Dear Organizers of the United Nations 2026 World Interfaith Harmony Week,

Thank you for the recent update of the UN project and for inviting me to write a letter of support. Having attended to the history and genesis of this project from 2006 onwards, I offer my support wholeheartedly notwithstanding a serious reservation, namely: what Christians. Jews and Muslims have in common is not a ‘word’, but a ‘command’: “Love God, Love your neighbour as yourself”!

Without the ‘as yourself’, the command has no address! A mere set of words, a set of concepts: ‘the love of God’, ‘the love of the Good’, ‘the love of the Neighbour’ doesn’t address anyone: no one is addressed, nobody is obliged. The only one that would be committed has been left out, namely: yourself!

Henk Bak
PS. At the age of 94 I live now in a nursing home near Melbourne, Salford Park,
Wantirna. Well cared for…

Since the beginning of the UN Harmony Week Project, I have participated with friends and other participants in ‘meditative walks’ on approx. 5 acres bushland in Trentham, Victoria, Australia: reports can be found in the World Interfaith Harmony Week archive.

In 2024 a book: Henk Bak, “World-views in Dialogue – Study and Anthology” has been published and made available worldwide, as the fruit of meditative walks, study, workshops, conversations on the subject since 2007.

Henk Bak Hist.Drs. Nijmegen Nederland
Salford Park
Wantirna
Vic 3125
Melbourne Australia

PDF of LETTER