During a recent conversation with a historian and lifelong churchgoer, I mentioned current research on religion at the United Nations (UN). She was dismayed at my report that religious contentiousness has increased of late, especially since the UN convened the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo in 1994. The ICPD brought together representatives from approximately 180 nations and numerous nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) for historic discussions about global social and economic challenges. Some conference participants felt that religious opposition to certain aspects of the ICPD's Programme of Action¹ had upstaged the gathering. In Cairo, religious "people of conviction shocked each other and a watching world as they clashed over some of the most volatile topics of the day: family planning and the nature of the family; the rights of women; gender and sexuality; and abortion and birth control."²

"It shouldn't be that way," my fellow scholar responded, shaking her head sadly. I challenged her disillusionment by appealing to the historian in her: "Why should we expect religious groups to be any less contentious than other groups? In fact, how often have religious groups been unified and harmonious throughout history?"

"True," the historian admitted. "But it still doesn't seem right," she maintained, as all those sermons about peace and harmony echoed in her ears.

Religion Counts (see below) recently completed its scholarly study of religion's role at the United Nations. Through interviews of expert informants, including representatives from religious and secular NGOs and UN offices, on-site observations of activities at New York headquarters, examination of exemplary religious NGOs, and other research strategies, the research arm of Religion Counts compiled and analyzed data about religious dynamics and actors in the complex UN system.

Findings will be disseminated in a variety of formats, including a forthcoming book of questions and answers about religion at the United Nations. We believe the findings are important because they can help NGOs, UN officials, and government missions at the UN understand more fully the role that religion plays in the international public policy arena and identify what works and what doesn't in the interactions of religious NGOs and the UN. Our findings show how the perspectives of religious groups and NGO–UN dynamics play out in the UN's consideration of health and human rights issues, among others.

During our investigation we heard many complaints about religion at the UN. Some interviewees thought it unbefitting that religious groups would "play politics" in the way nonreligious groups do—religion should be above that sort of thing. One interviewee saw religion as such a personal matter that it has no place in international politics. "What gets dicey is when individual interpretations get politicized," explained this former officer of a secular NGO. "Religious values are subjective . . . [so] religious organizations should not be empowered at the UN for this reason." She singled out the Holy See's status as a permanent observer at the UN for pointed critique: "I'm one of those people who believe that the Vatican shouldn't be seated. Somebody should do a study of how much UN time the Vatican has wasted objecting to language on paragraphs it abstains from in the end. It's outrageous." Tactics perceived as obstructionist employed by certain religious groups at the UN rated high on the list of complaints we received.

Others bemoaned secular, even antireligious, inroads into UN policymaking by progressive religious groups and their secular allies. "C-FAM [Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute] is a group of believing and practicing Catholics who are loyal to the Holy Father and to the magisterium of the church," explained Austin Ruse, president of the staunchly pro–Vatican C-FAM. "We are here as a permanent facility to assist pro-life and pro-family groups in taking our message into the United Nations . . . Our movement at the UN started simply because the UN started making mistakes, particularly with regard to the unborn and the family. So we have no choice but to be here."³

Implied in many of the complaints we heard about religious participation at the UN was the kind of dismay articulated by my historian colleague and others outside the UN. It can be summarized by paraphrasing a famous statement from another context: "Why can't they all just get along?" In other words, why is there so much divisiveness and infighting among religious groups? Why can't religious groups agree with each other, or at least cooperate on common goals? If religion is supposed to be about peace, harmony, and love, then why is there so much religious conflict, both among the religions and between the religions and secular groups? One UN official perceives in UN circles an endemic cynicism about religion attributable to religion's record of complicity in conflicts around the world. Moreover, he expressed deep frustration over recent religious contentiousness at UN headquarters in New York City: "I get so annoyed by some of the nonsense here," he told us.

Such criticism has serious ramifications in the context of the United Nations because that body is committed to establishing peace, harmony, and cooperation, if not love, in the world. If the religions of the world cannot show themselves allies in this task—in fact, if the religions represent a counter-productive force—then why should the UN welcome them at all? Wouldn't it be better to exclude religious groups from the international arena, at least until they can show themselves worthy of the invitation and useful to the task?

Religions united in pursuit of United Nations ideals—is this a realistic expectation? Is it a fair expectation?

RELIGIONS DIVIDED AT THE UNITED NATIONS
There is certainly a great deal of truth to the charges that the world's religions are divided and that their divisions surface at the UN. The seeds of Religion Counts' involvement at the UN were planted by the religiously motivated conflicts at the International Conference on Population and Development in 1994. The Cairo experience raised serious questions about the advisability of religious participation in such discussions. "Should religions and religious people be represented at local, national, or international forums where there are certain to be controversial issues of public import?" asked Martin Marty and others in a Park Ridge Center report entitled Religion and Public Discourse.⁴ Given the disunity of the religions and the obstinacy or incivility of some religious groups with regard to volatile social issues, are the risks worth the invitation to the table? Many think not.

Religiously motivated controversies also surfaced at the UN's Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing the year following the Cairo conference. Our researchers were present during the Beijing Plus 5 follow-up meetings in New York City in 2000 and observed the activities of the main contentious religious camps. Conservatives are on one side and include the Holy See, Mormons, conservative Protestant groups, and certain Muslim nations. Progressives or liberals—self-designations, conservatives may prefer "radicals"—are on the other, led by Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC) and Ecumenical Women 2000+.

UN headquarters experienced a heavy dose of protocol shock during the March preparatory meetings. Many in the NGO community complained that some conservative religious NGOs had "crossed the line" with tactics such as disrupting meetings and surrounding individuals with opposing views in order to pray over them, the latter denounced as sheer intimidation. The atmosphere seemed less overtly contentious during the actual conference in June 2000 despite the obvious presence of the opposing religious camps. UN security and credentialing procedures had been tightened, and the NGO community appeared to police its own ranks. Debate and disagreement continued, but at least civil discourse had been restored for the time being.

Divisions within the Roman Catholic Church have widened in recent years over key issues raised at the Cairo and Beijing conferences. Although the Vatican lays out clear mandates on abortion, the family, sexual lifestyles, and other moral issues, the Vatican's official positions do not represent the only Catholic voice on these matters. Laying claim to Catholic legitimacy in some way are Dignity/USA, an advocacy group for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered Catholics; the National Coalition of American Nuns, which opposes the Church's exclusion of women from the ordained priesthood; and CFFC, a pro-choice NGO with consultative status at the UN.

In 1999 CFFC launched a campaign to replace the Holy See's nonmember state permanent observer status at the UN with NGO status. The "See Change" campaign claims more than 500 endorsing organizations worldwide.⁵ Its brochure asserts that successfully challenging the Holy See's status: (1) will ensure that only countries decide policy, referring to CFFC's position that the Holy See is not a "state" in the same sense as other countries at the UN; (2) will save women's lives, referring to official Catholic opposition to abortion and artificial contraception; and (3) will assist in reversing the HIV/AIDS pandemic, referring to official Catholic opposition to condom use.

In defense of the Holy See's current status at the UN, the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute launched its own "Holy See Campaign" in 2000, which now claims more than 1,000 endorsing organizations.⁶ "Questions about Holy See statehood are merely the excuse they [See Change] are using for their attack," claimed Austin Ruse in a March 2000 press conference. "The See Change campaign is really about abortion."⁷ See Change organizers would say the campaign emerged out of a more general opposition to the Holy See's views and activities in the related areas of gender, sexuality, and reproductive health.

In August 2000 the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders convened in New York City. This gathering of some 1,000 representatives and numerous unofficial observers from the world's religions took place just prior to the UN's own Millennium Summit of heads of state and government. The World Peace Summit was not an official UN-sponsored event, although it met at UN headquarters for two of its four days and organizers worked closely with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's office in planning the event.

Bawa Jain of the Interfaith Center of New York, a veteran of the interfaith movement, served as the World Peace Summit's secretary-general. Businessman and staunch UN supporter Ted Turner subsidized the event and served as honorary chair. Maurice Strong, secretary-general of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development and senior adviser to Kofi Annan on UN reform, was a key organizer of the event. The list of partner and advisory groups included the Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions, the National Conference for Community and Justice, the United Religions Initiative, and several other interfaith organizations.

As Jain tells the story, the World Peace Summit grew out of a conversation between Turner and Annan. "If you want peace in the world, Kofi," Turner remarked, "you should bring the religious leaders of the world to the UN and make them sign a commitment of peace." According to Jain and other organizers, the World Peace Summit intended to go beyond other interfaith gatherings that merely seek to bring religious and spiritual leaders closer together in a spirit of mutual understanding and harmony. This event emphasized the consistency between the moral foundations of the world's major faiths and the ideals of the United Nations, particularly in the areas of conflict, poverty, and the environment. The religious traditions and the UN have a "common mission," Jain told us. In his mind the UN provides the perfect venue for bringing political and religious leaders together to address the world's problems jointly.

In his introductory remarks prior to Kofi Annan's address to the World Peace Summit, Bawa Jain made three specific requests of the UN: (1) that a council of religious and spiritual advisers to the UN be established; (2) that a summit of religious and spiritual leaders be convened every ten years at the UN; and (3) that a department of religious affairs be created in the UN Secretary-General's office. Such eventualities may yet emerge, but many oppose any attempt to privilege religion at the UN.⁸

Several observers of the World Peace Summit, including this one, were dismayed by the infighting, self-promotion, and opportunism of the affair. "Endless 'speechifying' and sermonizing numbed both my brain and my spirit," wrote a reporter from Religion News Service.⁹ My field notes agree. As I left the concluding plenary session I confided to a security guard that I had had my fill of the world's religious and spiritual leaders. Embarrassing verbal skirmishes and other incivilities had abounded. The issue of proselytization fueled the Summit's key flashpoint; indigenous peoples from around the world demanded that Christians and Muslims leave them alone, and Hindus decried perceived Catholic conversion campaigns linked to poverty reduction projects in India. I recalled the secular debates at the UN-sponsored Beijing Plus 5 conference a few weeks earlier as being far more diplomatic and civil, and wondered what lesson the UN would take away from this historic entrée of religious and spiritual leaders into its territory.

Such disunity and contention embarrass many religious leaders. Contrite confessions are proffered while more ecumenical and interfaith efforts are mounted to counter the divisiveness among the religions and to unite them in furthering the aims of the United Nations. The World Conference on Religion and Peace (WCRP) is a well-known example. "WCRP is based on the principle of profound respect for religious differences," its brochure explains, suggesting that differences do not always necessitate divisiveness, "and [the organization] is solely dedicated to multireligious cooperation for peace." WCRP has worked constructively with the United Nations Development Programme, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). WCRP is not all-encompassing—all religious groups do not belong to it—nor is its record of harmony spotless.¹⁰ But what human enterprise, religious or secular, can claim perfection or even unanimous consensus?

A notable attempt at religious unity has been mounted recently by the United Religions Initiative (URI), one of the interfaith organizations represented at the World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders. The very name, "United Religions," was chosen to invoke the United Nations model. The preamble to the URI charter begins: "We, people of diverse religions, spiritual expressions and indigenous traditions throughout the world, hereby establish the United Religions Initiative to promote enduring, daily interfaith cooperation, to end religiously motivated violence and to create cultures of peace, justice and healing for the Earth and all living beings." This sounds consistent with UN ideals and addresses a key criticism of religions, namely their historic complicity in violent conflicts. It did not take long for URI to affiliate with the UN as an NGO, working particularly with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).¹¹

As expected, not all religious groups laud the United Religions Initiative. The long-standing animus toward the UN in some conservative Christian quarters is evident in an Internet posting entitled "The Case Against the United Religions Initiative,"¹² as well as in the ordinance passed by a small town in Utah declaring itself a UN-free zone. As one resident explained, "God wants us to get rid of the UN."¹³

OTHER DIVISIONS AT THE UN
Religious groups are not the only divided constituency at the UN. Obviously, the United Nations exists only because nations are not united. The United Nations serves as a forum for conflict resolution, negotiation, and compromise among the world's "Divided Nations." This divisive reality has not dampened the UN ideal—indeed, it called forth the ideal historically and continues to motivate idealists today.

The term "United Nations" originated in global conflict as the self-designation of the Allied powers during World War II. Their 1942 Declaration of the United Nations, signed by 26 nations, was a statement of war, not peace, of unity only in opposition to the nations of the Axis enemy. The Dumbarton Oaks Conference in 1944 and the Yalta Conference in February of 1945, both of which laid significant groundwork for the establishment of the eventual United Nations organization later in 1945, were restricted to the inner circle of Allied leaders who hammered out compromises on Security Council and general membership matters.

The original member states of the United Nations included the 26 nations of the 1942 Declaration, 20 other nations that later declared for the Allied side in World War II, and a few other Allied-friendly nations. Admission to this international club was restricted in the early years—less than one-third of the applicant nations were admitted between 1946 and 1950. Admission rested on a two-thirds majority vote of member states and concurrence by the permanent members of the Security Council, which resulted in serious deadlocks over certain applicant countries. Thus, despite its ideal of global unity, the United Nations from the beginning was not "united" enough even to agree upon whom to invite into its midst. As the Cold War deepened, the chill affected the atmosphere both within and outside the UN.¹⁴

Global unity is equally elusive in the post-Cold War era. In 2000, one week following the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders, the UN's Millennium Summit at New York headquarters assembled the largest conclave of global political leaders in history. As reported by The Earth Times, the newspaper of record for the Summit and many other UN meetings, more than 8,000 delegates attended, including 147 heads of state or government. In addition to the formal agenda, hundreds of bilateral and multilateral meetings took place, everything from United States, Israeli, and Palestinian representatives discussing the Middle East peace process to a brief exchange of pleasantries between U.S. President Bill Clinton and Cuba's President Fidel Castro. Cochairs President Tarja Halonen of Finland and President Sam Nujoma of Namibia summed up the highest hopes of the Summit and the Millennium Declaration issued by it: "The largest gathering of world leaders ever has used the Summit to articulate a vision for the new century [and they have] pledged their commitment to helping the United Nations adapt to the new era and strengthen its capacity to deal with the challenges of maintaining peace and eliminating poverty."¹⁵

The same day The Earth Times published this glowing report on the Millennium Summit it also reported the obligatory "Yes, it was a success. But . . ." story. "Some cynics will say that, notwithstanding the lofty affirmations in the Declaration . . . nothing much will change," the article stated. The Middle East did not become peaceful because of the Summit meetings of United States, Israeli, and Palestinian representatives; the United States still has an embargo against Cuba; and representatives from India and Pakistan did not even meet to discuss their mutual antagonisms.¹⁶ The major UN polity issue ignored by the Summit was Security Council reform, namely whether more nations should be seated on that select and powerful body and, if so, which ones. The reason for the silence was simple and reminiscent of debates about general UN membership in the early years: deadlock among the nations. "No one at the Millennium Summit wanted to upset the good times" by bringing up the issue, according to The Earth Times.¹⁷ In another dose of UN reality—as opposed to UN ideals—sixteen women delegates met informally the day before the Millennium Summit. "The [small] size of this meeting and the fact that we're having it at all is an indicator of the very long road ahead in gender equality," said President Vaira Vike-Frieberga of Latvia, one of the attendees at the "UN Millennium Women's Summit."¹⁸

Obviously the nations have never been completely united at the United Nations. Neither will we find unity amongst the NGOs at the UN, whether within their own ranks or in their dealings with the nations. NGO participation in the UN system has increased dramatically in recent years, and the UN has come to rely on many NGOs to provide valuable information and expert advice and to carry out tasks in the field that could not be accomplished as efficiently otherwise. Yet the NGO community has its ideological, political, and other fault lines just like the international community. Observes a UN official: coordinating the efforts of the notoriously independent NGO community is "like herding cats."¹⁹

Moreover, many NGOs are at odds with the governments of the nations in which they operate. UN member states sometimes attempt to block entrance to the UN system by NGOs critical of their national policies. The standing Committee on Nongovernmental Organizations, a 19-member-state body that makes recommendations about NGOs seeking or renewing consultative status with the UN's important Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), sometimes draws NGO ire for perceived politically motivated abuses of its function. "This is a gatekeeper committee," a veteran UN human rights worker complained. "It gets to say who's in, and it gets to harass NGOs that are troublesome, and can even throw them out." This informant named several member states on the committee that engage in "payback" against NGOs embarrassing to their governments. There has always been an undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the consultative arrangements for NGOs generally. NGOs clearly play "a second-class citizen role in the UN context," complained another informant from a secular reproductive rights NGO.

But the disunity and tensions surrounding the NGO community at the UN cannot be attributed inordinately to religion. Less than 10 percent of the nearly 2,000 NGOs with ECOSOC affiliation have a primarily religious identity. I find all parties equally complicit in the disunities plaguing the UN, yet religious groups may attract more than their fair share of criticism. The UN official mentioned earlier in this essay who described his annoyance at the contentious religious nonsense at New York headquarters was so exasperated a few weeks later that he virtually threw up his hands in despair in an email to us, asking, "Is there any evidence that religion has ever made a positive contribution to the UN or its work?" His exasperation is all the more striking given that his interview had offered numerous illustrations of what he himself considered very positive contributions from religious groups around human rights and other issues, both at UN headquarters and in the field. Perhaps it stems from his own religious upbringing, perhaps it is religion's claim to authoritative and putatively unitary truth—whatever it is about religion, it attracts severe criticism when its disunity shows.

RELIGION'S ROLE AT THE UN: REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS
Acknowledging the human propensity for disunity and discord places religion in proper perspective. Sociologically speaking, religious groups do not differ from secular groups or governments, so we should not expect any more unity among them than among the others. Philosophically, we can identify something broadly construed as the "religious worldview," which differs from other worldviews such as materialism or humanism, but we should not expect any more agreement among religionists than we find among materialists (e.g., Marxist versus philosophical) or humanists (e.g., scientific versus existentialist).²⁰ Thus the call to exclude religion from the United Nations because it does not have a united constituency or speak with a unified voice is not a valid proposal. There would be no UN if such unity was the criterion for membership or participation.

Neither will arguments that religion should be above "playing politics" or that it is a purely personal matter hold any weight when we consider religion's role at the UN. This would compartmentalize religion, placing restrictions on its purview that religion itself finds unacceptable and that are not required of other areas of human thought, like philosophy, or comparable social entities, like governments. The human enterprise has both social and personal aspects and is always subject to the dynamics of power politics. All of this potentially falls under religion's purview since religion's purview encompasses all things human. From Hebrew prophets like Amos to neoorthodox Protestant theologians like Reinhold Niebuhr, from the ancient Hindu law books called Dharma Shastras to today's socially engaged Buddhists—religions have always spoken to social and political realities.

Of course religion is not content to speak only of social and political realities. To use its own categories, religion brings a transcendent perspective to bear on such mundane matters. Religion speaks to the realities of this world from the vantage point of a transcendent or ultimate reality, which may lie outside the mundane or reside at its deepest recesses, depending on the religious tradition in question. In its own self-understanding, religion represents universal truths and absolute standards. This can become problematic in dialogue, both amongst religionists themselves and between religionists and non-religionists. One person in a crucial liaison position between the NGO community and the UN noted the difficulty this sometimes presents: "It's difficult to negotiate with partners that are sure that they have, not only truth, but truth that's been granted by the deity or deities. It kind of leaves the discussion with no place to go." Still, such stalemates need be no more frustrating than those caused by other dogmatic ideologies. The functional outcomes of obstinacy need not be distinguished according to underlying motivations, whether religious or secular.

Religion's high estimation of itself—in fact the highest, given that religion represents the "ultimate"—does not translate into special privilege at the UN. Nor should it. To a large extent the ground rules for participation at the UN mirror those of the U.S. federal government. In neither case is there any "establishment" of official religious positions. The UN avoids promoting any one religious group by allowing participation by many religious groups. Neither does the UN promote "religion" per se. Rather it recognizes the major role religion plays in the world—in individual lives, intergroup relations, and international politics—by granting it a place at the discussion table. Setting aside the contested status of the Holy See, religious groups participate on an equal playing field with other NGOs at the UN. Religious NGOs have every right to representation in the larger NGO community as long as they abide by the same rules as everyone else.

The UN requires unity among the religions only to the extent that they support UN ideals and follow UN protocols. The disruptions during the Beijing Plus 5 meetings in March 2000 caused a stir among UN authorities, but not because the disruptions were linked to religious individuals and groups. "To disrupt a meeting at the UN is just not what this place is about," explained a Department of Public Information source, whose office tightened its scrutiny of NGO applications for UN affiliation in light of the Beijing Plus 5 commotion. "It runs contrary to everything that we stand for." Affiliation with ECOSOC, which affords significant entrée into UN decision-making circles, can be suspended or revoked if an NGO receives government funding with the intent to subvert the UN, engages in political acts against a member state, or fails to make a substantive contribution to ECOSOC's work. In 1999 a Christian human rights organization, Christian Solidarity International (CSI), had its ECOSOC status revoked upon complaint from the government of Sudan that CSI had allowed the head of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army to speak under its auspices before the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva. According to an ECOSOC press release, the Sudanese government "charged that the NGO's actions constituted both a threat to the sovereignty and national security of Sudan and a flagrant violation of the regulations governing the relationship between the United Nations and NGOs."²¹ The religious identity of the offending NGO was irrelevant.

We interviewed two UN under-secretaries-general, neither of whom claims any personal religious convictions. Both welcomed the participation of religious NGOs at the UN. As one explained, the UN must be "reflective of the totality of human experience in all parts of the world," which includes religious experience. "I am pretty close to being an agnostic," he admitted, "but I have respect for religion, I have respect for people of faith, I have respect for what they bring to life and to society." In his words, the UN benefits from broad "ecumenical" participation, that is, representation from both religious and secular groups who share common ethical ground. "The reality is that a very large proportion of the world's population does derive its values from religious beliefs. It's a good sign. It's inevitable that the role of these groups in the work of the UN would expand, because that's where people derive their values from."

Many of our informants stressed the importance of the ethical conscience that religions bring to the table of international dialogue. A former insider in U.S. government circles appreciated the "gadfly" role played by religious NGOs coming out of the social justice tradition. The head of a major interfaith NGO suggested that religion's positive contribution to the UN derives from a "felicitous" partnership between political and civil societies: "It's built on frank recognition that the political structures are necessary but insufficient. They have all been insufficient to address the kinds of problems to which we are committed."

In other words, heaven help us all if the world's ethical conscience is delegated to governments. A notable book on the influence of the NGO community at the UN is entitled The Conscience of the World.²² Religious NGOs, as part of the larger NGO community, have much to contribute in this regard. As one of the UN under-secretaries-general put it, the religions have codified the fundamental ethics by which people seek better lives. To cite the comparative religion scholar, Huston Smith, the world's religions contain "the winnowed wisdom of the human race." Of course they also contain a good deal of foolishness and downright evil, but, as Smith notes, we need not dwell on that side of the story. "Probably as much bad music as good has been composed in the course of human history," says Smith, "but we do not expect courses in music appreciation to give it equal attention."²³ The same holds true for religion's contribution to international dialogue.

"For all the problems that have appeared when public discourse includes religious themes," wrote Martin Marty in reflecting on the larger implications of the Cairo conference on population and development, "it is also clear that the texts and traditions of faith communities have much to offer by way of including calls for effecting social justice, working toward healing, and provoking profound thought."²⁴

South Africa made the difficult transition from apartheid to democratic governance by seeking a "sufficient consensus" among the affected groups as to what constitutes a decent society. Reaching a sufficient consensus at any level, including the international arena represented by the United Nations, requires full representation at the negotiation table. The voices of religion, discordant and divided as they may be, must be included in the discussion or the resulting consensus will be insufficient.

NOTES
1. Programme of Action Adapted at the International Conference on Population and Development, Cairo, September 5–13, 1994 (United Nations Population Fund, 1996).