Religions' Role on Achieving Peace Discussed in New Zealand
Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL) New Zealand branch hosted the 15th World Alliance of
Religions’ Peace (WARP) Office meeting on the 23rd of January. For this dialogue, religious leaders from Islam, Mormon,
Christian, Sikh faiths participated and discussed “Religions' Role on Achieving Peace”.
Akshdeep Singh Gahir, Representative of Auckland Sikh Community emphasized the importance of this meeting, "The HWPL Dialogues gives me the opportunity to open my mind even to learn my own religion and to look into other
religions as well.
Also, a survey which has 5 questions about methods of finding ‘Trustworthy Scripture’ was also conducted after the discussion. Anna Featherstone (Mormon), Shafiq Urrehman (Islam, Ahmadiyya) and Akshdeep
Singh Gahir (Sikh) who participated in the dialogue agreed to actively engage in HWPL's WARP Office by accepting the
differences within the religions.
The Interfaith Representative, Ms. Anna Featherstone of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, expressed her
comment as "The format that HWPL does their dialogues really works and there is a lot more discussing to be done and I am really
looking forward to that.”
The WARP Office meetings are held every month in both Auckland and Wellington, New Zealand. According to HWPL, religious
leaders have tried to seek the concrete standards of trustworthy scripture in finding a true essence of religion and
role of religious leaders in achieving peace and cessation of war comparing each religious scripture. This approach of
peace project by HWPL has its findings that religious conflicts account for over 80% of world conflicts, so ceasing this
is crucial for peace.
HWPL’s WARP Office started off with the WARP Summit held in Seoul, 18 September 2014. HWPL has been operating it and religious leaders across the globe are engaging in
this conversation to minimize religious conflicts and bring forth peace. There are 204 WARP Offices in 112 countries (As
of Jan 2017).
A member of HWPL New Zealand branch stated, “The religious leaders who participated in today’s dialogue will continue having discussion following up the directions
about ‘Religions’ Role’ in peace building. Also, we will carry out them through the integral networks among religious
people in New Zealand.” Currently, the WARP Office meetings are held globally and become the venue to communicate and pursuit peace by
religions together.
Related:
Website of WARP Office: http://hwpl.kr/initiative/alliance_religions