World Council of Religious Leaders

The World Council of Religious Leaders (WCRL) was formed to serve as a resource to the United Nations and its agencies around the world in hopes of offering resolutions toward critical global problems through various faiths of religion. The WCRL was launched in Bangkok on June 12, 2002 (AD) and its objective is to inspire men and women of all faiths to seek mutual understanding in the pursuit of world peace. The participants adopted a Charter that addresses key areas in which religious leaders can play a role in reducing world conflict and adhering to the critical needs of mankind. Their mission is as followed:

"The World Council of Religious Leaders aims to serve as a model and guide for the creation of a community of world religions. In the spirit of service and humility, it seeks to inspire women and men of all faiths in the pursuit of peace, justice and mutual understanding. It will undertake initiatives to provide the spiritual resources of the world's religious traditions to assist the United Nations and its agencies in the prevention, resolution and healing of conflicts and in the eradication of their causes and in addressing social and environmental problems. By promoting the practice of the spiritual values shared by all religious traditions, and by uniting the human community for times of world prayer and meditation, the World Council seeks to aid in developing the inner qualities and external conditions needed for the creation of a more peaceful, just and sustainable world society."

The WCRL promotes and supports unity, as well as religious traditions. In doing so, this inspires and encourages the humanlike values shared by all religious customs to come together as one human community in the development and creation of world peace through a foundation of trust. The WCRL, with the cooperation of the United Nations, hopes to build a community where the world's religions can benefit one another, instead of being in continual conflict with one another.

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Religous Leaders of the World

Religious leaders have been around since the beginning of mankind, and increase with each passing generation. Compared to the B.C. era, the number of religious leaders in the world today is completely overwhelming and nearly impossible to enumerate. The following list contains quotes by renowned religious leaders of the the world, both past and present...

Ancient Religious Leaders:

Abraham - c/2000 B.C. (Hebrew spiritual leader & founder of Judaism) 

> "And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdsmen and thy herdsmen; for we be brethen." (Gen. 13:8)

Lao-Tse - 4th century B.C. (Chinese philosopher & founder of Taoism) 

> "If I have even just a little sense, I will walk on the main road and my only fear will be of straying from it. Keeping to the main road is easy, But people love to be sidetracked."

Gautama Buddha - 563-483 B.C. (Indian spiritual teacher & founder of Buddhism) 

> However many holy words you read, However many you speak, What good will they do If you do not act upon them?"

Confucius - c/551-479 B.C. (Chinese philosopher & founder of Confucianism) 

> "Heaven means to be one with God."

John the Baptist - c/5 B.C.-c/27 A.D. (1st century A.D. prophet & spiritual leader) 

> Unto the Pharisees and Sadducees, he said, "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" (Matt 3:7)

Jesus Christ - c/4 B.C.-c/28 A.D. (1st century A.D. prophet & founder of Christianity)

> Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed in him, "If ye continue in my word, are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:31-32)

Muhammad ibn 'Abd Allah - c/570-632 A.D.  (7th century prophet & founder of Islam)

> "O people, no prophet or apostle will come after me, and no new faith will be born. Reason well, therefore, O People, and understand my words which I convey to you. I leave behind me two things, the Qur'an and my Sunnah and if you follow these you will never go astray." 

Modern Religious Leaders:


St. Francis of Assisi - 1181-1226 A.D. (German mystic & spiritual leader)

> "All things of creation are children of the Father and thus brothers of man... God wants us to help animals, if they need help. Every creature in distress has the same right to be protected."

Martin Luther - 1483-1546 A.D. (German theologian, Austrian monk & founder of Protestantism) 

> "I am afraid that the schools will prove the very gates of Hell, unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures and engraving them in the  heart of the youth."

Richard Allen - 1760-1813 A.D. (American spiritual leader & founder of AME Church)

> "This land, which we have watered with our tears and our blood, is now our mother country, and we are well satisfied to stay where wisdom abounds and the gospel is free."

Joseph Smith - 1805-1844 A.D. (American spiritual leader & founder of Mormonism)  

> "How will the serpent ever lose his venom, while the servants of God possess the same disposition and continue to make war upon it? Men must become harmless, before the brute creation."

Mahatma Gandhi - 1869-1948 A.D. (Political and spiritual leader of India) 

> "Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man."

Bertrand Russell - 1872-1970 A.D. (British philosopher, historian & Atheist) 

> "And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence."

Mother Teresa - 1910-1997 A.D. (Albanian Catholic nun & missionary) 

> "I don't claim anything of the work. It is His work. I am like a little pencil in His hand. That is all. He does the thinking. He does the writing. The pencil has nothing to do with it."

Pope John Paul II - 1920-2005 A.D. (Polish spiritual leader & former Papal authority) 

> "The present-day mentality, more perhaps than that of people in the past, seems opposed to a God of mercy, and in fact tends to exclude from life and to remove from the human heart the very idea of mercy."

Martin Luther King, Jr. - 1929-1968 A.D. (American spiritual leader & Civil Rights Activist) 

> "But today I feel that too much of the church is merely a thermometer, which measures rather than molds popular opinion."

Current Religious Leaders:


Pope Francis - (South American spiritual leader & current Papal authority)

> "We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose."

Billy Graham - (American spiritual leader and advisor) 

> "The greatest miracle of the Bible is that the prophets of Israel could keep a religion as clean as a hound's tooth amid all the corruption and idolatry of the nations surrounding them."

Harold Kushner - (American Jewish rabbi & author) 

> "We have confused God with Santa Claus. And we believe that prayer means making a list of everything you don't have but want and trying to persuade God you deserve it. Now, I'm sorry, that's not God, that's Santa Claus."

Tenzin Gyatso - (14th Dalai Lama & Buddhist leader of Tibet) 

> "Although I speak from my own experience, I feel that no one has the right to impose his or her beliefs on another person."

Desmond Tutu - (South African archbishop & civil activist) 

> "Human beings are fundamentally good. The aberration, in fact, is the evil one, for God created us ultimately for God, for goodness, for laughter, for joy, for compassion, for caring."

Daniel Lapin - (American Orthodox Jewish rabbi & political commentator) 

> "Jews need to understand that our safety and security in the United States is dependent upon the health and vitality of American Christianity. No country in the last 2,000 years has provided the same haven of tranquility and prosperity for Jews as has the United States of America and this is not in spite of Americans being Christians, it is because of it. You might say that America's Bible Belt is the Jewish community's safety belt."

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In retrospect, the various religions of the world could be considered the backbone of mankind's strength and power... and the world's religious leaders, over the many centuries of mankind's existence, have been a beacon of hope... as a guiding light... in mankind's quest for a peaceful subsistence.