• Congressman Dennis Moore and Congresswoman Karen McCarthy opened the conference, held on State Line. Proclamations from Governors Graves and Holden and area mayors were acknowledged. 
• Although the conference was focused on Greater Kansas City, several out-of-town, out-of-state, and foreign visitors learned about it and were drawn here. 
• About two dozen high school and college students were involved. Students were represented on each of the three Saturday panels. The Pembroke venue was used to emphasize that we are all students learning from each other.
• Eighteen civic leaders such as Beth Smith and Bob Stephan had provided early planning advice.

• A process called “Appreciative Inquiry” was used throughout the two days to help people, one-on-one and in small groups, encounter each other in the depths of their faiths quickly and with mutual respect. 
• With preparation by four focus groups held last summer, three Saturday panels of religious leaders addressed (1) environmental, (2) personal, and (3) social failings of our time in the context of Kansas City, with the resources of their respective traditions. On Sunday a panel on the role of religion in Kansas City with leaders from government, media, business, and the non-profit sector was featured, and a final panel discussed “Where do we go from here?”
• Many faith groups held  pre-conference open houses on Friday, and workshops were offered on most faiths on Saturday. Sunday began with an interfaith worship service. Throughout the conference, faith groups had displays and information for registrants.

The Declaration begins, “This is an historic moment because never before have people of so many faiths in the Kansas City area convened to explore sacred directions for troubled times.  Especially after the events of September 11, the need for our support for one another and the larger community is clear and commanding.” 

• “The Gifts of Pluralism” was conceived by the Kansas City Interfaith Council, a program of CRES, and under CRES auspices, direction, and support. Vern Barnet, president of CRES, was conference president. Larry Guillot is CRES Board Chair.
• Co-sponsors were KC Harmony, NCCJ, and Spirit of Service. Churches with world headquarters here (Community of Christ, the Church of the Nazarene, Unity School of Christianity) were official observers at Interfaith Council planning meetings and participated in the conference.
• A list of some 80 leaders and presenters  (Clyde F Wendel, Stumbling Deer, Bill Tammeus, Bilal Muhammed, Saraswati Shanker . . . ) is available on our web site or by request, along with the members of the Interfaith Council.

CONCLUDING CONFERENCE DECLARATION

This is a historic moment because never before have people of so many faiths in the Kansas City area convened to explore sacred directions for troubled times. Especially after the events of September 11, the need for our support for one another and the larger community is clear and commanding.
        As members of the greater Kansas City community and guests, we have assembled October 27 and 28, 2001, and worked together, worshipped together, enjoyed each other, and learned from each other. 
         Receiving suggestions made throughout this meeting for enlarging and improving this statement, we celebrate the gifts of pluralism we have begun to offer to one another.

We do hereby declare our resolve to work towards making Kansas City a model community, where interfaith relationships are honored as a way of deepening one's own tradition and spirituality, and where the wisdom of the many religions successfully addresses the environmental, personal and social crises of our often fragmented world. 

      ¶ The gifts of pluralism have taught us that nature is to be respected rather than controlled; nature is a process that includes us, not a product external to us to be used or disposed of.  Our proper attitude toward nature is awe, not utility. 
       ¶ We have also learned that our true personhood may not be the images of ourselves constrained by any particular social identities.  When we realize this, our acts can proceed spontaneously from the duty and compassion , and we need not be unduly attached to results beyond control. 
     ¶ Finally, when persons in community govern themselves less by profit and more by the covenant of service. the flow of history toward to peace and justice is honored and advanced.

We declare that through our encounter we have discovered that clearer directions for our several faiths and for our society at large are needed and possible.  In the names of our faiths too often prejudice and injustice have been perpetuated, and we know that bias and bigotry continue. 

The work we have done this weekend  is a turning point to overcome the misunderstandings that separate persons and communities of faith. We resolve to deepen our commitments to our own faith communities and to enlarge our understanding of kinship by honoring the faiths of others.  This conference, “The Gifts of Pluralism,” is thus the beginning of an expanded conversation by which we may show both our humility and our gratitude in offering service to that which is Infinite and Ultimate, which we call by many names but identify in our hearts as the Source from which come, to which we return, and which holds us in this present opportunity.