'We're Trying to Change World History.'

Swing is a masterful fund-raiser. He knows that without money the most ambitious social ministries fail. Last year, his diocese had $50 million worth of projects under way. "We've got a hospital in the poorest part of town, eight health clinics, six alcohol-rehab and drug-rehab centers, seven life-care facilities, four facilities for the developmentally disabled, and two facilities for Hispanic immigrants," he recites, pausing to catch his breath. "And we're building a residential facility for homeless families."

Connections that go back 21 years help. Far more critical, though, is Swing's ability to win people's trust and then persuade them to buy into his vision. "We're giving people an opportunity to be as alive as they can be," he says. "To heal the sick, to give shelter to the homeless, and to improve lives. That's pretty compelling."

Imagine All the People?

The United Religions Initiative began in 1993 with a phone call. An official at the United Nations asked Swing to organize an enormous interfaith worship service at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco as part of an upcoming 50th-anniversary celebration of the signing of the UN charter. The historic event had taken place in 1945 right across the square at the Fairmont Hotel.

The invitation got the bishop thinking. He was troubled that countries around the world, including countries that had been at war against each other, had managed to achieve what the world's religions had not: unity, dialogue, cooperation. If nations could peaceably convene, Swing thought, why couldn't religions?

Initially, Swing hoped to discover that a UN-style body of religions was already in the works. But it wasn't. If the URI was going to exist, it was up to Swing to get it started. Thinking that he'd model it after the UN, with an assembly of religious leaders, he traveled around the world in 1996 pitching it to religious and interfaith officials and scholars. Mother Teresa vowed that she and the nuns in her order would pray for it. The Dalai Lama pledged to participate. The Shankaracharya of Kancheepuram, one of the Hindu gurus, giggled. "I found out that with these gurus, if they hear something that's true, it elicits joy, so they giggle," says Swing. The Vatican was more cryptic. "If this is of God, no one can stop it," one of the Pope's right-hand cardinals told the bishop. "But if it is of man, it will fail."

According to prevailing opinion, it was a nice idea that didn't stand a chance. The chief obstacle, Swing realized, was that the religions didn't know how to have a dialogue with one another. Swing didn't know how to start that dialogue, but David Cooperrider did.

Cooperrider teaches at Case Western's Weatherhead School of Management and runs an organization called Social Innovations in Global Management (SIGMA). After reading about the URI in a newspaper, he called Swing and asked if he could study the organization. The bishop had a better idea: Why not help build it? Cooperrider, who specializes in "appreciative inquiry," an alternative to traditional problem solving, was more than willing.

Instead of focusing on problems, appreciative inquiry explores positive outcomes, what Cooperrider calls "moments of highest engagement or passion." At the URI's organizational summits and regional conferences in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the United States, participants would interview each other -- Jew and Muslim, Buddhist and Baha'i, Christian and indigenous believer. They would ask each other questions like "How did you come to embrace your faith?" and "What's the greatest gift that you've received from your religion?" The idea is to develop a mutual respect, says Cooperrider -- to appreciate what's important, even precious, to someone from a different faith. The participants consider what they're trying to create, not what they're trying to eliminate: Imagine the world 30 years from now and describe three positive changes that have occurred.

Appreciative inquiry proved to be a powerful communication tool. "To this day, it astonishes me," says the Reverend Canon Charles P. Gibbs, 49, the URI's executive director in San Francisco. "We're bringing these improbable groups of people together. They're usually uneasy and, in some cases, fearful about being in the same room with one another. Yet, in the space of a few hours, they come to see one another as folks who have much in common, instead of seeing one another from across irreparable gulfs."

Going In Circles

William Swing and Dee Hock were a pretty improbable pair themselves: a bishop and a former banker. But they hit it off immediately. Based on the URI's brainstorming meetings, Swing and the design team realized that traditional models wouldn't work. Since they couldn't rely on the participation of religious leaders, they needed to build the URI from the bottom up, creating a grassroots organization where members, not an executive committee, are in control. Swing didn't know it, but they were speaking Hock's language.