In 2002, as part of our efforts to develop and map the emerging field of interfaith education, the TOU launched the Consultation for Interfaith Education (CIE), in cooperation with other like-minded organizations. From this collaborative a conference series was born. The mission of the CIE is to identify both the problematic and promising features of interfaith education and lead the way in reaching new horizons in practical problem solving, peacemaking, and tolerance through education.


United Nations NGO Status
Soon after the founding of the TOU and at the urging of Eleanor Roosevelt, the TOU became a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) with the United Nations. In the mid 90s, the TOU Representative to the UN, Fr. Luis Dolan secured NGO Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

The Juliet Hollister Awards
In order to honor our founder's achievements and to support and affirm the work of religious figures who integrate interfaith values into their place of worship and secular figures who promote greater understanding of spiritual values in areas such as the arts, education, government, science, law and the environment, the Juliet Hollister Award was established in 1996.

Awardees include:

WHAT WE DO
The TOU envisions its programs and work as models for continued research into exceptional interfaith education in a variety of settings. The organization’s mission to advance cross-cultural and interreligious understanding is carried out in a dynamic experiential format of conferences, workshops and ongoing courses for both youth and adults. At the UN, the TOU is dedicated to advancing social justice in the global context of today’s world by promoting the UN Millennium Development Goals. Through a commitment to training tomorrow’s leaders in a culture of peace, the TOU continues its leadership in creating a more peaceful planet.      

To learn more about our current initiatives in interfaith education, our work at the U.N. and our most recent Hollister Award recipients, see the programs section of our website, What We Do.

Juliet Hollister's first run, limited edition memoirs,
Living My Dream: The Remarkable Story of the Temple
of Understanding.

"To me, one of the magic moments during those days was a great shift in consciousness from a world based on national interest, to one based on "world community"—the human family as one." --Juliet Hollister

"Juliet Hollister was in every way a very unassuming woman, but no one could ignore her selfless and pioneering spirit and her profound faith in the oneness of humanity and in the unity that should exist among the many spiritual traditions of the world. She was a woman who possessed a far wider range of vision than many of the men and women of her time. She had an undisguised and uninhibited delight in sharing that vision with whoever crossed her path. The purity of her motives and the fresh natural beauty of her thought captured whoever listened to her and no matter how radical were some of those thoughts she never allowed herself to become doctrinaire. She was acutely aware of the spiritual isolation of modern humanity which had been sorely tested by the carnage of war, a peace that was a "cold war", the looming threat of nuclear annihilation, and a divided world inspired by materialist ideals. In her own inimitable style she gave voice to her vision of a world not only consisting of "united nations" but also of a world consisting of "united religions and faiths." Juliet Hollister had realized by intuition what the great Mahatma Gandhi before her had strongly stated:
"…there will be no lasting peace on earth unless we learn not merely to tolerate but even to respect the other faiths as our own."

The validity of this belief was further emphasized thirty years after her pioneering attempts to set up a "Spiritual United Nations"—namely, The Temple of Understanding—when the distinguished theologian Hans Küng made the following statement at the Parliament of the World's Religions in 1993: Hans Küng made the following statement at the Parliament of the World's Religions in 1993:  "There can be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions."

From the Introduction by: Suheil Bushrui, Professor Emeritus, The George and Lisa Zakhem Kahlil Gibran Chair for Values and Peace, The University of Maryland

To order your copy, please call 212.573.9224 or send an email to info@templeofunderstanding.org.

GOLDEN RULE
The TOU has used the Golden Rule Ethics Across Traditions in its material since our inception in 1960.

Courtesy of Scarboro Missions