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regards to the global issues. Jainism, they argue, is a world-renouncing religion, and Jain monks or nuns have renounced the world in favour of personal liberation. Therefore, they must abandon worldly concerns such as wars, poverty, human rights, and environmental degradation. Getting involved with service to humanity, physical and material well-being of fellow human beings, etc. would only increase, they claim, their 'attachment' to worldly things. Attachment being one of the major causes of karmic bondage, passive detachment from such issues is what they prefer.
Such a convoluted logic and justification of apathy not only makes a mockery of Jain principles but is also an outright insult to the very Tirthankaras whose teachings they are supposed to be following. After all, the Tirthankaras, instead of withdrawing after achieving their personal omniscience, spent a lifetime preaching their path and message for the benefit of fellow human beings. Furthermore, even the karma theory promotes social justice by introducing the concept of auspicious (punya) and inauspicious (papa) karma. Contemporary Jains would do well by questioning the convoluted understanding of their co-religionists. They could choose to be aware of the enormous power of social change they have inherited in ahimsa, anekantavada, and aparigraha, and be proactive in alleviating some of the contemporary global issues. The Interfaith Movement
Let us take one of the contemporay global issues; namely, religious intolerence and fundamentalism. This issue has been a source of many conflicts and wars in human history. A number of current conflicts including the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center towers in New York, or current confrontation in Iraq, have this issue at their root. In recent decades, the migration of people from the Orient into Western Christiandom has brought different religions in each other's neighborhoods, and to some extent, excited anxiety leading to hostility among conser
vative Christians.
Traditionally, Christianity, with its claim of universality, has proclaimed itself to be the only true religion for all mankind, and Judaism, claiming exclusivity, was not open to anyone who was not an ethnic Jew. Consequently, both these traditions were not open for respectful dialogue with anyone outside their own faiths. For centuries, the major mission of the Christian church, therefore, was to convert those of other faiths to the 'true faith' and to excommunicate or exterminate by death those who were acquainted with true faith, but had come to challenge the Church's teaching. This hardline attitude of Christianity began to ease a little during the European Reformation period although Catholicism continued to persecute other Christian sects (e.g., Calvinists, Hutterites) and even enlightened philosophers like John Locke who advocated total intolerance towards atheists. Nevertheless, this hardline attitude has continued to steadily erode giving way to interfaith dialogue.
The third major religion of the Middle East origin - Islam - is also undergoing this transformation after centuries of religious conflicts; however, its progress is very slow. Although enlightened Moslems are participating increasingly in interfaith dialogues, hardliner mullhas are still engaged in armed conflicts in many parts of the world. A historically interesting note, however, is that each of the three major religions of the Middle East proclaims itself to be the only true” religion, and have a long history of religious conflicts, violence, and wars. It is strange that the Middle East should turn out to be a cradle of violence and continues to be engaged in violence even today.
The Indian subcontinent, cradle of three other great religions - Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism - has seen, by comparison, much less violence based on religious grounds. The conflict between the Brahmanic (Hinduism) and Sramanic (Buddhism and Jainism) has occasionally turned violent during the last 3,500 years
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