World Religion Day is celebrated every January on the third Sunday of the month, so in 2022 it falls on 16 January. Its aim is to promote understanding and peace between all religions, encouraging people to learn about other faiths and their followers. The first such day was observed in 1950.
It is amazing how the seemingly opposing concepts of diversity and commonality work together, bringing a far richer experience for us all. I recently had the opportunity to revisit Birmingham, fondly seeing and remembering, how people of multiple faiths live and work together. Birmingham was the place where leading Theologian John Hick did most of his work and was an enormous advocate of cooperation and understanding amongst religions. He wrote “…given the various cultural ways of being human we can I think to some extent understand how it is that they constitute different “lenses” through which the divine Reality is differently perceived.” For Hick, our different beliefs, cultures and traditions all add the flavour of world and we not only acknowledge, but celebrate this. World Religion day gives us that opportunity not only to learn about others but about ourselves, which is an opportunity we should all find some time to take.