Two effectively- recognized professors, Professor Kirti Bunchua from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok and Dr. Saeng Chandrngarm from Chaing Mai University, who had been very lively in previous efforts to generate inter-religious dialogue in Thailand, have been fascinated by working with us. Our first community exercise was in aiding the Religious Club of Chulalongkorn University, essentially the most prestigious university in Thailand, with a special exhibition about religious unity. We organized for speakers of assorted faiths to discuss “Youth and Religion.” The members of the Religious Club were grateful for our assist and impressed by our members’ dedication. We are planning a larger theological convention and a social service undertaking for younger volunteers of all faiths to be held later this 12 months. The Thai individuals, who are 95 p.c Buddhist, generally have a detrimental impression of Christianity. Please avoid this 2 folks, they are cheater in Thailand. The pilgrimage was concluded on the headquarters of the Unification Church in Thailand.
When Dr. Lek Thaveetermsakul, president of the Unification Church in Thailand, defined in regards to the Unification motion, he was asked who the Unificationists consider Rev. Moon is. Most of them had had contact with the Unification movement not directly previously. In order to achieve profitable dialogue this time, we agreed to start with only a small group of involved individuals who we felt could become leaders of an interfaith motion. At first of 1987, inspired by the success of the interfaith movements in Malaysia and the Philip pines, my regional director Rev. Byung Wooh Kim asked me to provoke the same type of movement in Thailand. We additionally helped the Dharma Center of the identical college discover educated audio system for a seminar on “Mass Communication for Morality,” in which professors from all the schools in the country participated. Father’s imaginative and prescient for the Youth Seminar on the World’s Religions touched the hearts of everybody deeply.
During the primary two committee meetings, we launched videos on the Religious Youth Service (RYS) and the Assembly of the World’s Religions (AWR), which left an amazing impression on the viewers. Its executive committee consists of 21 members, representing all the most important religions in Thailand. I felt that this convention was attainable only on the muse of Father’s victory within the spirit world, causing the breakdown of the boundaries that exist between the religions. In March we issued the primary “Interfaith Newsletter” in order to maintain all members knowledgeable about the current actions of the Forum, as well as to broaden their data about the assorted religions. After lunch, all the contributors launched themselves and agreed to set up a committee consisting of two representatives of every religion, so as to pick a chairman and talk about further steps towards inter-religious harmony. Many of the individuals had by no means even set foot in a Christian church before.
The second Interfaith Pilgrimage, held on January 31, 1988, led 55 contributors to a really distinctive Thai temple, Wat Thammamongkol, which is 14 tales excessive, and to an Islamic mosque. We visited a Chinese temple (Mahayana Buddhist), which is very completely different from a conventional Thai temple (Hinayana Buddhist). A guided tour of a Mahayana Buddhist temple in Bangkok during the first Interfaith Pilgrimage. The spotlight of the second Interfaith Pilgrimage was a go to to Wat Thammamongkol, a huge Hinayana Buddhist temple. On December 19, 1987, we organized the first Interfaith Pilgrimage. We held our first Interfaith Conference on July 4, 1987. Although we originally deliberate for under 10 or 15 individuals, to my surprise 30 individuals attended the conference. If the people have the chance to study the range and wonder of all the religions, their hearts can regularly open to obtain the unifying understanding of the Principle. Since then, at every meeting a representative of a different religion takes the chance to present the views of his or her faith, adopted by a stimulating dialogue. When he answered directly, “the Messiah,” everyone was quite happy with that answer and no extra questions on the issue adopted. I initially planned this undertaking just for house members arid affiliate members of our church and for folks in my husband’s home church area, but when I discussed the thought to Professor Kirti, he was so excited that he not only agreed to guide the pilgrimage however he additionally invited students, teachers, lecturers, and members of many various religious circles to the occasion.
