The Kyoto Declaration of the First World Assembly, 1970
![](img/image13.jpg)
The World Conference of Religions for Peace represents an historic attempt
to bring together men and women of all major religions to discuss the urgent
issue of peace. We meet at a crucial time. At this very moment we are faced
by cruel and inhuman wars and by racial, social, and economic violence.
Man's continued existence on this planet is threatened with nuclear extinction.
Never has there been such despair among men. Our deep conviction that the
religions of the world have a real and important service to render to the
cause of peace has brought us to Kyoto from the four corners of the earth.
Baha'i, Buddhist, Confucian, Christian, Hindu, Jain, Jew, Muslim, Shintoist,
Sikh, Zoroastrian, and others-we have come together in peace out of a common
concern for peace.
As we sat down together facing the overriding issues of peace, we discovered
that the things which unite us are more important than the things which
divide us. We found that we share:
・A conviction of the fundamental unity of the human family, and the equality
and dignity of all human beings;
・A sense of the sacredness of the individual person and his conscience;
・A sense of the value of the human community;
・A realization that might is not right; that human power is not self-sufficient
and absolute;
・A belief that love, compassion, selflessness, and the force of inner truthfulness
and of the spirit have ultimately greater power than hate, enmity, and
self-interest;
・A sense of obligation to stand on the side of the poor and the oppressed
as against the rich and the oppressors; and
・A profound hope that good will finally prevail.
Because of these convictions that we hold in common, we believe that a
special charge has been given to all men and women of religion to be concerned
with all their hearts and minds with peace and peacemaking, to be the servants
of peace. As men and women of religion, we confess in humility and penitence
that we have very often betrayed our religious ideals and our commitment
to peace. It is not religion that has failed the cause of peace, but religious
people. This betrayal of religion can and must be corrected.
In confronting the urgent challenges to peace in the second half of the
twentieth century, we were compelled to consider the problems of disarmament,
development, and human rights. Clearly peace is imperiled by the ever-quickening
race for armaments, the widening gap between the rich and the poor within
and among the nations, and by the tragic violation of human rights all
over the world. In our consideration of the problems of disarmament, we
became convinced that peace cannot be found through the stockpiling of
weapons. We therefore call for immediate steps toward general disarmament,
to include all weapons of destruction-conventional, nuclear, chemical,
and bacteriological. We found that the problems of development were aggravated
by the fact that the resources spent on research, and on the manufacture
and stockpiling of such weapons, consume a grossly inordinate amount of
the resources of mankind. We are convinced that these resources are urgently
needed instead to combat the injustices that make for war and other forms
of social violence. Any society in which one out of every four children
dies is in a state of war. While development of itself may not bring peace,
there can be no lasting peace without it. Therefore we pledge our support
to the effort of the United Nations to make the 1970s a decade of development
for all mankind.
The social convulsions clearly evident in the world today demonstrate the
connection between peace and the recognition, promotion, and protection
of human rights. Racial discrimination, the repression of ethnic and religious
minorities, the torturing of political and other prisoners, legalized and
de facto denial of political freedom and equality of opportunity, the denial
of equal rights of women, any form of colonialist oppression-all such violations
of human rights are responsible for the escalation of violence that is
debasing human civilization.
While we of this Conference speak for ourselves as persons brought together
from many religions by our deep concern for peace, we try also to speak
for the vast majority of the human family who are powerless and whose voice
is seldom heard-the poor, the exploited, the refugees, and all who are
homeless and whose lives, fields, and freedoms have been devastated by
wars. We speak to our religions, the ecumenical councils and all interfaith
efforts for peace; to the nations, beginning with our own; to the United
Nations; and to men and women outside established religions who are concerned
about human welfare.
To one and all, beginning with ourselves, we say that the point of departure
for any serious effort in human enterprise-educational, cultural, scientific,
social, and religious-is the solemn acceptance of the fact that men and
all their works are now united in one destiny. We live or die together
in the struggle for peace. We cannot honestly denounce war and the things
that make for war unless our personal lives are informed by peace and we
are prepared to make the necessary sacrifice for it. We must do all in
our power to educate public opinion and awaken public conscience to take
a firm stand against war and the illusory hope of peace through military
victory. We are convinced that religions, in spite of historic differences,
must now seek to unite all men in those endeavors which make for true peace.
We believe that we have a duty transcending sectarian limits to cooperate
with those outside the historic religions who share our desire for peace.
We pledge ourselves to warn the nations whose citizens we are that the
effort to achieve and maintain military power is the road to disaster.
It creates a climate of fear and mistrust; it demands resources needed
for the meeting of the needs of health, housing, and welfare; it fosters
the escalation of the arms race that now threatens man's life on earth;
it sharpens differences among nations into military and economic blocs;
it regards peace as a truce or a balance of terror; it dismisses as utopian
a truly universal concern for the welfare of all mankind. To all this we
say "No!"
We desire to convey our concern for peace to the United Nations. The achievement
and maintenance of peace requires not only a recognition of the existence
of the United Nations, but, even more, support for and implementation of
its decisions. We urge universal membership in the United Nations, a more
just sharing of power and responsibility in its procedures. We urge the
member nations to accept its leadership in resolving issues that have led
or may lead to conflicts.
It is our hope that this Conference will help us see and accept our responsibility
as men and women of religious faith for the achievement of true and lasting
peace.