To call attention to the role of religions in promoting international order and preventing international disorder.

My Lords, I beg to move the motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.

I am most grateful for the opportunity to initiate this debate, which I believe is a timely one - not withstanding the fact that it is being held on a Friday!

I believe it is timely not simply because of the many challenges to international peace and stability that continue to confront us. But also because we are just ten weeks away from a new Millennium - from the two thousandth anniversary of the coming of the one described by the prophet Isaiah, and seen by Christians as the Prince of Peace.

I want to assure your Lordships at the outset, that in this debate I am not seeking to restrict the meaning of religions to Christianity alone. Far from it. Indeed, it is one of the joys of your Lordships' house that there are men and women for all seasons, and for a range of denominations and faiths. I look forward greatly to hearing contributions from a variety of perspectives.

I suppose the essence of this debate could be distilled into two questions: Do religions cause conflict? Can religions forestall conflict?

Well, my basic response to the first question is that in today's world, their impact is over-rated, and to the second that their potential is under-exploited. Indeed, my main purpose this morning is to outline the kind of contribution that I believe religious communities and leaders can make to the quest for a more just and peaceful world.

But before I do that, let me refer to some of the more negative interpretations of the role of religions in this quest. It has become fashionable in the post-cold war era to claim that clashes of civilisation are replacing clashes of ideology; that the world's fault lines on the eve of the Millennium are in a broad sense cultural. It is also claimed in this context that religion is a kind of diabolic yeast, fermenting and fomenting strife and discord. Far from speaking up as I am doing today, the argument implies, religious leaders could serve the world best by piping down. It is a warning with quite a history. I think back to the admonition of the king in Shakespeare's Henry the Fifth to what is portrayed as a rather gung-ho Archbishop of Canterbury:

For God doth know how many now in health
Shall drop their blood in approbation
Of what your reverence shall incite us to.
Therefore take heed how you inpawn our person...
How you awake our sleeping sword of war.

Well I trust I shall deserve no such yellow card today!

It is certainly the case that matters of faith and religious allegiance can have a substantial bearing on the formation and preservation of a sense of communal identity.

Religion, if you like, can be a potent binding agent for societies and cultures, part of their fundamental sense of self. And in situations where conflicts arise between communities so defined, politicians and others will often use religion as a way of justifying and even sharpening the conflict. It becomes a way of saying this is what makes you against us rather than for us, different from us rather than like us. One would not have to stray very far for examples of this sort of thing- Ireland and Kosovo spring readily to mind.

But none of this means religions are necessarily the root cause of the conflict or its essential constituent. Recent experience indicates that shared religious affiliation has proved no barrier to patterns of violent revenge and reprisal. I will never forget visiting Rwanda soon after the genocide. I heard inspiring stories of Christian Hutus and Tutsis prepared to be martyred together. But sadly, I heard even more tales of Christians killing fellow Christians, despite the fact that they had known one another as neighbours for years. Nor are Christians alone in that. More recently in Kosovo we have learnt of cases of Albanian Muslims from Kosovo exacting revenge on fellow Muslims identified as Serbian.

Of course, I am not seeking to deny that religion, certainly what many would regard as the abuse or misuse of religion, in such circumstances can be a complicating and negative factor. Put simply, invoking religious alignments and affiliations in the dubious service of a difficult political problem can make it still more intractable.

But even allowing for that, those who would dwell on the alleged destructive power of religions in world affairs during the century now drawing to a close, might want to reflect upon the mass slaughter of civilians in concentration camps and elsewhere, carried out by the messianic but secular regimes presided over by Stalin and Hitler and Pol Pot. These it can be argued are examples where the absence of true religion, and the abandonment of basic moral values anchored in it, helped to make genocide both possible and, shamefully, acceptable.

But if, as I believe, there has been a tendency to over-estimate the impact of religions in situations of conflict, there have also been occasions, I would argue, when their presence as a factor has been virtually ignored or dismissed. And that has resulted in a corresponding failure of analysis and understanding, and even perhaps of the potential to exert a positive influence. The revolution that overthrew the Shah of Iran is a well-documented example.

The loud claims of the participants - that this was a faith-based movement, drawing much of its energy from a reading of Islam, in opposition to the influence of the West-seem to have been almost willfully ignored. The religious dimension was all but discounted in favour of a range of other factors, economic, political and social. A mistaken diagnosis is unlikely to yield the best prescription.

The reasons for this kind of diplomatic myopia are many and varied. Some at least can be traced back to Enlightenment views about so-called scientific methods of analysing human behaviour and human inter-action, from which religious considerations were firmly exiled. This tendency has clearly influenced the world of professional diplomacy where there has been a tradition of keeping religion as far away from the diplomatic machinery as possible; what one expert has called a learned repugnance to contend intellectually with all that is religion.

And that I think is a shame and a loss. For reasons that I hope will become obvious as I turn to the positive contribution and considerable potential of religions for international peace and stability.

The benign influence of religion in this context can take many forms. At the most general level, faith communities help to shape societies and cultures through the core values they proclaim. An ethical framework that includes tolerance and forbearance, repentance and forgiveness is shared and sustained by many different faith communities. The very fact of common ownership of such values can act as a counterweight to narrow and self-serving objectives and policies. My own appreciation of the values that religious communities share owes much to the writings of Professor Hans Kung. And important work is being done in this field by organisations like the World Conference on Religion and Peace, which I will have the honour to address in Jordan next month.

Understanding abroad can profitably be fed by experience at home. In this country we have seen some remarkable examples of inter-faith co-operation since the last war. The Council for Christians and Jews has proved a significant counter-weight to anti-Semitism. More recently the Inter-Faith Network has brought together members of no fewer than nine faith communities.

At the same time, a commitment to seeking and sharing common ground does not mean compromising or disowning what is distinctive and special. The recent words of the Iranian president Ayatollah Mohammed Khatami come to mind: "The aim is not to eliminate differences between human beings, but to preserve and strengthen them as a source of joy and strength. That is the work ethic we need; a framework of shared values-a sense of our common humanity-within which different traditions can co-exist."

Religions and faith communities do not just exert influence through the resonance of an ethical framework; they also seek to serve as examples and agents of those values. I am thinking, for example, of the immense humanitarian work of organisations like Christian Aid, Muslim Aid, UKJ Aid and similar bodies in Hindu and Sikh communities round the world. This is work that, in the aftermath of a conflict for example, can be a vital part of helping to secure the peace, and thus preventing a relapse into violence. In addition, such organisations not only seek to alleviate some of the conditions that can exacerbate conflict; they also try to embody the values they proclaim. They seek to be, to use the current jargon, models of good practice.

But I believe there is also a role for faith communities not only as ambassadors of positive values and good practice, but on occasions as something approaching diplomats themselves, as mediators, as go-betweens, as conciliators. And that may especially be the case when it comes to conflicts within rather than between states-precisely the kinds of conflict, in other words, that have so scarred the last part of this century, and could disfigure the next. Indeed it is that dangerous prospect which lends special relevance and urgency, I believe to debates like this one.

As I suggested earlier there has been a marked reluctance in the past within international diplomatic and government circles to contemplate or permit this kind of entanglement. All the same, it is not difficult to point to instances in which the active involvement of religious leaders and communities has been extremely effective, if not downright indispensable. Take the example of Mozambique, where both the Anglican bishop Dinis Sengulane, and the Roman Catholic lay community of San Egidio in Rome have played key roles in brokering a peace deal.

Other examples in other places come readily to mind. One thinks of the likes of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Desmond Tutu. These are all remarkable figures, with a charismatic power of personality and vision that undoubtedly would have stood them in good stead in many circumstances. But the influence they wielded was not political power in any conventional sense; indeed they represented the dispossessed and powerless. And that I believe is significant in itself. In a sense they had influence, because they lacked power. They could not be viewed or dismissed as simply representing one or other of the usual political suspects or vested interests at the negotiating table.

The same holds true I believe for the potential impact on conciliation and mediation efforts of other religious communities and leaders. They owe allegiance to and derive authority from a moral and spiritual constituency beyond the scope and therefore at times beyond the suspicions and limitations of conventional politics. They can play precisely because they are not players. They are not part of the game.

In sum, faith communities and religious leaders have distinct and distinctive qualities in relation to the realm of conflict mediation and conciliation, which makes it gratifying that there seems today to be a growing awareness of that potential, based upon some significant experience. For instance, we are about to mark the tenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. A decade ago the Evangelical Churches in East Germany were playing a significant part in that momentous process of change and unification. But that is not an isolated example, the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines helped to shape the emergence of that nation from the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. Today we admire the courage, vision and remarkable spiritual leadership of Bishop Carlos Belo in East Timor.

Of course there are limits to the scope of possible religious involvement. It should be regarded as a useful supplement to more traditional diplomatic activity, not as a substitute for it. But I am convinced the potential is there. We should be looking to forge closer links between faith groups and bodies like the United Nations. Ties do already exist, but if we in the faith communities are serious about the potential we have, then those links need to be activated and the expertise more widely deployed. I know the Secretary General, Kofi Anan, is developing ideas along these lines.

Individual governments, including our own, should be encouraged to draw on such expertise. Indeed it might become an integral part of the training of diplomats.

In the United States, the American expert, Douglas Johnston, has done ground-breaking work on religions and diplomacy. His efforts are now being carried forward in a number of initiatives blending theory and practice.

Much closer to home, in the City of London, we watch with admiration the project led by my noble friend, the Lord Bishop of London, to build a centre for peace and reconciliation from the rubble to which St. Ethelburga's Church was reduced by a terrorist bomb.

In a recent lecture at Lambeth Palace, the Dalai Lama pointed out that true peace means more than the absence of war-to be real and substantial it requires a sense of security, and that does not miraculously appear after the guns fall silent and the bombs stop falling. It has to be earned, and fostered with care and commitment.

That surely is one of the lessons of the Balkans. I have already referred to the magnificent humanitarian work of organisations with religious affiliations. These inter-faith partnerships are vital to the prospects for reconstruction and what will prove the even more daunting challenge of reconciliation. For Christians, reconciliation is intimately related to ideas of repentance and forgiveness. True forgiveness, we know, does not come easily, but without it we may do no more than obtain a period of quiescence, one born partly of exhaustion and trauma. That must be the fear in the Balkans - that the recent cycle of fear and hatred will not be broken - merely that the wheel will turn more slowly for a time. The parties may bury the hatchet if you will, but do so in the certain knowledge of how to dig it up again in double-quick time. We in the faith communities must seek out ways of developing the true spirit of reconciliation. We must do it by example and by practical engagement, not simply by exhortation.

As I remarked at the outset, the Millennium is almost upon us, the anniversary of the coming of the Prince of Peace: blessed are the peacemakers he said, for they shall be known as the Children of God. My Lords, whatever our beliefs, whatever our spiritual allegiance, surely we can all in this House aspire to be in this sense, Children of God.

Notes for Editors

The Archbishop regards the challenge of building better bridges between denominations and faiths as a major priority. He believes that through such co-operation, faith leaders and communities can help to develop the role of religions as a force for peace and justice in the new Millennium.

At a time when religion risks being portrayed as a problematic element in many of the world's conflicts, the Archbishop wants to stress the potential of faith communities in conflict prevention and the search for reconciliation.

This is the second debate initiated by Dr Carey since he became Archbishop. The first was "to call attention to the importance of Society's moral and spiritual well-being, and in particular to the responsibility of schools", held on 5th July 1996.