The conference is scheduled to be held in Bandung, West Java, on December 11-13, 2023.
"As of November 17, 2023, the ministry's Balitbang Diklat has received 688 article abstracts," Head of Balitbang Diklat Suyitno said in a statement here on Sunday.
He noted that a call for papers is carried out to accommodate the community, scholars, practitioners, and academicians to share their thoughts on humanity and religion.
Most of the article abstracts that have been received came from Indonesia, China, Türkiye, Morocco, and Lebanon.
According to Suyitno, the Religious Affairs Ministry is intensively finalizing the preparations for the conference, both technically and substantively, including coordinating with various government and private stakeholders.
In addition to a meeting of religious leaders, academicians, and other institutions from three continents, the organizer will also hold various events, such as the Film Festival on Tolerance, the Religious Moderation Music Festival, and the Religious Moderation Innovation Expo.
"Those events receive a warm welcome from all elements of society," he said.
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Suyitno explained that the involvement of Latin America in the conference is the right step amid the Israel-Palestine conflict as well as other conflicts in other parts of the world. He expressed hope that the conference can give solutions to those issues.
"Through the theme that we are raising, namely Religion and Humanity, we want to explore the sources of religious values as instruments to provide solutions to humanitarian issues," he said.
He stated that the implementation of the conference was inspired by the Asian-African Conference, which was initiated by Indonesia's First President Soekarno. With the spirit of the Asian-African Conference, countries that were colonized were then able to become independent and sovereign.
This has encouraged the Ministry of Religious Affairs to duplicate the spirit by bringing messages of world peace and struggle for humanity.
"So that religion is present in providing humanitarian solutions; this is why the Ministry of Religious Affairs has to step in so that religion can be present as a solution to humanitarian problems," he remarked.
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Translator: Asep Firmansyah, Raka Adji
Editor: Yuni Arisandy Sinaga
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