Religious communities possess spiritual, moral and social assets that can be brought to bear utilizing the full range of existing structures – leadership, local congregations, women’s groups, youth groups, and specialized agencies.
When religious communities recognize their shared values, mobilize their collective assets, and work together, they can have a decisive impact where it is most needed. Because of this understanding the establishment of Inter-religious councils over the world has become very important. Russia, Argentina,Cambodia, China, India, Puerto Rico ,Suriname, South Carolina and Bosnia and Herzegovina, San Diego, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Ghana and Nigeria are some of world countries who had organized inter-religious councils so that every religious institution and the social community stand together to promote peaceful coexistence common values.
Ethiopia is a multi-ethnic nation endowed with diversified culture, language, faith, religion and rich history. At most individual level, people’s lives are guided by their religious beliefs and values. The Christian and Muslim religions have been displaying peaceful co‐existence for centuries and this has become a living witness for the rest of the world. The crucial rational behind the symbol of our co-existence is that religion remains not just only part of Ethiopians’ life but it is the strongest infrastructure of its culture.
The communication and public relations director Ato Mesud Adem told The Ethiopian Herald that the Inter-religious Council of Ethiopia (ICRE) was organized as independent and non-governmental body in January 2010. Members of the IRCE include: the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Ethiopian Catholic Church, the Ethiopian Adventist Church, Evangelical Churches Fellowship of Ethiopia, The Ethiopian Evangelical Church MekaneYesus, the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs in Ethiopia and The Ethiopian Kale Hiwot Church. This council was established to undertake the promotion of peaceful coexistence and collaboration among religious institutions and communities in Ethiopia. For its establishment the founding members have taken a step to enhance their joint efforts by establishing IRCE with the aim of promoting and systematizing interfaith learning, collaboration and synergy to address issues of common concern such as peace building and conflict transformation.
He said this has created a favorable environment for religious institutions, whereby, through the instrumentality of IRCE, religious institutions together with their respective development agencies and leadership are now in a more organized and united position to mobilize over 98% of the Ethiopian people residing in all corners of the country. To promote these values, the Inter-Religious Council of Ethiopia (IRCE) is the lead agency responsible for bringing together, in a collective manner, all faiths and religions to address issues of social exclusion and development in the country.
One of the most progressive approaches to social cohesion utilized by the IRCE is the establishment of the Inter-religious Dialogue- Ethiopia (IRD-E). The IRD-E was designed to develop interpersonal relationships among the various leaders of member faiths with the primary goal of learning about the cultural, ideological and religious views of each faith. Experiences in these dialogue sessions reveal that members of the various faiths have been able to enrich, deepen and broaden their own religious life through mutual understanding of one another’s convictions and witness.
According to him, in the context of Ethiopia, religious institutions can serve as a means for communicating information and education on issues that affect the lives of youth and women. Religious leaders can help their followers make informed choices in areas overwhelmed by complex social problems including poverty and disease. They can enlist their active support in efforts to reduce maternal and promote healthy families. They can become committed advocated for positive reform on reproductive health and families’ well being. Religious leaders have the potential to convey core messages on abandonment of harmful traditional practices during their teaching, at public gathering and during religious holidays. Because they hold the trust of their congregations, the healthy behaviors they promote are more readily accepted than other conventional mechanisms.
The council has organized several national and state consultative and experience sharing workshops and dialogue forums with the participation of more than 7000 religious leaders and FBO technical staffs, government bodies and other stakeholders in different issues. From these workshops, IRCE has got different inputs for its implementation program. For instance, the awareness of the people have increased, religious leaders have decided not to duplicate efforts, they have shown keen interest to teach peace education besides the spiritual preaching on monthly basis.
For IRCE constructive dialogue plays a vital role in combating and preventing intolerance, and thereby to promote the good values among the differing religions and beliefs. Hence, in order to commence inter-religious dialogue, there should be common ground that is inherent in the differing religions and beliefs and approval by all parties. Henceforth, the common teachings include the “Golden Rule”.
He also told IRCE has so far implemented a number of activities to the attainment of its organizational vision, mission and objectives. These include opening and organization of the IRCE secretariat’s office, conflict prevention and peace building activities preparing peace building training manual, a national level conference held by IRCE and minister of federal affairs on developing peace values through respecting and keeping the constitution. Organized consultation forums and workshops, partnerships created with various organization, a project designed in collaboration with USAID to increase youth and women involvement in peace building in Jima zone and working on human trafficking at national and regional level. National and regional level Inter-religious dialogue forums have been conducted on peace building and conflict transformation.