Historically, the exclusion of religion from political life was seen as a vital step in the struggle to establish humane governance. However, the best secular thinking has fallen short of providing either a plausible path to such governance or a sufficiently inspiring vision that would mobilize a popular grassroots movement for global reform. This failure is partially due to the exclusion of religious and spiritual dimensions of human experience from the shaping of the vision and practices associated with the quest for global humane governance. The challenge is to infuse the struggles of the peoples of the world for democracy, equity, and sustainability with a vision of human existence that is human-centered yet recognizes the relevance of the spiritual sensibilities in the major world religions, moving us beyond a society based on reason and machines.
