Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Moojan Momen, Beyond Pluralism, bahai-library.com.
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Beyond Pluralism
Moojan Momen
1995-04
... I believe that there is, for Bahá'ís, a world beyond pluralism. I have
not fully worked out these ideas but I gave a preliminary account of them in
an "Is the Bahá'í Faith a World Religion?" which I wrote for Sen McGlinn's
magazine Soundings. I will try to summarize and develop these thoughts further
here.
The Bahá'í Faith at present appears as yet another religion, a competitor in
the world's religious market place. But I would argue that this is a
distortion of its real nature, a result of the present stage in its historical
development. This distortion is caused by the fact that up to now, all of the
leaders and intellectuals of the Bahá'í community have come from a narrow
cultural and intellectual basis (an Iranian-European-North American axis).
They have interpreted the Bahá'í teachings in accordance with their cultural
perspectives and the result is what we see today.
The Bahá'í Faith is, however, I would argue, in reality, a metareligion. It is
not another religion that has come to take the place of the existing religions
but rather a way of looking at the religious experience of the whole of
humanity. Philip Smith presents an interesting diagramatic view of this in the
first issue of the Bahá'í Studies Review, a diagram which, unfortunately, due
to the limitations of the Internet, I am unable to reproduce here.
I cannot believe that several thousand years of human religious experience and
knowledge are now all redundant because Bahá'u'lláh has come. Are the insights
produced by the great philosophers and mystics of Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism
all going to put aside? No, rather I believe that, in the future, people from
other cultures, Hindus, Theravada and Mahayana Buddhists, Chinese
religionists, and native peoples, will produce their own interpretations and
developments of the Bahá'í Faith from their own cultural and religious
viewpoints. These new views of the Bahá'í Faith will, I am sure, be scarcely
recognizable to us who know only the Bahá'í Faith today. They may in fact
possibly be much more recognizably Hindu, Theravada and Mahayana Buddhist,
Chinese, and native religionist than what we today call the Bahá'í Faith--in
the same way that the Bahá'í Faith in Iran is recognizably close to Shi`i
Islam in ethos, when compared with the Bahá'í Faith in America.
Every culture and religion sees the spiritual world in different ways and has
its differing emphases on the path to spiritual progress. If, as I have argued
in "Relativism: a basis for Bahá'í Metaphysics" (SBBR 5), these are all merely
different viewpoints on "the Truth", then the Bahá'í Faith should embrace them
all.
What I see the Bahá'í Faith doing is taking the religious traditions of the
world and developing these along their own traditional paths of spirituality.
What then is the role of the Bahá'í Faith? If each religious tradition is
going to carry on its own path, is there any point in the advent of the Bahá'í
Faith? The answer to these questions I would see as being three-fold.
There is the matter of eliminating religious conflict and prejuduices, and
the unity of humanity under the umbrella of the Covenant. Also, although each
tradition will in a sense be developing along its own lines, they will be
bound in by ties of loyalty to the Centre of the Covenant, the Universal House
of Justice.
The Bahá'í teaching will act as guidelines to keep the development of these
different spiritual paths along the "correct" lines. What I mean by this is
that there are certain principles in the Bahá'í teachings, such the abolition
of priests and other religious professionals, the equal spiritual station of
all humanity, the spiritual equality of men and women, etc. These Bahá'ís
principles would act as constraints on the ways in which any particular group
could develop. No group would be permitted (by its own members awareness of
these Bahá'í principles, if nothing else) to develop in ways that contravened
these principles.
The world-wide Bahá'í community would act as a medium in which these
different spiritual pathways would become globally available. But much more
than this, there would be a cross-fertilization of religious ideas and
practices such that, for example, Bahá'í mystics from Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic
and other backgrounds would meet and discuss their experiences and learn from
each other. This cross-fertilization of religious experience will be the basis
for the further spiritual evolution of humanity. Needless to say that we are
at present completely unable even to hazard a guess as to what form this might
take.
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──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Beyond Pluralism
Moojan Momen
1995-04
... I believe that there is, for Bahá'ís, a world beyond pluralism. I have
not fully worked out these ideas but I gave a preliminary account of them in
an "Is the Bahá'í Faith a World Religion?" which I wrote for Sen McGlinn's
magazine Soundings. I will try to summarize and develop these thoughts further
here.
The Bahá'í Faith at present appears as yet another religion, a competitor in
the world's religious market place. But I would argue that this is a
distortion of its real nature, a result of the present stage in its historical
development. This distortion is caused by the fact that up to now, all of the
leaders and intellectuals of the Bahá'í community have come from a narrow
cultural and intellectual basis (an Iranian-European-North American axis).
They have interpreted the Bahá'í teachings in accordance with their cultural
perspectives and the result is what we see today.
The Bahá'í Faith is, however, I would argue, in reality, a metareligion. It is
not another religion that has come to take the place of the existing religions
but rather a way of looking at the religious experience of the whole of
humanity. Philip Smith presents an interesting diagramatic view of this in the
first issue of the Bahá'í Studies Review, a diagram which, unfortunately, due
to the limitations of the Internet, I am unable to reproduce here.
I cannot believe that several thousand years of human religious experience and
knowledge are now all redundant because Bahá'u'lláh has come. Are the insights
produced by the great philosophers and mystics of Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism
all going to put aside? No, rather I believe that, in the future, people from
other cultures, Hindus, Theravada and Mahayana Buddhists, Chinese
religionists, and native peoples, will produce their own interpretations and
developments of the Bahá'í Faith from their own cultural and religious
viewpoints. These new views of the Bahá'í Faith will, I am sure, be scarcely
recognizable to us who know only the Bahá'í Faith today. They may in fact
possibly be much more recognizably Hindu, Theravada and Mahayana Buddhist,
Chinese, and native religionist than what we today call the Bahá'í Faith--in
the same way that the Bahá'í Faith in Iran is recognizably close to Shi`i
Islam in ethos, when compared with the Bahá'í Faith in America.
Every culture and religion sees the spiritual world in different ways and has
its differing emphases on the path to spiritual progress. If, as I have argued
in "Relativism: a basis for Bahá'í Metaphysics" (SBBR 5), these are all merely
different viewpoints on "the Truth", then the Bahá'í Faith should embrace them
all.
What I see the Bahá'í Faith doing is taking the religious traditions of the
world and developing these along their own traditional paths of spirituality.
What then is the role of the Bahá'í Faith? If each religious tradition is
going to carry on its own path, is there any point in the advent of the Bahá'í
Faith? The answer to these questions I would see as being three-fold.
There is the matter of eliminating religious conflict and prejuduices, and
the unity of humanity under the umbrella of the Covenant. Also, although each
tradition will in a sense be developing along its own lines, they will be
bound in by ties of loyalty to the Centre of the Covenant, the Universal House
of Justice.
The Bahá'í teaching will act as guidelines to keep the development of these
different spiritual paths along the "correct" lines. What I mean by this is
that there are certain principles in the Bahá'í teachings, such the abolition
of priests and other religious professionals, the equal spiritual station of
all humanity, the spiritual equality of men and women, etc. These Bahá'ís
principles would act as constraints on the ways in which any particular group
could develop. No group would be permitted (by its own members awareness of
these Bahá'í principles, if nothing else) to develop in ways that contravened
these principles.
The world-wide Bahá'í community would act as a medium in which these
different spiritual pathways would become globally available. But much more
than this, there would be a cross-fertilization of religious ideas and
practices such that, for example, Bahá'í mystics from Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic
and other backgrounds would meet and discuss their experiences and learn from
each other. This cross-fertilization of religious experience will be the basis
for the further spiritual evolution of humanity. Needless to say that we are
at present completely unable even to hazard a guess as to what form this might
take.
METADATA
Views12362 views since posted 1998; last edit 2012;
previous at archive.org.../momen_beyond_pluralism;
URLs changed in 2010, see archive.org.../bahai-library.org
Language
English
Permission
author
Share
Shortlink: bahai-library.com/512
Citation: ris/512
select Collection:
Archives
Articles
Articles-unpublished
Audio
Bibliographies
BIC
Biographies
Books
Chronologies
Compilations
Compilations-NSA
Compilations-personal
Documents
East-asia
Encyclopedia
Essays
Etc
Excerpts
Fiction
Glossaries
Guardian
Histories
Introductory
Letters
Maps
Music
Newspapers
NSA-documents
NSA-letters
Personal
Pilgrims
Poetry
Presentations
Resources
Reviews
Scripts
Software
Statistics
Study
Talks
Theses
Transcripts
Translations
UHJ-documents
UHJ-letters
Video
Visual
Writings
home
sitemap
series
chronology
search:
author
title
date
tags
adv. search
languages
inventory
bibliography
abbreviations
links
about
contact
RSS
new
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