In the past few years a new interfaith effort, the United Religions Initiative, has begun to take hold across the globe and its first official North American summit is opening today in Salt Lake City.
Unlike previous efforts that mostly attracted clergy or institutional representatives, the United Religions Initiative is a person-to-person effort of believers from more than 50 faiths and traditions, says the Rev. David Randle, president of the UCC Whale Center (Wellness, Health and Lifestyle Education) in Salt Lake City.
People meet in small groups, called "Cooperation Circles," to share spiritual stories and insights, to explain practices and beliefs, and to experience each other's rituals and meditation. Each circle must have at least seven members, with three from different religions, spiritual expressions or indigenous traditions.
For the next five days, more than 200 delegates from Circles around the world will convene at the University of Utah for workshops ranging from conflict transformation to grass-roots interfaith collaboration and women's spirituality.
Each morning, two spiritual traditions will offer their practices of meditation or movement.
For the rest of the day, however, the format is informal, focusing on personal experience.
The meeting also will feature a speech by the Rev. William Swing, an Episcopal bishop in San Francisco, who will share his vision of the global interfaith work he established in 1995.
At that time, Swing was invited to host an interfaith service to mark 50 years of political leaders working together for peace through the United Nations.
He began to see the solution to international conflicts in the bridging of religious differences.
Marsha Pilgeram of Unity Church in Salt Lake City sees the movement as "a chance to stop all holy wars."
Sister Bridget Clare McKeever of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake knows a lot about religious conflict.
"I come from Northern Ireland where there's been a great deal done in the name of religion which I cannot endorse," McKeever says.
She shares the initiative's purpose to "end religiously motivated violence," she says, "and to create cultures of peace, justice and healing for the earth and all living beings."