Unity Among Believers and the Holy Spirit

Believers worldwide can be divided into two general groupings. These are known by the names Non-Christians and Christians. The Non-Christians outnumber the Christians.

Believers can also be grouped into non-churched and churched, meaning, the former are those who do not belong to organized churches, and the latter are those who do belong.

It seems that of the seven (7) or eight (8) billion individuals on the face of the planet earth, the believers outnumber the non-believers who are called atheists. The believers belong to the five (5) so-called great religions of the world. These are the religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Peoples continue to thrive according to their own pace, human life goes on as the planet earth turns around and travels around the sun. And this is due to the mysterious presence of the divine among humans whom Christian believers call Holy Spirit or what Pope Francis believes is that “Christ’s resurrection is… a vital power which has permeated the world” (Joy of the Gospel, pages 276 & 280).

This power is behind every human process and movement from darkness to light, from slavery to freedom, from decay to growth, and from weakness to strength. It is in the United Nations Organization, in the Interfaith Dialogues, in the Interreligious, Ecumenical, Multicultural movements towards mutual understanding, collaboration, peace and unity. If this is not true, the whole world would have collapsed long time ago.

The Holy See or the Roman Catholic Church leadership based in Vatican City and the World Council of Churches based in Geneva City have been holding for many years the so-called World Prayer for Christian Unity every year from January 18 to 25. There is also the Global Christian Forum which attempts to unite all Christian Churches around the world. The main line Protestant Churches and the Catholic Church have particular dialogues separately with Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims.

A special association, the only one of its kind in the world of interfaith dialogues is the Bishops-Ulama Conference composed of all Catholic bishops in Mindanao, all Muslim Ulama of the Ulama League of the Philippines and all Protestant Churches in Mindanao belonging to the National Council of Churches. It is now 22 years old. But aging and political issues like the BBL have slowed down its interreligious activities. The six young bishops all from Mindanao recently appointed can give new and fresh vigor to this unique tripartite association. Hopefully, and by the power of the Holy Spirit this can surely happen.