Global Pledge by World’s Religious Leaders on Faith and Diplomacy: Generations in Common Action for Peace 

Global Pledge by World’s Religious Leaders 

on 

Faith and Diplomacy: Generations in Common Action for Peace 

adopted by 

Religions for Peace World Council 

Lindau, Germany | 4 October 2021 

We, as Religions for Peace World Council, the governing board of Religions for Peace, representing diverse faith traditions and institutions across the globe, stand together on this day to respond to multiple global pandemics, posing existential threats to our common humanity. The Conference of the World Council of Religious Leaders on Faith and Diplomacy: Generations in Dialogue, co-organised by Religions for Peace and the Foundation Peace Dialogue of the World Religions and Civil Society (Ring for Peace) with the support of the German Federal Foreign Office, is convened to assess and scale up our responses to the combined challenges of peace and security, humanitarian crisis and environmental degradation. 

Our Conference is built upon the successful convening of 900 religious leaders and delegates at the Religion for Peace 10th World Assembly in 2019 and the thousands of virtual participants at the Assembly on Women, Faith, and Diplomacy in 2020. 

We are united in our profound sense of responsibility and shared recognition of multiple and interrelated realities of global pandemics. Our human family is confronted with conflict and violence (from gender-based violence, to religiously coated political violence, to structural violence with manifestations of injustice from local to global); the environmental crisis of unsustainable economic and developmental patterns, threatening our air, food, livelihoods and very planetary existence; the forced displacement crisis; and the COVID pandemic with its challenges of global inequality in our access to vaccinees and treatments. 

In order to respond to these multiple pandemics, we acknowledge that we must intensify our efforts to forge unprecedented global multi-stakeholder and intergenerational partnerships among the world’s religious communities and their institutions, governmental and inter-governmental organizations, and the community of diplomats, worldwide. 

Peacebuilding 

Peacebuilding reflects the core of what diplomacy aims to achieve and relates to Religions for Peace’s 50-year legacy of transforming violent conflict, building peace and advancing human development. We pay tribute to those Religions for Peace Interreligious Councils (IRCs) serving as mediators of conflicts and sustainers’ of shared wellbeing for their communities. Interreligious Councils have engaged in dialogue with policymakers, enhanced constructive and more systematic collaborative engagements at national, regional and international levels, served governmental and civil-society led peace processes, national dialogues, and truth and reconciliation processes. 

As we continue to strengthen collaboration amongst ourselves as faith leaders, we are ready to support seasoned diplomacy, and strengthen the accountability of our institutions. We not only pay tribute to youth-led initiatives and experiences, but we are determined to integrate the voices and experiences of youth into our engagemets in and for peace processes. 2 

Environment and Humanitarian Work 

Our diverse faith traditions recognize the dynamic inter-relationship and co-dependency between all forms of life. We commit to nurturing a sustainable environment for all living species. We recommit ourselves to the Interfaith Rainforest Initiative (IRI), Faiths for Earth, among others, which harness the commitment, influence and moral authority of our faiths to protect the world’s natural resources and to highlight the example and rights of Indigenous Peoples in protecting the earth and environment. 

The devastating humanitarian crisis resulting from the global COVID-19 pandemic has shed light on both the vulnerability and agency of youth actors. With their proficiency in technology and communication, and with creativity and innovation, utilizing all forms of media, we have witnessed how our youth have reached out to and connected to serve isolated and vulnerable communities. We are committed to continuing to support interfaith youth-led initiatives, including through the unique mechanism we created together, of the Multi Religious Humanitarian Fund (MRHF), which builds resilience through active social cohesion. 

We, members of the World Council, representing diverse faith traditions and institutions, further pledge to: 

affirm our roles as peace seekers, peace makers, and peace builders. Our institutions are the original diplomatic establishments, and our strength is proportionate to how we advance the peace between and amongst each of us and our believers. Not in our name should any violence, sexual, physical, verbal, armed or otherwise, for whatever purpose, be perpetrated in the name of any of our faith traditions; 

acknowledge our roles as guardians of faith and defenders of freedom of thought, conscience and belief – not only our own, but of and for all faiths. Not in our name should anyone be discriminated against because of race, colour, gender, ethnicity, nationality, religion or any other feature; 

commit to welcoming refugees, stateless and internally displaced people. Not in our name should any nation or institution shut its doors, or its borders, or block access to its resources to those forcibly displaced from their homes – regardless of their reasons; 

advance global multi-stakeholder partnership for integral human development in harmony with nature. Not in our name should anyone degrade the health of our environment, or ignore the impact of our daily actions on our shared environment – air, water, land and all who live on it, within it, for it; 

lead in global advocacy for vaccine equality and effective global response to pandemics based upon science. Not in our name should any leader urge against a vaccine that is scientifically proven to help save lives; and 

invite all diplomats and policy makers to work with us as we commit together to realizing the powerful transformative changes for the common good. 

The time for us to serve, together, is now.