A 2 1/2 hour webinar held September 13 on Facebook Live brought a new dimension to an important interfaith program. The Interfaith Solidarity March of the Institute for Religious Tolerance, Peace and Justice went virtual.

The annual Interfaith March for Peace and Justice of the Institute for Religious Tolerance, Peace and Justice took a novel turn in 2020. With COVID-19 preventing the kind of participation that has grown the event to the largest coalition of interfaith marches internationally over the past four years, organizers decided to hold the event online. 

 

The Church of Scientology Los Angeles was proud to help coordinate and participate in the program September 13 that brought people of many faiths and backgrounds together in the common goal of religious tolerance, peace and justice. 

While those participating joined in the Facebook Live presentation, other events including marches were planned in Uganda, Malawi, Pakistan and India.

The importance of interfaith activities and the promotion of tolerance is highlighted by a Pew Research Center report that found social hostilities involving religion, including violence and harassment by private individuals, organizations or groups, has increased since 2007 when the Center began tracking the issue.

The event was opened by organizer Dr. L. Arik Greenberg, Founder and President of the Institute for Religious Tolerance, Peace and Justice and professor of theological studies at Loyola Marymount University.

Michael Curry, Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church was a special guest speaker with a prerecorded message.

Also participating were representatives of the Muslim, Jain, Sikh, Bahá’í, Hindu, Buddhist and Jewish faiths, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness and the Unitarian Universalist, Assyrian, Episcopal, Scientology, Religious Science, and Baptist churches.

In its presentation, the Church of Scientology Los Angeles played a video of the Creed of the Church of Scientology, which highlights the Church’s belief in human rights and religious freedom.

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We of the Church believe

That all men of whatever race, color or creed were created with equal rights.

That all men have inalienable rights to their own religious practices and their performance.

That all men have inalienable rights to their own lives.

That all men have inalienable rights to their sanity.

That all men have inalienable rights to their own defense.

That all men have inalienable rights to conceive, choose, assist or support their own organizations, churches and governments.

That all men have inalienable rights to think freely, to talk freely, to write freely their own opinions and to counter or utter or write upon the opinions of others.

That all men have inalienable rights to the creation of their own kind.

That the souls of men have the rights of men.

That the study of the mind and the healing of mentally caused ills should not be alienated from religion or condoned in nonreligious fields.

And that no agency less than God has the power to suspend or set aside these rights, overtly or covertly.

And we of the Church believe

That Man is basically good.

That he is seeking to survive.

And we of the Church believe that the laws of God forbid Man

To destroy his own kind.

To destroy the sanity of another.

To destroy or enslave another’s soul.

To destroy or reduce the survival of one’s companions or one’s group.

And we of the Church believe

That the spirit can be saved and

That the spirit alone may save or heal the body.