mentioned other mystical experiences. It was such mystical experiences that were to be one of the spiritual
roots from which the World Congress of Faiths was to grow. In some private
notes, Younghusband admitted 'I was too slow and hesitant in my middle life in
developing my religious concern' (6). Younghusband was in his seventies before
he founded WCF.
On
his return to Britain after the Tibetan venture, Younghusband was regarded as a
hero, except by the government. In 1906, Younghusband returned to India to
become British Resident in Kashmir. The following year his father died, so he
was now free to pursue a spiritual mission. In December 1909, Younghusband
sailed from Bombay. It would be nearly thirty years before he returned to Asia.
During
the next years, he was involved in many activities and societies. He wrote a
number of books. He was a well known public figure but did not have a steady
career.
A
continuing interest was the wish to see a greater sense of fellowship between
members of different religions. It is clear that this was inspired by
Younghusband's own mystical experiences. The 'brotherhood of man' was for him
not a slogan but a truth realized in religious experience. For him, the aim of
the Congress was to help members of all faiths to become aware of
the universal experience which had been his. ‘The ultimate aim of the
Fellowship’, he said, ‘can only be to intensify our sense of kinship with
the universe to the mystic degree - to that point when the individual feels as
if he and the universe were madly in love with one another' (7). The human
fellowship that he sought to promote was inextricably linked to communion with
the divine. WCF, therefore,
was an attempt to give practical expression to a mystic's vision of unity.
3. The 1936 Congress.
Formal preparations for the World Congress of Faiths began on 16th November 1934. It opened less than two years later at University College, London, on July 3rd and lasted until July 18th, 1936. The Congress was not residential and this restricted the social intercourse between participants. Discussion was encouraged and was carried on in good humour. The chairmen and leaders of debate were carefully chosen.
Younghusband persuaded a galaxy of distinguished people to speak - for the most part they were scholars rather than religious leaders. They included Yusuf Ali, Principal of the Islamic College at Lahore and a translator of the Qur’an into English; Dr D T Suzuki, Professor of Buddhist philosophy at Otani University, Kyoto; Professor Malalasekera, from Ceylon; Professor Nicolas Berdiaeff (Berdyaev), a Russian philosopher; Dr S N Das Gupta, author of a History of Indian Philosophy; Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, who was about to take up the Spalding Chair of Eastern Religion and Ethics at Oxford; Professor J L Magnes, President of the Hebrew University; Sir Abdul Qadir, a High Court Judge and a Member of the Council of the Secretary of State for India; Sirdar Mohan Singh, from the Punjab; Mr S I Hsiung, who gave a talk on the teachings of Confucius; Dr J S Whale, President of Cheshunt College, Cambridge and Rev P T R Kirk, who was Director of the Industrial Christian Fellowship. Shoghi Effendi, the Head of the Baha’is, sent a paper that was read for him. The chair was taken by distinguished scholars, such as Sir E Denison Ross and Professor H G Wood or leading figures, such as the Chief Rabbi, the Aga Khan, Dr C E M Joad and Lord Samuel. Two women were asked to chair sessions: Dame Elizabeth Cadbury and Dame Ogilvie Gordon.
Many of the published papers are of a high quality. Of greatest interest, perhaps, is the different attitudes which they display towards the relationship of religions to each other. On the one hand, Rev P T R Kirk claimed that Christianity must be accepted by the whole of mankind and Mr Moulvri A R Dard made a similar claim for the Ahmadiyya community. By contrast, the paper prepared by Professor Haldane, who had died shortly before the conference, included this passage: ‘Many Christians entertain the ideal of converting non-Christian peoples to Christianity. I think that a much higher ideal is to understand and enter into sympathy with the religions which exist in other countries and to use this understanding and sympathy as a basis for higher religion’ (1). Several speakers, such as the Chief Rabbi and Canon Barry, stressed the differences between religions, whereas Ranjee G Shani said the differences were trivial. ‘Jesus and Buddha, Shakespeare and Ramakrishna - are in essence “members one of another”’(2).
In general it was agreed that the aim of the Congress was not to create one new synthetic religion, but to generate understanding and a sense of unity between the religions of the world. Several speakers hoped that the world religions could together work for peace and spiritual uplift.
In his foreword to the
published papers, Faiths and Fellowship, Sir Francis Younghusband stressed that
the one aim of the Congress was to promote the spirit of fellowship.
He ruled out certain misunderstandings.
There was no intention of formulating another eclectic religion, nor of
seeking the lowest common denominator, nor of appraising the value of existing
religions and discussing respective merits and defects.
It was not maintained that all religions were the same, nor equally true,
nor as good as one another. The
hope was to ‘intensify that sense of community which is latent in all men’
and to awaken a livelier world-consciousness (3).
Sir Francis mentioned that through discussion and reflection, the
conception of God grew greater and that by coming closer to each other, members
of different religions deepened their own spiritual communion.
By the Revd. Marcus Braybrooke.