The first G20 global Religion Forum, known as R20, has started in Bali, with 300 world religious leaders urged to work towards putting an end to wars so that future generations can live in peace.
The forum is an initiative of the Indonesian government, which holds the G20 presidency this year. It has the largest Muslim population in the world, an estimated 231 million.
It is similar in ambition to the IF20, Interfaith20, a body in existence for 18 years which provides policy documents for the G20 leaders at their summits. IF20 is reconvening in Abu Dhabi in December and has stated its intention to be at all future G20 meetings.
More than 300 religious leaders and scholars are attending the R20 summit in five-star accommodation in Bali.
The President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, who inaugurated the forum, said he hoped that the summit would produce “concrete steps to ensure that religion functions as a source of solutions to the problems facing religion and humanity”. He called on the leaders to end conflict and create a peaceful world for the future.
The Pope’s message was delivered by the Papal Nuncio to Indonesia Cardinal Piero Pioppo and included a command: “We must affirm that extremism, radicalism, terrorism and all other incentives to hatred, hostility, violence and war, whatever their motivations or goals have nothing to do with the authentic spirit of religion and must be rejected in the most decisive terms possible.”
The R20 is co-hosted by the Indonesian-based Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) organisation and the Muslim World League, both considered to be moderate in their theology.
Shaykh Mohammad bin Abdul Karim Al-Issa, secretary-general of the Muslim World League and co-host of the R20, said misunderstandings have led many to believe that religious identity conflicts with national identity. But he said: “Islam categorically rejects the conflict and clash of civilisations.”
He was glad to launch the East-West Bridge Building Initiative, for a more peaceful, understanding globe and more co-existing and harmonious societies. Initiatives must succeed where repetitive dialogue had failed, he said.
There was a vacuum in the world where negative ideas and interpretations led to exceedingly harmful convictions and decisions. Disputes had a solution through knowledge and wisdom.
The inaugural conference has already provoked controversy by including a representative of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a Hindu nationalist organisation from India. In a statement, the NU pledged discussions with India to address abuses against minority religions.
Before the forum, the NU had developed links with the Protestant World Evangelical Alliance and through collaboration is said to have prevented the introduction of sharia in Gambia.
Conference organisers also attracted attention by inviting the Anglican Primate of the Church of Nigeria, Archbishop Henry Ndukuba, to give the opening address. The archbishop has joined Gafcon, a rival organisation to the Anglican Communion, and refused to attend the Lambeth Conference in the summer in a disagreement over same-sex marriage.
He was invited to the R20 to represent Africa and he used the stage to describe the atrocities inflicted on the Christians of his country as “genocide”. He pleaded with the world’s religious leaders to help to end the extremist Islamist attacks in northern and central Nigeria, which are forcing Christians to leave their land and property.
He spoke of an ever-increasing number of orphans, widows and homeless people who have been driven out of their homes and farms and have lost everything.
But these attacks are not just aimed at Christians, he said. Moderate Muslims are also targeted to force them to become less liberal in their attitudes to other faiths.
With a front row filled with leaders from the world’s largest moderate Islamic organisations, he begged for support: “We in Nigeria need the help of people of good will from all religious communities to stop the flow of arms and resources to these extremists. We need the help of religious leaders, who refuse to give religious sanction to their activities.”
Later in the day, Archbishop Bashar Matti Warda, of the Chaldean Catholic Church of Iraq said his community was at the point of extinction after a 1,400-year “slow-motion genocide” at the hands of Islamist extremists. He hoped the world’s leaders would “address the demons within our own communities” to create a more peaceful world.
He hoped that the R20 Forum would allow the truth to be told about the relationship between fundamentalism and terrorism and said religiously motivated violence must end.
