This article is random thoughts about the future of the United Religions' Vision in China. At present United Religions Initiative has no visibility to speak of in China. Its promise is for the future. The first question to answer from my point of view, is to investigate what the Chinese mean by the word "religion;" how do they understand that word vis a vis its meaning in Western European, Church on Sunday, Bible-based religions.

The Chinese world has celebrated spiritual presence for 5000 years of recorded history. Chinese homes have ancestral altars in the center of the house, no matter how poor. One announces weddings, bows beside the new bride or husband, reports the birth of children, and seeks for aid during crises at the ancestral altar. Somebody puts incense and flowers, freshly brewed tea and food at the altar every day. Confucius taught filial respect towards ancestors, but said that he was only passing on the tradition, he did not claim to have invented it.

Both homes and stores will prominently display an altar at the front door, with a censor for incense offerings to Tu Di Gong, the Earth God. Inside the store there may be another altar for Guan Di Gong, the patron saint of successful business, or Guan Shi Yin Bodhisattva, the Enlightened Being of Great Compassion. If a member of the family has "Taken Refuge" as a Buddhist, then they will observe Buddhist holidays and may have a special altar for the Buddha and Bodhisattvas where he or she will bow, light incense, and recite scriptures or recite the Buddha's name. Whenever somebody is born or dies, Buddhist monks come to recite sutras and mantras to benefit the departure.

If the family has Taoist leanings, they may call in Taoist priests to adjust the "fengshui" when they open a store, build a building, or suffer a calamity that requires a purging of negative energy. The family may visit a Taoist temple in the mountains if they are wealthy enough to afford a vacation in the country.

Since the 19th century, when a child decided to marry, the family may request the wedding be held in a Catholic or Protestant Church.

Clearly the Chinese attitude towards divinity is "all spirits and gods have some goodness in them. Why should I limit myself to only one? Isn't that cutting back on the benefits I could share with my family?"

The question arises, where is "religion" as Westerners define it, in this multiple-divinity, poly-theistic approach? One cannot say that the Chinese are not religious, to the contrary. But when asked the question: what religion are you? the Chinese are often hard-pressed to reply. All life has its spiritual aspect; it is not apart from the daily rounds of life, rather spirit and worship and contact with spiritual entities animates all aspects of life.

Two elements of the Chinese character, as I observe it, lend themselves to a bright future for the URI in China, once the vision is communicated. Those two elements are: a genius for social organization and relatedness and a deeply-rooted humanitarian value system.

The Chinese, thanks to the teachings of Confucius on social responsibility and relatedness, have a strong sense of civic identity. The Chinese are geniuses at organizing groups of people into highly-defined, complex working groups. (Student government at UC Berkeley is largely a Chinese event, with dozens of Chinese-surname candidates vying for office.) Given a disparate group of individuals the Chinese will find a way without hesitation to delegate authority in precise detail.

To the Chinese, the highest social virtue is "ren," or humaneness. Confucius and Mencius defined this virtue in "The Four Books," one of the Confucian Classics, and it has been a high ideal for 2500 years. The spirit of URI's appeal to end religiously-motivated violence will appeal to this intrinsic sense of mutual kindness and hospitality between religions. Our task will be to present the PPP and the Charter, as well as the organizing structure in a way that connects with the traditional icons of Chinese humanitarian mentality. Once the Chinese can authentically own the vision, and see its value in making whole what is so broken in the world, I think the URI will grow a new Asian dimension that will be both imaginative, uniquely Chinese, and which will extend and challenge our Western European model of religious relatedness in exciting ways.