10th WORLD ASSEMBLY
DECLARATIONLINDAU, GERMANY
20-23 AUGUST 2019

Religions for Peace—the world’s
largest and most representative
multi-religious coalition—
advances common action among
the world’s religious
communities for peace. Religions
for Peace works to transformviolent con lict, advance humandevelopment, promote just andharmonious societies and protect
the earth.

DECLARATION OF THE 10TH WORLD ASSEMBLY OF

RELIGIONS FOR PEACE

PREAMBLE
We – 900 women, men, and youth – have gathered in Lindau, Germany, coming from 125 countries forthe 10th World Assembly of Religions for Peace. We are grateful for 49 years of determined focus onbuilding peace and on speaking for those most in need. We are an alliance of care, of compassion, of love.
We represent a far greater, ever growing, and ever-radiating alliance of “common action” that Religions
for Peace gladly serves. In that light we acknowledge with sorrow the ways – subtle and gross – that weand our religious communities have fallen-short. Our hearts grieve over the misuse of our faiths, especially
the ways they have been twisted to fuel violence and hate. Our alliance honors our religious differences,even as it serves the peace for which the human heart hungers. We gather in hope, convinced that thesacred calls all humanity into shared responsibility for our common good, care for one another, the earth,and its entire web of life.
The burdens of the human family are well-known to us. We know too well war, how it kills, maims, anddestroys the lives of the innocent. We know the crushing weight of extreme poverty, how it stunts,
humiliates, and plunders. Ten percent of our human family is desperately poor. We know that more than
70 million of us no longer find shelter in the sanctuary of their homes. They are refugees, internallydisplaced, and persons forced to be on the move. We know we have entered a terrifying new arms race,
one that includes modernizing nuclear arms, weaponizing space and artificial intelligence, and new energy
weapons. These burdens are profoundly exacerbated by the cataclysmic heating of the earth, decimationof the rainforests, poisoning of the seas, and choking of the web of life.
We are also experiencing what we call a “meta-crisis” of our modern order, which lies behind the United
Nations and the agreements our states have made on human rights, the rule of law, and international
trade. Freedoms of all kinds, the protections of minorities, and the fabric of our connection have comeunder attack around the world. On the economic front, a meager handful of the richest persons havemore wealth than four billion persons. Adding to the political and economic dimensions of this meta-crisisof modern order, there is today a “meta-crisis” of truth, which challenges the notion of “truth,” while“fake news” is tailored for political or commercial gain. Today, we are buffeted between inconvenient
truths and convenient fabrications. The hour is late: we are called to urgent action.

CARING FOR OUR COMMON FUTURE: ADVANCING SHARED WELL-BEING

Our heart’s inner-most experiences of the sacred and our outer-most social lives cry out to be connected
in a state of positive peace that Religions for Peace calls, “Shared Well-Being.” Our different experiencesof the sacred make clear that we are, at root, relational: radically related to the sacred and to all that is

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caused or embraced by the sacred. As fundamentally relational, our well-being is intrinsically shared.
Helping the other, we are helped; injuring the other, we wound ourselves. We fully acknowledge theinvaluable roles of women and youth among us and will continually mainstream their irreplaceablecontributions. Our different traditions make clear that the sacred establishes us as both responsible forand dependent upon each other and the earth that sustains us. Shared Well-Being calls us to commit toall the ways the modern order supports our human dignity. It also calls us to offer in a constructive spirit
any complementary contributions from our religions. We affirm the modern order’s recognition of thefoundational importance of freedom. At the same time, we are called to show by example the sacredgrounding of freedom. It leads through the despair of nihilism, rejects the narcissism of mindlessconsumerism, and expresses itself as radical care for all.
To our commitment to the importance of human rights, we add our foundational concern for thecultivation of virtues, those habitual orientations to value that sculpt our human potentials. These include
our potentials for the most elevated states of mercy, compassion, and love. For us, the labor to become
virtuous is not a solitary act; rather, it is an act of “solidarity;” one that can only be achieved by generosityand mutual love. The cultivation of virtue tackles the ignorance, individual egoism, and group egoism that
mutilate authentic community.
Shared Well-Being also calls for a robust notion of the “common good” that can serve all of us in ourefforts to virtuously unfold our rights-protected human dignity. The supreme good for us is the sacred,even as we understand it differently. The common good includes the earth with its air, water, soil, andweb of life. The common good also includes just institutions that help each to develop her or his humandignity. These call all of us to a shared and grateful responsibility. Each person is to draw from the common
good; each is to help build it up.
Advancing Shared Well-Being is concrete. We commit to advancing Shared Well-Being by preventing andtransforming violent conflicts, promoting just and harmonious societies, nurturing sustainable andintegral human development, and protecting the earth.

Preventing and Transforming Violent Conflicts
We commit to preventing violent conflicts by advancing peace education – from early childhood to adults
across our religious communities – focusing on shared values, religious literacy, and narratives of peace.
We will build skills in conflict management that address the drivers of conflicts non-violently. Ourcommitments to transforming violent conflicts are actualized in our Assembly by the religious leadersfrom Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, Nigeria, and South Sudan.
Our commitment is also expressed in the religious women represented by those from the Middle East andNorth African Region in the Assembly plenary. Here, also, religious persons from North and South Korea
have worked to construct conditions for peace on the Korean Peninsula. These religious leaders haveconvened privately in the Assembly to strengthen one another as partners, peacemakers, and healers.
We commit to supporting their efforts in their respective countries and regions. We adopt The Peace
Charter for Forgiveness and Reconciliation, convinced that transforming violent conflicts requires thehealing of historical wounds and painful memories, forgiveness, and reconciliation. We commit tointegrating efforts for healing into all our conflict resolution work.
To renew our commitment to nuclear disarmament, we pledge to be a full partner of the International
Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. We condemn the existence of nuclear weapons, affirm our777 United Nations Plaza | New York, NY 10017 USA | Tel: 212 687-2163 | www.rfp.org

support for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and will educate, mobilize, and engage
religious communities toward these ends. We also call for immediate steps toward general disarmament
including all weapons of destruction – conventional, nuclear, chemical, biological, and those newly
emerging.

Promoting Just and Harmonious Societies
We take heart that multi-religious actors and institutions are working to build just and harmonious
societies with a vibrant spirit of care and commitment to justice. We commit to continued common action
to tackle injustices, including the large-scale displacement of persons, and resulting challenges from themigration crises – both for refugees and migrants and the societies where they settle. We will make theglobal forced migration crisis a priority for action. We will lead by example in “welcoming the other.” Wecommit to instilling the respect, mutuality, and solidarity that are essential to promote, build, and sustain
just, harmonious, and diverse communities. A cross-cutting commitment can be education, including
religious literacy, from early childhood to adults, that focuses on shared civic virtues and appreciation forsocial diversity. We will develop an Alliance of Virtue based on a declaration of virtues widely shared acrossreligious traditions and other virtue heritages.
We pledge to protect children, vulnerable individuals and communities and advocate for their humanrights and well-being in the face of grave suffering. We will speak up forcefully and take action against
corruption and for good governance. We commit ourselves to caring and determined effort to address
the causes and reality of widespread abuses and violence, especially against women and children. We also
commit to common efforts within our communities, with civil society partners and governments to ensure
principled freedom of religion worldwide. We, persons of faith, yearn to protect holy sites and feel safe
within them. We will preserve and protect holy sites against violence and desecration, partnering with
the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations to form living rings for peace around them.

Sustainable and Integral Human Development and Protecting the Earth
We commit to human development as set forth in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We will
foster sustainable and integral human development by promoting the justice, inclusive citizenship, andequal opportunities interwoven through the SDGs. We will champion personal accountability forsustainable consumption, the dignity of labor, and equitable distribution of wealth. We will honor theinsights of science and steward progress in digital technology toward the good of all. We will advance
universal access to education. We will continue to promote the role of women and youth in society andtheir leadership in institutions at the local, national, regional, and global levels.
We commit to urgent action against the climate crisis. We will mobilize religious communities to protect
the earth – including the promotion of “green congregations.” Leaders and partners in the fight against
environmental degradation, our Indigenous brothers and sisters remind us, “when Mother Earth suffers,
human beings suffer; when human beings suffer, Mother Earth suffers.” We, guardians and caretakers ofearth, endorse the Faiths for Forests Declaration. We commit to raise awareness about tropicaldeforestation and to educate our religious communities about the dire spiritual and sustainability crisis.
We will take action to live ecologically balanced and sustainable lifestyles and advocate for government
policies to protect rainforests, defend the rights of Indigenous peoples, and fulfill their pledges to the Paris
Agreement on climate change.

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CALL-TO-COMMON-ACTION 10y
Guided by the principles of our own religious traditions, and respectful of religious differences, we
personally commit to fostering positive peace as Shared Well-Being. We will be partners with sincere
believers of other religions and all women and men of good will to:•••••••••

produce positive peace materials and workshops for multi-religious contexts with the Institute for
Economics and Peace;develop tools and training on the positive roles of women in preventing and transforming
conflicts, and on the issue of violence against them;acknowledge past hurts – including across religious traditions – and foster public acts offorgiveness and reconciliation;
work for the well-being of refugees and migrants and develop programs of accompaniment andsupport;urge religious communities to invest their resources in alignment with achieving the SDGs;
raise public awareness about deforestation with the Interfaith Rainforest Initiative and throughthe acceptance and promotion of the Faith for Forests Declaration, take action against climatechange in general, and advocate for policies that protect the earth;advance reconciliation as a vital dimension of positive Peace within persons and amongcommunities and nations as per The Peace Charter for Forgiveness and Reconciliation;commit to being a full-partner to support the International Campaign to Abolish NuclearWeapons;
forge an Alliance of Virtue based on a declaration of virtues widely shared across religious
traditions and other virtue heritages.

We speak with humility, asking for support and blessings.

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