All in Good Faith

Author(s): Jean Potter, Marcus Braybrooke
Publisher: World Congress of Faiths

Page 37

All in Good Faith
Human Unity
For some the greatest value of interfaith services is their witness to human unity, despite religious differences. This is likely to be the emphasis of services held during One World Week. Multi-faith services may be a shared witness against racism and all that threatens human rights. They may also be an expression of a common commitment to help the hungry. Some services, especially those on United Nations Day or during the Week of Prayer for World Peace, will focus on the yearning for peace to be found in each faith tradition. Others will emphasize shared concern for the environment and the valuing of the natural world in all the great faiths.
The affirmations at The Commonwealth Day Observance are of this character. At different stages in the proceedings, members of the congregation are invited to stand and to say together:
We affirm our respect for the whole of the natural world and acknowledge our responsibility for exercising our stewardship with care and consideration for all its elements.
We affirm our common faith in the dignity and unique worth of the human person independent of colour, class or creed.
We affirm our common faith in the need to establish justice for every individual, and through common effort to secure peace and reconciliation between nations.
We affirm our common faith in the need to assert the supremacy of love in all human relationships.
We affirm our membership of the one human family and our concern to express it in service and sacrifice for the common good. (13).
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