125 years ago: The World's Parliament of Religions opens in Chicago

There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. Proverbs 14:12 (also Proverbs 16:25)

On September 11, 1893, the World's Parliament of Religions opened at the World's Congress Auxiliary Building (now the Art Institute of Chicago), in conjunction with the World's Columbian Exposition. The Parliament was the brainchild of Swedenborgian layman Charles C. Bonney, who appointed Rev. John Henry Barrows, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Chicago, as chairman of the General Committee. Religions represented at the Parliament, which ran until September 27, included not only ostensible Christianity, but Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Spiritualism, and Christian Science.

The most prominent speaker was Swami Vivekananda from India, who introduced Hinduism and spoke against fanaticism and in favour of tolerance and truth inherent in all religions. He opened his first speech on the afternoon of September 11 with the words, "Sisters and brothers of America!," prompting an immediate standing ovation from the crowd of 7,000, lasting for two minutes. While Swami Vivekananda, who had been on a speaking tour of the United States and Canada for several months before the Parliament, expressed criticism of the idea that any one religion possessed all truth, he used the Parliament as an occasion to promote Hinduism. Swami Vivekananda played a major role in promoting Vedanta--the school of Hinduism based on knowledge of the Upanishads, Brahma Sūtras, and Bhagavad Gītā--and Yoga in the West until his death in 1902 at the age of 39.

The World's Parliament of Religions was an event of major signifigance in introducing Eastern religion to the West, and thus an event helping to fulfil biblical prophecies of end-time deception. There have been several Parliaments of the World's Religions in recent years, beginning with one in 1993 in Chicago on the occasion of the centenary of the original Parliament, and most recently in 2015 in Salt Lake City. The number of religions represented has continued to expand, and the emphasis has increasingly been toward solving worldly problems, of the sort that Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, and other so-called Evangelical leaders have also been addressing. Birds of a feather--including "unclean and hateful birds" (Revelation 18:2)--flock together.