The short 16 year history of the Parliament shows that great advances in communication and understanding among religious leaders have been achieved. I really do appreciate the hard work of the Pagans, neoPagans, and others who have been involved in calmly and articulately presenting the many and varied practices and beliefs of “us” to religious leaders who used to reject us, and are now willing to have meaningful conversations with “us”.

This may make little difference in our own personal practices. But it can eventually make a HUGE difference in reducing persecution and getting our religious rights recognized around the world.

I do have a complaint, however. Those of us practicing Southwest Asian paganisms have been left out. Where are we, the Canaanites, Phoenicians, Mesopotamians, Sumerians, in the definition? I’m not entirely surprised we’re not there yet, since we are often not as well organized in a public presence as neoPagans, neoWiccans, Brit Trad Wiccans, etc., and various European oriented Reconstructionists.

I look forward to the PotWR continuing to further communication and understanding among religions. And i look forward to the eventual inclusion of Southwest Asian pagans, and others who have been omitted from the dialog.

As far as monotheism goes, I agree with Egyptologist Jan Assmann who characterizes monotheism like this: "For these religions, and these religions alone, the truth to be proclaimed comes with an enemy to be fought." I find it interesting that Assmann self-identifies as a monotheist in his most recent book "The Price of Monotheism". He apparently believes that it is somehow possible to radically reform monotheistic religions, but only once monotheists are willing to face up and try to alter the intrinsic tendency to intolerance that has always been part of monotheism qua monotheism.