Chane takes part in U.S.-Islamic Forum
Bishop John Bryson Chane travelled to Doha, Qatar to take part in the seventh U.S. Islamic World Forum Feb. 13-15.

The forum, hosted by the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution and Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs,  brought together a range of experts from the United States and the Islamic world for discussion and dialogue on issues of mutual importance. Participants included U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee John Kerry (D-MA), Malaysian opposition leader and parliamentarian Anwar Ibrahim and U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke.

Bishop Chane introduced the section of the conference that addressed the role of religious leaders and communities in diplomacy, and also delivered the final report of the religious leaders on the last day of the conference, which is reprinted below.

During his time in Qatar, the Bishop also was quoted in several leading newspapers in the region, The Gulf Times and The Peninsula. You can read more about the U.S. Islamic World Forum at http://www.dohanetwork.org/. 

Role of religious leaders and religious communities in diplomacy
Moral purpose is at the very core of the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Religious leaders must reaffirm this truth and exercise their leadership, partnership, with diplomatic initiatives, to bring about a cessation of violence against our common humanity, to work to confront and end religious extremism in all its forms, the domination of one religion over another and the domination of one nation over another.

Moral purpose must be at the core of the work undertaken to implement nation-building, conflicts between nations, and providing humanitarian assistance for all whose lives are negatively impacted by war, poverty, illiteracy, human rights violations, natural disasters and religious extremism.

The formal gathering of the three Abrahamic faiths and their religious leaders at this seventh U.S.-Islamic World Forum must be actively involved with stakeholders and decision makers in the global community.

And religious leaders must be seen as equal partners and as positive agents of change in 21st century public diplomacy.

We therefore share the following action steps that we believe are the necessary outcome of our work together in Doha:

Policy Recommendations:
The Brookings Institution becomes the convening force of an active Council of Religious, Inter-Faith leaders that will meet three times a year (one of those meetings to be a part of the U.S.-Islamic World Forum) to continue the work of religious communities in public diplomacy.

1. To condemn those who attack holy places and/or those who use them for armed conflict.
2. To address the situation of human suffering in Gaza as unacceptable and for religious leaders of all faith traditions to act on the moral imperative of bringing peace to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
3. To intentionally use the commonality of the religious holy texts of religious communities to impact change within political and religious systems and to actively distribute the work of The Common Word and the Charter of Compassion.
4. To re-examine and re-consider a Just War Theory.
5. To sustain and support access to religious freedom of expression and practice everywhere in the world.
6. To encourage and support the creation of an inter-faith peace corps.
7. To support and actively encourage religious leaders to speak out against violence in the name of their religion.
8. To ensure effective global diplomacy and effective statecraft, religious communities and religious ideas must be engaged.