The fundamental values of some are clearly the outmoded beliefs of others: Veiling the female face and body and strict segregation of the sexes, races, religions or ethnic groups are striking examples. What some regard as sacrosanct often serves to impede progress.

Here is the challenging judgment of Shoghi Effendi (1897-1957), the former head and Guardian of the Bahá'i faith, one of the most incisive commentators of 20th-century world affairs:

"The call of Bahá'u'lláh is primarily directed against all forms of provincialism, all insularities and prejudices. If long-cherished ideals and time-honoured institutions, if certain social assumptions and religious formulae have ceased to promote the welfare of the generality of mankind, if they no longer minister to the needs of a continually evolving humanity, let them be swept away and relegated to the limbo of obsolescent and forgotten doctrines. Why should these, in a world subject to the immutable law of change and decay, be exempt from the deterioration that must needs overtake every human institution? For legal standards, political and economic theories are solely designed to safeguard the interests of humanity as a whole, and not humanity to be crucified for the preservation of the integrity of any particular law or doctrine" (The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh, p. 42).

Of course, when we speak of universal spiritual values such as compassion, forgiveness, understanding, love, mercy and tolerance, these qualities are unchanging bulwarks that are valid in all times and climes. They need special attention in those periods of human history when they cease to be practised. Today Bahá'is uphold the unity of humanity and the oneness of religion as fundamental values.

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GEOFFREY KERSLAKE is a priest of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Ottawa.

Although society is experiencing rapid changes in technology and social communication, the fundamental beliefs and values of the Catholic Church are based on objective, God-given truths: St. Paul reminds us in his letter to the Hebrews: "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." (Heb 13:8) However, due to changes in technology or cultural mores each generation must appropriate for itself the truths of the faith and deal with new developments in society while remaining faithful to the Church's core values and beliefs. For example, the commandment "Thou shall not kill" did not need much explanation two hundred years ago whereas today our capacity for mass destruction of human life through biological or nuclear weapons at one end of the scale, and the threat to human life developing in the womb at the personal level through bioengineering and abortion at the other end of the scale, necessitate the need to carefully study how to safeguard the objective value of the worth and dignity of each human life. So, while the core values and teachings remain consistent with their God-given foundation, how we authentically live these values needs to be constantly examined and their application adapted to address new developments in a manner faithful to Church teachings. One point to consider is that at this point in human history the pace of change is so rapid that we sometimes have difficulty foreseeing the consequences of our actions: too often we are only asking "how do we do this" rather than "is this a good thing to do?" When the stakes are so high, we would be wise to respect God-given, unchanging values that provide an objective standard with which to examine and evaluate social and technological change.

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Rev. KEVIN FLYNN is an Anglican priest and director of the Anglican studies program at Saint Paul University.

Rapid change brings contemporary Christianity into the awkward position of having been culturally established but not yet fully disestablished.

This gives us the chance to think about whose fundamental values we live by. For example, most of us today assume that religion belongs to a private sphere. This view, dating from the Enlightenment, requires that morality demands respect for "the individual." Ethics can then be divorced from religion. Politics becomes a means to ensure toleration and cooperation between people who share nothing beyond their desire to survive and thrive as autonomous individuals. We are baffled, offended and disturbed by the encounter with religious traditions that continue to refuse to distinguish in this way between private and public spheres, where religion effectively deals with all of life.

Before Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in the fourth century, Christians did not think of the Church as a benevolent society dedicated to improving the existing social order. Instead, they held that salvation is about the defeat of all powers that presumed to rule outside of God's providential care. Christians understood themselves to be an altogether new society. They weren't recalling the Roman empire to some forgotten moral values; they were telling a story that could not have been known except through the concrete behaviours of people who were living out the story that God had revealed.

How do we now live in a society that cannot give God his due because it cannot give its citizens their due, that is, as people made to search for and enjoy God for ever? How do we faithfully live out the story of Jesus Christ without falling into theocracy and domination as we have so often done in the past? In short, how do we live the value that God's will touches every part of life?

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KEVIN SMITH is on the board of directors for the Centre of Inquiry, Canada's premier venue for humanists, skeptics and freethinkers.

If Dylan wrote his 1960s anthem, "The Times They Are A Changin'" today, it's tempo would kick up a few notches. It's lyrics, symbolizing the civil unrest of a generation, just a stones throw ago, would need a changin'.

The only constant is change and it's travelling at warp speed. Technological change, communications change, economic change, environmental change and social change including political, religious and moral change.

Some of you might feel like you're sitting in the eye of a storm, everything around you is being turned upside down, inside out - nothing remains the same, except you, positioned in the centre, values intact - albeit with some degree of anxiety.

I look at it from a different angle. It's true that while our fundamental evolutionary values: our hopes and fears, likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, are constants within our species - the winds of social change have altered our Canadian moral landscape over the last 100 years. We are progressing toward "fundamental" humanist principles of ethics, reason, democracy and humans rights. It is shameful, and embarrassing that, back a handful of pages in our history, we interred Japanese citizens, stole Aboriginal children from their parents to "better" educate them and denied voting rights to women. There remain a few bronze-age stragglers who view homosexuals as evil incarnate and women as second class citizens, but this mindset will eventually be tossed into the graveyard of antiquated beliefs too.

Religion, by nature of it's strong traditions and deeply held convictions has been slower at adapting to societal changes but there are encouraging signs. Forward thinking congregations include gay ministers, women are demanding their rightful place at the pulpit and the Pope has accepted that condoms save lives. They have no choice. Change is inevitable.

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ABDUL RASHID is a member of the Ottawa Muslim community, the Christian-Muslim Dialogue and the Capital Region Interfaith Council.

It is not clear from the question which accelerating changes or which fundamental values are we talking about. Human society is constantly changing. Even if fundamental values do not change, we find that the perceptions about these values change from one generation to the next.

These changes may stem from political, economic or social events. A simple example is the participation of women in the labour force. The Second World War necessitated this participation. And now, upward change in standards of living has made it necessary for most couples to join the workforce. This has resulted in many changes in values. A simple one is in social values or customs. The household chores are now generally shared by both spouses.

Another example is the large scale international migration is a recent phenomenon. This has led to major changes in the ethnic profiles of many countries. It has also resulted in acceptance of certain social/cultural practices previously considered foreign or even wrong. In the case of religions, doctrinal differences continue. However, there is a growing dialogue leading to mutual understanding and mutual respect.

As for moral values, these generally stem from the teachings of faith. Most people of faith are attached to these values and do not accept or agree to significant change or reversal in their fundamental moral values. However, what has come about is the degree of tolerance towards the variety of values other than those held by them.

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RICK REED is senior pastor at the Metropolitan Bible Church in Ottawa.

In his fascinating book Margin, Dr. Richard Swenson details how life has sped up exponentially in the past generation. He makes a compelling case that, while advances in technology have had many benefits, they've also have come with a serious downside. Essentially, they've taken the margin out of life for many of us.

Dr. Swenson defines margin as "the space between our load and our limits." As life accelerates, this space gets squeezed. When it does, we live with a sense of perpetual overload - physically, emotionally and financially.

What happens when we find ourselves in overload mode? The answer is that we start to live in fundamentally unhealthy and unsustainable ways. We find ourselves skimming through life, shallow and stressed. We fail to be good stewards of ourselves, our relationships or our community. In short, we compromise some fundamental values.

So how do we slow things down when life seems stuck on fast-forward? How do we keep from letting values slip when we find ourselves spinning?

We can learn what to do by following the example of Jesus. When He was being swamped by the demands of people, He would often slip away from the crowds to commune with His Father. Luke 5:16 tells us that "Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed" (Luke 5:16).

Spending time reading God's Word and talking with Him in prayer helps us regain our internal equilibrium. As we pour out our hearts to God in prayer, we gain insight on how to better order our days in a healthy way. We're able to see more clearly what we should prioritize and what we should delete from our over-crowded schedules. We gain spiritual strength and courage to live by eternal values rather than chasing the ever-changing fancies of our culture.

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RAY INNEN PARCHELO is a novice Tendai priest and founder of the Red Maple Sangha, the first lay Buddhist community in Eastern Ontario.

What exactly is changing in this way? The seasons still progress as they always have for eons. The clock and calendar still move the same way my grandfather knew. When I lay a fire in my fireplace, it still burns the same way. My garden doesn't seem to grow any faster than it did 20 years ago. So what changes are speeding up? While our natural world is degrading, it has not accelerated. Have we just selectively engineering certain change in new ways?

This project to accelerate certain change is a by-product of the techno-industrial solutions we in the so-called developed world have embraced (or had thrust upon us) in the hope that by controlling, manipulating and, most importantly, consuming our material world we can achieve happiness. Thus, by speeding up our material world, we aspire to relieve our suffering and dissatisfaction. The blur of activity, the parade of novelty, the steady replacements of bigger-more-faster, serves both to distract us from our suffering and delude us into believing we can manufacture and somehow eternally hold happiness.

The Buddha taught us that everything in our world changes, without our influence. Everything to which we try to ascribe some permanency has no fixed or permanent essence. The peace or happiness we crave itself is not permanent. It is precisely this quest for permanence of and the search for happiness in "things" which lead to the pain and sorrow we try so eagerly to avoid. Only by opening ourselves to the flow of the world and experiencing that flow without attachment (wanting it to stop, to control it or make it something we have forever) can we relieve the sorrow.

A change is not really "as good as a rest." We must learn first to rest, that is, refrain from distracting ourselves with some novelty which we expect to improve our lives. If we can refrain from hopping from this to that and attend to what is going on - the seasons, the ticking of the clock, the fireplace flames or the lazy transformation of a garden - we will find the relief and peace that we seek.

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Rabbi REUVEN BULKA is head of Congregation Machzikei Hadas in Ottawa and host of Sunday night with Rabbi Bulka on 580 CFRA.

Fundamental values, which are the values that are at the core of society, should be strong enough to withstand any assault, be it the challenge of change, the challenge of time, the challenge of keeping pace with the cost of living, etc.

There is great pressure to keep up with the latest, specially when it comes to communications. The latest inventions are not always inexpensive, and keeping up can drive people to do crazy things, such as stealing, to get the latest gadgets.

When the challenge to fundamental values is blatant, we are better able to counter it. We have no difficulty condemning theft of whatever sort. It is a no-brainer. But it is not so easy when the challenge is so subtle as to be almost imperceptible.

Take, for example, one of my pet peeves, call waiting. I remember when call waiting was introduced. We were excited about not having to miss a call. Granted that there are emergencies when interrupting conversation is the appropriate action. Otherwise, the idea that any conversation can be put on hold because of another call is simply rude. And with call waiting it was happening all the time.

Now, there is a new rudeness. It comes from mobile phones and other networking connectors. People can be engaged in a nice conversation when suddenly the phone rings. What is the reaction? Usually it goes something like this - my phone is ringing, I gotta (that is how it sounds) answer it. Why is the ringing phone more important than the conversation you are already involved in? What has happened to the fundamental value of respect?

It is the creeping intrusion on these values that is most scary, and for which we must be more vigilant. Excluding the circumstances of potential emergency, we need to learn to put the intrusions on hold and deal respectfully toward those with whom we are presently interacting.

It makes no sense, in this era of accelerating change, primarily in the area of communication, that we lose the capacity to respectfully communicate.

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