Esteemed religious leaders, scholars and friends. It gives me great pleasure to greet you this morning. I commend the principal architects of this conference for their vision.

I reflect upon the relation of religion to culture, relations among the world's religions, contemporary attitudes towards religion, and the place of the World Scripture project in connection to these matters.

We have just completed the only century in history in which leading cultures and societies attemped to live without religion. It is only the modern experiment since the late 19th century which reappropriated and developed the Hellenistic foundations to produce worldviews devoid of Divine reality.

In the hierarchy of options we have: God (the uppermost), rationalism, secular humanism, naturalism, scientism, and materialism (the lowest). In our century, two forms of materialism have challenged religion; these are dialectic and historical materialism (atheistic communism) , and consumerism (western capitalism).

Atheistic communism has collapsed having claimed millions in unprecedented genocides. Consumerist materialism continues to strive spawning many sub-ideologies. However, its power of destruction and devastation is fast becoming evident both in the disintegration of American society and in the arena of international relations.

Recent race riots in Los Angeles, , the plague of drugs, gangs, governmental corruption, family abuses, the spread of AIDS, and other malaise attest to the decline of our civilization.

In his speech to over 800 religious leaders in the 1985 Assembly of the world's religions, Reverend Moon asked: "Why do we find such serious problems prevailing in our socities, problems including confusion in our value systems, moral corruption...unjust distribution of wealth and disregard for human rights? These vices, he says, "are the natural outcome of hedonism, materialism, and secular humanism that deny the relevance of God. These are the effects of the declining faith and spiritual exhaustion of this generation."

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