“It’s a battle for the hearts and minds of people in many parts of the world,” said Dr William Vendley, secretary general of Religions for Peace.“And if they don’t hear from their own religious leaders about what their own tradition is talking about, then otherwise very wonderful young people, often in very complicated and distressed situations, will be given very brutally false interpretations of their faith.”
Dr Vendley called upon the religious communities to put forth the true teachings of their religions.
“This is the duty anyway, even if we didn’t have violent religious extremism, for the religious communities to communicate their own truest meanings,” he said.
“It’s a competitive space now: there are brutal contenders for what it means to be a Christian, for what it means to be a Jew or a Muslim or any other faith.”
As part of the action plan, the leaders will develop counter-violent-extremism tool kits, equip a global response team, train local and national leaders in countering religious extremists, launch a large-scale social-media campaign, provide humanitarian assistance to populations at risk of adopting violent extremist philosophies, and initiate several programmes, at grassroots and mainstream media levels, to build understanding, promote tolerance and rehabilitate and de-radicalise worshippers.
The leaders also unanimously adopted a multifaith statement that expressed their concern and rejection of violent religious extremism and called on governments, the United Nations and religious communities to work together in promoting human dignity and combating extremist narratives.
“Violent religious extremism is not in anybody’s interest and it cannot promote any genuine religion, on that we all agree,” said Cardinal John Onaiyekan, archbishop of Abuja, Nigeria.
“We are aware that those terrorists don’t really listen to their spiritual leaders, but we cannot sit quiet simply because they will not listen to us.
“We should keep talking because even when they don’t listen, other people are hearing that we are condemning them.
“And if you’re talking in the context of Christians and Muslims, we Christians want to hear Muslim leaders clearly and frequently distance themselves from what these people are doing because that will help us to talk to our own constituency.”
