Condoleezza Rice delivers keynote to World Congress of Religions

							     CONDOLEEZZA RICE DELIVERS KEYNOTE TO WORLD CONGRESS OF
                            RELIGIONS
                                    By Frank Kaufmann
                     December 2, 2012, Washington DC …..........   page 1

On Saturday, December 1, Stanford professor and 66th Secretary of State for the
United States, Condoleezza Rice delivered her keynote address at the World
Congress of Religions 2012 conference, in the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel,
Washington DC.

The meeting, held to honor the 150th birth anniversary of the Hindu seer and social
visionary Swami Vivekananda, convened engaged actors from government,
education, science, media, and non-governmental organizations. Conference
convener Dr. Pradip Ghosh of the Institute of World Religions, Washington Kali Temple,
described the conference goals as seeking to “use the interfaith search for shared
values … as the basis for efforts to eliminate poverty and support women's rights.”

Professor Rice's keynote address entitled, “Importance of Interfaith Cooperation to
Solve World Problems,” followed the afternoon session on Women's Empowerment,
Human Rights, and World Peace.

Ms. Rice is a strict presenter. High profile security was deliberately evident at all times.
Forbidding rules and regulations for her time with us were read from the podium in
advance, constraining the previously relaxed but suddenly snapped to attention
participants in attendance; no video, no audio, nor still photography permitted.
Questions must be submitted in writing, and will be received at the end of the formal
presentation. Thankfully no instructions were given about chewing gum or proper
posture.

Her presence on the other hand was pleasant. She is engaging, bright more than
warm, but by no means exuding anything less than giving respectfully, sincerely, and
whole-heartedly to her audience. She is a talented and responsible communicator,
well prepared, polished, and appropriate to the assignment. She has a genuine
presence, and seemed glad to be with a groups so primarily characterized by faith.

She is both the fully endowed politician, wiser in the shadows of nuance than the
listener, and the authoritative force of the high powered and high paid professor.
Professor Rice has been on the Stanford faculty since 1981 “They hired me when I was
11, she quipped with pleasant humor.” While there she won two of the highest
teaching honors – the 1984 Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching and the
1993 School of Humanities and Sciences Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching.

Rice brought themes and an orientation not often heard at gatherings of this sort, but
her presence was valuable. It is proper that her political views should be brought
before the scrutiny of spiritual leaders. Though speaking to an audience full of such
guests as Buddhist Senseis, Hindu Swamis, One Spirit Interfaith Seminary graduates,
    CONDOLEEZZA RICE DELIVERS KEYNOTE TO WORLD CONGRESS OF
                           RELIGIONS
                                    By Frank Kaufmann
                     December 2, 2012, Washington DC …..........   page 1

and Christian clergy, Ms. Rice devoted much of her address to classical, political,
American Conservatism. Her bridge across from the spiritual themes of the
conference to her own trademark convictions lay in the phrase, “not just dialogue,
but interfaith action.” With this shift to action, she leapt to an affirmation of
hopefulness in the “Arab Spring,” and from there on to a discourse on freedom and
democracy, rife with such language as those “on the right side of history.”

The path back to considerations less of a stretch for a meeting on interfaith, began by
decrying the “tyranny of the majority,” and oppression of the weak. Freedom, and
the ennobling gifts of democracy that Rice extols “must be for all,” she insisted,
unabashed over its implications for an internationally aggressive America, yet rich in
spiritual implications when we think that dreams for of positive welfare must be for
every person, universal. This universalism, “for all” provided ground for the religious
and spiritual elements of Ms. Rice's presentation. “Every great religion believes that
every life is worthy,” she said. “Each religion must act on that.”

Thus our political theory lecture retired from our hearing as she shifted to reflections
perhaps more apropos to the conference. She presented the roots of her own faith
confession, the grand, religious and educational achievements of her grandfather –
the first college educated in her Birmingham, Alabama family, and originator of
Presbyterianism in her family, which is also her own religious path. In these arise the
enduring social and spiritual causes Ms Rice champions, causes perhaps more
palatable to the interfaith-minded gathered, than the Conservative America foreign
policy she led off with.

Her account of her personal spiritual faith, and of the causes and passions she
champions, such as the education of women, and her persistent devotion to
education, the arts, and the responsibility of religiously committed people to alleviate
suffering was the more moving part of her own internal dialogue that unfolded in her
address. As a woman of significant charisma and integrity, she successfully labored
to traverse the political divide to a warm embrace among the interfaith peace-
seekers present. This lay in the concept that most animated the best of her talk, all
great religions affirm that every life must be treated as worthy.