War and violence based on religious beliefs will not end until religions themselves agree and announce that God would never condone such behavior.

Presently, most of the world’s religions can’t do that, because most of the world’s religions teach of a God who is angry, violent, and retributive.

It is becoming clear that only if and when religions themselves teach of God in a new way can humans learn a new way to live.

Only when religions stop honoring a God who is said in the Bible to have killed or commanded the killing of two million people will people stop killing each other using religion as their justification.

Where is the religious leadership of today? Why do not the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the world’s Chief Ulamas, the world’s Chief Rabbis, the presiding bishops and/or the presidents or heads of the various Lutheran Churches, the Presbyterian Church, the Mormon Church, the Methodist Church and the various Baptist denominations issue a Worldwide Joint Declaration of Fundamental Religious Doctrine that states, clearly: “God is not punitive or violent, and does not in any instance or for any purpose under heaven bless, condone, approve, or command the use of violence to protect God’s Honor, to extend God’s Word, or to expand God’s Kingdom on Earth.”

To be fair, some (but not nearly all) of those spiritual leaders have denounced violence per se. And to give credit where it is due, Pope Francis just went further, issuing a public statement on Sept. 21 in which he said: “Let no one consider themselves to be the ‘armor’ of God while planning and carrying out acts of violence and oppression! May no one use religion as a pretext for actions against human dignity and against the fundamental rights of every man and woman, above all, the right to life and the right of everyone to religious freedom!”

Yet no one has dared to issue a statement — much less a joint declaration — which clearly states that GOD is not violent and retributive. Such a joint statement by all the world’s spiritual leaders would knock the foundation out from under the religious and spiritual justification that has so often been used for committing violent acts and for the outright killing of others.

Today I challenge and urge, invite and, yes, dare the world’s religious leaders to issue such a statement. I do so knowing full well, in advance, that they will do no such thing.

They can’t.

To issue such a statement would undermine the theological authority that is foundational in these religions: the idea that God’s Word and God’s Will must be obeyed, or God will punish humans with everlasting damnation.

It is this theological position which has allowed religions to look the other way when it is pointed out that the Bible narrative includes the killing of over two million people at the Hand or the Command of God. Such action was necessary, they assert, to punish those who openly violated the Will of God, and to purify the remaining living faithful, ensuring that no diversion from doctrine arises or is tolerated.

Thus, the killing of the Unfaithful has been justified by religious traditionalists and fundamentalists to this very day. We do as God does, they say, and as God commands us to do in protection of the One Truth Faith and in defense of the Honor of God.

We are seeing this occurring on Earth this very day. And the world’s religious leaders have yet to join together to raise their voice in a collaborative statement rejecting not only these violent actions based on religion, but the notion that God both commits and condones violence Himself in the name of His Honor and Purity.

Where is the world’s religious leadership?

In hiding.

(GOD’S MESSAGE TO THE WORLD: You’ve Got Me All Wrong, the latest book in the CWG cosmology, releases Oct0ber 23. It is a book that could change the world. Watch for announcements coming here soon on how it may be pre-ordered.)

Imagine a member of the United States Senate — actually, imagine any politician anywhere — saying something like this:

“Before you speak to me about your religion, first show it to me in how you treat other people.

“Before you tell me how much you love your God, show me how much you love all His children.

“Before you preach to me of your passion for your faith, teach me about it through your compassion for your neighbors.

“In the end, I’m not as interested in what you have to tell and sell as in how you choose to live and give.”

That statement has been made by Cory Booker, former mayor of Newark, New Jersey and now a member of the United States Senate from that state. He apparently made the statement a long time ago, and has repeated it many times since.

It is been a very long time since I’ve heard any elected official saying things like this. We need more of the this kind of leadership in the halls of governments everywhere. We need more of this kind of leadership outside of those halls as well. We need people who will stand up and say to things that need to be said. Do the things that need to be done. The things that they need to be in order to send a message through their actions can set an example for the world entire.

We need people who are willing to participate in the Evolution Revolution. People who are willing to step forward and step out. People who are willing to step up and step into the arena of public discourse and public action.

Where will we find such people? Let that be our question for the day. What could cause them to step up and step out? That has been the inquiry of the ages.  Yet if the events of this day and age are not sufficient to motivate people to take and to play a leadership role in the affairs of humans everywhere, nothing will.

From ISIS to ebola to Ferguson, Missouri, people everywhere are threatened at the level of their own survival. Presumably, the reason that most people elsewhere do little about this is that they do not feel threatened.  The threats that are touching the world–which extend far beyond those mentioned above–are not touching them directly. Yet if we believe what Conversations with God tells us—that We Are All One—then these threats most definitely are.

I will be discussing this in a personal telephone call with members of the Evolution Revolution Action Groups from around the world this Saturday morning. I would like to invite you—no, I would like to beg you—to be on that call with me. Alone, there is little we can do. Together, there is little we cannot do. Let’s get together this Saturday morning at 8 o’clock California time. Check to see when that is in your Time Zone and join me on the call.

The events of September 11, 2001 caused every thinking person to stop their daily lives, whatever is going on in them, and to ponder deeply the larger questions of life.

And as we observe the anniversary of those events, with the world facing now the continuing threat of terrorism and violence in the name of righteousness, we search again for not only the meaning of life, but the purpose of our individual and collective experience as we have created it—and we look earnestly for ways in which we might recreate ourselves anew as a human species, so that we may end at last the cycle of violence which has marred our history.

Life on our planet has brought us much sorrow, yet behind the sorrow, if we look closely and long, we will see opportunity. It is the opportunity for us to take a new path, to show the world a new way, to demonstrate at the highest level our most extraordinary thought about Who We Really Are—as a people, and as a human family.

The whole human race is invited now to look to see what it is we truly wish to experience on this planet. Then we are invited to be the source of that for each other.

If we wish to experience peace, we are invited to provide peace for each other.

If we wish to know that we are safe, we are invited to create safety for each other.

If we wish to better understand seemingly incomprehensible things, we are invited to help each other to better understand.

If we wish to heal our own sadness or anger, we are invited to heal the sadness or anger in each other.

If we wish to have justice done, we are invited to act justly with each other.

The world is waiting now. It is anxiously awaiting the morrow, not knowing what may come. Its people are looking for guidance, for help, for courage, for strength, for understanding, and for assurance at this hour. Most of all, they are looking for love.

The words to that familiar song were never, ever more meaningful than they are today:

What the world needs now is love, sweet love. That’s the only thing that there’s just too little of. What the world needs now is love, sweet love. No, not just for some, but for everyone.

This is the moment of your ministry. This could be the time of your greatest teaching. What you teach at this time, through your every word and action, will remain as indelible lessons in the hearts and minds of those whose lives you touch, both now, and for years to come.

We will set the course for tomorrow, today. At this hour. In this moment.

There is much we can do, but there is one thing we cannot do. We cannot continue to co-create our lives together on this planet as we have in the past. Yet we will continue to do so if we focus our energy on pinpointing where blame falls, rather than where cause lies, in the unhappiest of our experiences.

Unless we take this time to look at the cause of our wounds, we will never heal. Instead, we will forever live in fear of retribution from those within the human family who feel aggrieved—and, likewise, we will forever seek retribution for them.

To me the cause is clear. The majority of the world’s people have not learned the most basic human lessons. They have not remembered the most basic human truths. They have not understood the most basic spiritual wisdom. In short, most people have not been listening to God, and because they have not, they do ungodly things.

The message of God is clear. No matter what the religion, no matter what the culture, no matter what the spiritual or indigenous tradition, the bottom line is identical: we are all one.

The Bible, which is only one of humanity’s many sources of spiritual teaching, carries this message throughout, in both the Old Testament and the New.

(Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers? Malachi 2:10… so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Romans 12:5…Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body…1 Corinthians 10:17)

This is a message the human race has largely ignored.

Our religion, our politics, our economics, our education, our whole way of life is based on the idea that we are not one, but that we are separate from each other. We are thus willing to inflict all manner of injury upon each other. We would never do this if we thought that we were actually inflicting injury upon ourselves, yet this injury inevitably does fall upon ourselves—for like begets like, and negativity only breeds negativity.

Our history has proven this. Still, there seems to be one thing for which many human beings will give up anything. They will give up peace, love, happiness, joy, prosperity, romance, excitement, serenity, everything—even their own heath—for this one thing:

Being right.

But even if we are right, what is spirituality’s recommended course of action? What do the greatest spiritual teachers of all time, each in their own way, tell us at times such as these? It is something that many of us cannot (or do not wish to) hear.

…I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you, (Matthew 5:44)

Can this be sound advice?

If we could love even those who have attacked us, and seek to understand why they have done so, what would be the final result? Yet if we meet negativity with negativity, rage with rage, attack with attack, what then will be the outcome?

It is easy at times like this to fall into rage—and even to mistake it for justice. Yet rage never produces authentic justice. Indeed, it inevitably creates injustice—for someone. That is because rage is anger that has been repressed, and, when released, it is always misdirected. This is exactly what happened on September 11, 2001.

Anger itself is not inappropriate. Anger is a natural human response, and can even be a blessing, if it leads to change. Yet as we feel our anger and express, there is one thing about which we should make no mistake. The human race has the power to annihilate itself. We can end life as we know it on this planet in one afternoon.

In the early days of our civilization, we were able to inflict hurt upon each other using sticks and rocks and primitive weapons. Then, as our technology grew, we could destroy a village, or a town, or a major city, or even an entire nation. Yet now it is possible for us to destroy our whole world, and do it so fast that nothing can stop the process once it has begun.

Is that the process we wish to begin? This is the question we must answer.

In searching for our answer, I hope that each of us will have our own conversation with God, for only the grandest wisdom and the grandest truth can address the greatest problems, and we are now facing the greatest problems and the greatest challenges in the history of our species.

It should be no surprise that we are doing so. It is not as if we have not seen this coming. Spiritual, political, and philosophical writers for the past 50 years have predicted it. So long as we continue to treat each other as we have in the past, they have said, the circumstance we face in the present will continue to present itself in the future.

We must change ourselves. We must change the beliefs upon which our behaviors are based. We must create a different reality, build a new society. And we must do so not with political truths or with economic truths, and not with cultural truths or even the remembered truths of our ancestors—for the sins of the fathers are being visited upon the sons. We must do so with new spiritual truths. We must preach a new gospel, its healing message summarized in two sentences:

We are all one.

Ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way.

This 15-word message, delivered from every lectern and pulpit, from every rostrum and platform, could change everything overnight. I challenge every priest, every minister, every rabbi and religious cleric to preach this. I challenge every political party spokesperson and the head of every national government to declare it.

And I challenge all of us, right now, to become spiritual activists. If we want the beauty of the world and not its ugliness to be experienced by our children and our children’s children, we must choose to be at cause in the matter.