Claim. Per Hendricks, the deepest and most difficult task in interreligious peacebuilding is not articulating shared ideals or values but harmonizing actual worship — because that is where religions concretely divide.
Elaboration. Per intro: “Where do religions divide? Not in ideals, not in values, not in shared hopes for peace. They divide when they worship.” Shared values forums (UPF-style) are a good first step, but participants then “return to our separated houses of worship to meet the divine and form our communities and families.” Hendricks identifies this as “perhaps the most challenging of all that Reverend Moon has assumed.”
The structural obstacle is that worship is led by full-time professionals whose role is to maintain tradition and bless their congregations through it — making clergy “among the least likely candidates for conversion to a new way.” This is why the populist-church form, which is “built for change” and not wedded to tradition/formality/symbols, is named as the only viable substrate for the merger. The strategic claim is theological-ecclesial, not merely political.
See also. meltdown-worship, populist-church, youth-led-interfaith-worship-as-only-mechanism