Category: Interfaith

Each year in the first week of February, the United Nations calls on individuals and organisations around the world to hold events that encourage interfaith dialogue and promote the harmony that is the foundation of lasting peace. On Saturday 3 February 2024, UPF New Zealand answered that call at the Peace Embassy, 24 St Stephens Avenue, Parnell — gathering more than 20 Ambassadors for Peace, friends, and members of the faith community for the annual World Interfaith Harmony Week celebration.

The notice for the event had been short. Yet more than 20 people came — a testament to the relationships UPF New Zealand has built across Auckland’s diverse faith communities over many years of patient, persistent work.

The Spirit of the Week

World Interfaith Harmony Week, observed annually since its establishment by the United Nations General Assembly in 2010, is grounded in a simple but profound conviction: that the world’s religions, despite their differences in doctrine, practice, and culture, share a common commitment to goodness, compassion, and human dignity. In Aotearoa — a nation shaped by te Tiriti o Waitangi, by Pacific migration, and by waves of immigration from Asia, the Middle East, and beyond — this week is a natural fit for the values that UPF New Zealand seeks to embody year-round.

The 2024 gathering brought together representatives from four major faith traditions, each sharing their community’s perspective on the importance of interfaith dialogue and mutual respect:

• Christianity — Rev. and Mrs. Suamalie Naisali Iosefa Naisali
• Islam — Mohammad Khan, Imraan Hussein, and Anne Pala Degia-Pala
• Sikhism — Harjit Singh, Karmjit Singh, and Jappan Kaur
• Hinduism — Harnam Singh Golian (a former Senator of the Fiji Parliament) and Mr. Tej Ram

Members of the UPF Peace Federations also attended, bringing the interfaith conversation into dialogue with UPF’s broader vision of one family under God.

Sharing the Importance of Interfaith Activity

The heart of the gathering was an open conversation about why interfaith activity matters — and why it matters now. Each representative shared the perspective of their own tradition: how Islam understands the divine call to justice and compassion; how Sikhism’s teaching of ik onkar (one God, one humanity) shapes its approach to interfaith relationships; how Hinduism’s recognition of multiple paths to the divine creates a natural openness to dialogue; and how Christianity’s call to love one’s neighbour — including the neighbour of a different faith — grounds interfaith work in theological conviction, not merely civic politeness.

These were not merely academic presentations. They were expressions of lived faith — of communities that have found, in their own scriptures and traditions, a mandate for the kind of meeting that was happening in that room.

The gathering also drew on the vision of Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon and Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon, co-founders of UPF, who dedicated their lives to the conviction that true peace cannot be achieved without overcoming the barriers between religions. For UPF, interfaith work is not peripheral — it is central to the entire project of building a world of lasting peace.

One Family Under God

As the gathering drew to a close, there was a shared sense of what UPF New Zealand calls “reconfirmation” — a renewal of the vision that draws people from different backgrounds to the same room and the same purpose. As participants reflected afterwards, this annual gathering always enables the community to reconfirm the vision of one family under God.

It is a vision that does not erase difference. The faith traditions represented in that room at the Peace Embassy are genuinely distinct — in their theologies, their practices, their histories, and their communities. Interfaith harmony is not achieved by pretending otherwise. It is achieved by discovering what lies beneath those differences: a shared humanity, a common longing for goodness, and a recognition that the God who made us all made us for one another.

UPF New Zealand is grateful to every faith leader and Ambassador for Peace who gave their time and presence to make the 2024 World Interfaith Harmony Week celebration what it was. The Peace Embassy, as always, was glad to be the house in which this particular family gathered.

Sometimes the most powerful acts of peacebuilding happen in spite of circumstances, not because of them. UPF New Zealand’s commemoration of the United Nations World Interfaith Harmony Week 2023 — held on Saturday 4 February at the Peace Embassy, 24 St Stephens Avenue, Parnell — was one such occasion.

Just days before the gathering, Auckland had experienced its heaviest rainfall in 170 years of recorded history. Severe flooding had damaged thousands of homes across the city. Roads were compromised, communities were reeling, and the UPF New Zealand committee faced a difficult question: should the event go ahead?

The answer came from the Ambassadors for Peace themselves. Their collective willingness — their refusal to let a crisis silence a message about harmony — meant the gathering proceeded. And as if by grace, the day itself arrived sunny and warm. The theme chosen for 2023 could not have been more fitting: “Creating Harmony in a World in Crisis.”

A Community That Shows Up

Around 25 Ambassadors for Peace and faith leaders gathered at the Peace Embassy for the event — a number made all the more remarkable by the conditions of the week preceding it. Their presence was itself a statement: that the work of interfaith peacebuilding does not pause for hardship.

The programme was opened by Geoffrey Fyers, Secretary General of UPF New Zealand, who served as emcee and welcomed the gathering. Rev. Suamalie NT Iosefa Naisali, Chairman of the Interreligious Association for Peace and Development (IAPD) New Zealand, offered an inspiring opening prayer — grounding the occasion in the spiritual conviction that people of all faiths are, at their core, members of one human family.

Kenji Watanabe, Chairman of UPF New Zealand, then introduced the IAPD and offered a challenge to the assembled leaders: that religious communities must unite, so that the shared values of the world’s faiths can function as the conscience of society. In a world increasingly fragmented by ideology and fear, he argued, the moral voice of faith is indispensable.

Reaffirming a Shared Resolution

A significant moment in the programme was the reaffirmation of the Resolution adopted at the inauguration of IAPD New Zealand in 2019 — originally signed by approximately 70 participants. The Resolution was read aloud by Mrs. Ruth Cleaver, former President of the Auckland Interfaith Council, whose long history of interfaith service in Aotearoa lent the moment particular weight.

The act of reaffirmation was deliberate and meaningful. In a time of crisis — both local and global — it was a reminder that the commitments made in more settled times are exactly the commitments that must be renewed when the world becomes difficult.

Voices from Across the Faith Spectrum

The heart of the programme was a series of presentations from representatives across Auckland’s diverse faith communities. Each was invited to offer prayers for world peace and harmony, to share reflections on their tradition, or to give words of insight befitting the occasion:

• Rev. Sirr Christoffersen — representing the Sufi tradition
• Dr. Sheikh Mohammed Amir — representing the Muslim faith
• Mr. Rajender Kumar — representing the Sikh faith
• Mrs. Daisy Lee — representing Falun Gong, a Buddhist-based organisation
• Mr. Tej Ram — representing the Hindu faith
• Tuvaluan ministers — representing Pacific Island Christianity

The diversity of voices gathered in the Peace Embassy that Saturday reflected something of the extraordinary multicultural fabric of Auckland — a city where, within a short distance, you may find mosques, mandirs, gurdwaras, churches, and temples. UPF New Zealand’s interfaith gatherings exist to bring those communities into genuine dialogue, not merely symbolic proximity.

Looking Ahead to 2023

The event also served as UPF New Zealand’s kick-off meeting for 2023, with the organisation announcing its calendar for the year ahead. The flagship event — Youth and Family Peace Day on 11 November — was previewed as a major celebration of marriage and family culture, to be held at the Due Drop Events Centre in Manukau.

The announcement generated quiet excitement in the room. Youth and Family Peace Day would go on to become UPF New Zealand’s most significant public event to date, drawing over 350 people — a number that would have been hard to imagine on that February morning in the aftermath of the floods.

Refreshments were shared at the conclusion of the programme, and the atmosphere — despite everything the week had held — was one of warmth, resilience, and genuine community. As the 2023 theme declared: harmony is not the absence of crisis. It is what we choose to build within it.