Here’s a TV “heads up” — something, perhaps, to program into your TiVo…
A press release from the CBS Television Network says that IN GOD’S NAME, a CBS primetime special produced in association with the acclaimed French filmmakers Jules and Gedeon Naudet, will explore the complex questions of our time through the intimate thoughts and beliefs of 12 of the world’s most influential spiritual leaders.
These diverse and powerful voices offer provocative, compelling and enlightening perspectives on a myriad of issues in our post-9/11 world, including the rise of terrorism, fanaticism, intolerance and war.
The 12 leaders featured in this special, in alphabetical order, are:
o Alexei II, Patriarch of Moscow and head of the Russian Orthodox Church
o Amma (Mata Amritanandamayi), a Hindu spiritual leader
o Pope Benedict XVI, head of the Roman Catholic Church
o The Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso), spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists
o Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, a prominent Shi’ite Muslim leader
o Bishop Mark Hanson, Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and President of the Lutheran World Federation
o Michihisa Kitashirakawa, Jingu Daiguji (High Priest) of the Shinto Grand Shrine of Ise
o Yona Metzger, Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel
o Dr. Frank Page, President of the Southern Baptist Convention
o Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, Sheikh of Al-Azhar and a prominent Sunni Muslim leader
o Joginder Singh Vedanti, Jathedar of the Akal Takht, the Sikhs’ highest authority
o Dr. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Church of England
For more information on the program you may wish to link to…http://www.cbspressexpress.com/div.php/cbs_network/release?id=17308
I am personally excited and inspired by the fact that this program has been produced, and look forward with great anticipation to hearing what these remarkable spiritual leaders have to say — even as, at the same time, I am a bit disappointed that not one voice from the New Spirituality movement was included in this program. I am not surprised, of course, just disappointed.
It is not surprising, because the world’s presently in-place institutions (among them, the media) have a deep investment in the status quo. And the “status quo” has it that, when it comes to matters of God, only the world’s major religions and oldest spiritual traditions are to be consulted — and only one woman is to be among them.
I am betting that none of these spiritual leaders — with the possible exception of Amma, the only female — will dare to utter anything close to the New Gospel given to us in Conversations with God. This New Gospel is a 15-word message from the Divine which no spiritual leader, no political leader, and no business leader will ever be able to deliver from any pulpit, podium, or lectern in the world. Not in a church, not in a mosque, not in a synagogue, not at either of the major political party conventions in the U.S. this coming year, not at any international business conference. Nowhere may these 15 words be spoken as the official position of anyone in power at all…
Here is the New Gospel according to Conversations with God:
We are all one.
Ours is not a
better way,
ours is merely
another way.
The Pope cannot say this. The Archbishop of Canterbury cannot say this. The world’s most respected Imam cannot say this. The Chief Rabbi cannot say this. The leader of major political parties cannot say this. No one may dare say this. Yet it is a spiritual message that would change the world.
TOMORROW: Why we cannot accept The New Gospel. (Unless we can.)
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