American Ecumenicism: Chicago's World's Parliament of Religions of 1893

Abstract

The recent work of the Roman Catholic Ecumenical Council brings to mind that nearly three-quarters of a century ago Americans, too, initiated a search for spiritual unity and under standing. Though motivated and propelled by different forces, American ecumenicism mirrored the reform impulse prevalent during that time. Its most striking manifestation was the World's Parliament of Religions of 1893. A layman, Charles Carroll Bonney, a Chicago educator and jurist, deserves considerable credit for this almost forgotten event; for, in large part, the idea sprang from his mind. Fearful lest the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 descend to merely extolling man's mechanical and material victories, he suggested as early as 1889 that Chicago's World's Fair provide an oppor tunity for international spokesmen of science, arts, and letters to gather and converse. His proposal excited the imaginations of the leaders of the exposition, and in the following year he was appointed chairman of the World's Congress Auxiliary of the World's Columbian Exposition with authority to implement plans for just such a series of gatherings.1 Out of these efforts evolved a series of congresses on the world's religions, culminating in a parliament of the world's faiths. The details for these ecumenical assemblages were flung into the lap of tall, slender, forty-six year-old John Henry Barrows, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago.2 Of New England heritage, a former student at Yale, Union, and Andover,3 Barrows surrounded himself with a committee of outstanding American representatives of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. They were an enthusiastic group, for deep in their hearts they knew that what they were about to do had heretofore been