Bishop William E. Swing—known simply to many as Bill—is one of those rare visionaries whose life’s work has been devoted to expanding humanity’s moral imagination. Throughout decades of ministry, global leadership, and tireless advocacy, he has consistently invited us to see beyond the boundaries that divide us and toward the deeper truth that binds us together. For Bill, compassion has never been merely a virtue. It is humanity’s greatest survival skill.
Bill’s global work was shaped during his years as Episcopal Bishop of California, serving one of the most culturally and religiously diverse regions of the world. Witnessing both extraordinary diversity and devastating religious violence, he asked a question that few religious leaders had dared to ask: “Why is there no permanent global organization where the world’s religions work together—not to erase their differences, but to serve humanity together?
That question became the seed of the United Religions Initiative (URI). Today, URI is the world’s largest grassroots interfaith network, bringing together thousands of Cooperation Circles in more than one hundred countries. Its members do not seek theological agreement. Instead, they work side by side to address poverty, environmental degradation, violence, displacement, and the everyday challenges facing communities across the globe. The vision is remarkably simple: Our differences need not become divisions.
When Karen Armstrong issued her Charter for Compassion in 2009, Bill immediately recognized a kindred vision. The Charter’s invitation—to restore compassion to the center of our personal, civic, educational, and political lives—echoed the same principles that had guided URI from its earliest days. Since the Charter’s founding, Bill has remained more than a supporter. He has been a mentor, a trusted advisor, a colleague, and a friend. His wisdom has helped shape the Charter’s understanding that compassion is not simply an individual practice, but a force capable of transforming communities, institutions, and nations.
Each year, this partnership finds powerful expression through two global initiatives. The first is the Mikhail Gorbachev–George Shultz Youth Award, honoring a young leader or youth organization whose work helps awaken the world to the urgent need to eliminate nuclear weapons. The second is the annual Nuclear Prayer Day commemoration, held this year from August 5 through August 9, remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki while inviting people of every faith—and of no particular faith—to unite in prayer, reflection, education, and action for a world free from nuclear weapons.
In recent years, Bill has devoted increasing energy to what he believes may be humanity’s greatest moral challenge. The existence of nuclear weapons. For Bill, nuclear abolition is not simply a political issue. It is a spiritual imperative and an expression of compassion on a planetary scale. This conviction led him to establish Voices for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons, a global movement bringing together faith communities, educators, youth, scientists, artists, peace advocates, and ordinary citizens around a shared commitment: ensuring that humanity never again experiences the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The movement is grounded in a simple but profound belief: The future cannot belong to weapons capable of ending civilization. It must belong to those willing to protect life.
While many know Bill as an organizer and bridgebuilder, fewer recognize the depth of his writing. Throughout his books, essays, and reflections, he continually returns to a central theme: Human beings are capable of creating entirely new ways of living together. His writing is filled with hope—not naïve optimism, but what might be called disciplined hope. He asks difficult questions about religion, power, fear, violence, and our collective future, while always returning to the possibility that compassion can become humanity’s organizing principle. Whether writing about interfaith cooperation, global citizenship, or nuclear disarmament, Bill challenges readers to think beyond inherited assumptions and toward what he often describes as our shared destiny.
At a time when the world faces war, polarization, ecological crisis, and renewed nuclear threats, Bishop Swing’s voice offers something increasingly rare: A vision that is both expansive and practical. He reminds us that peace is not simply the absence of conflict. It is the presence of relationships strong enough to prevent violence before it begins. His work invites us to imagine that compassion is not peripheral to global security—it is its very foundation.
In our upcoming With Compassion conversation, Bishop Swing reflects on a lifetime devoted to interfaith cooperation, the Charter for Compassion, the continuing danger posed by nuclear weapons, and why he believes that the next generation holds the key to humanity’s future. His story is ultimately not about organizations. It is about possibility and about believing that humanity can become more compassionate than fearful, more cooperative than competitive, and more committed to life than to the instruments of its own destruction.
Bishop Bill Swing has often reminded us that history is shaped by those willing to imagine what others believe impossible. The United Religions Initiative, the Charter for Compassion, and Voices for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons all spring from the same enduring conviction: that our deepest differences need not prevent our greatest cooperation. In the language of Charter for Compassion 2.0, Bill has spent his life helping us move from domination to partnership, from division to Beloved Community, and ultimately toward planetary flourishing. His legacy is not simply the organizations he has founded or inspired. It is the millions of people he has invited to recognize one another—not as strangers or adversaries—but as members of one human family, entrusted with the shared responsibility of safeguarding life on Earth.