# One Common Faith

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Universal House of Justice, One Common Faith, Haifa: Bahá'í World Centre, 2005, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> One Common Faith
> 
> Universal House of Justice
> 
> Haifa: Bahá'í World Centre, 2005
> 
> Foreword
> 
> At Ridvan 2002, we addressed an open letter to the world's religious leaders.
> Our action arose out of awareness that the disease of sectarian hatreds, if not
> decisively checked, threatens harrowing consequences that will leave few areas
> of the world unaffected. The letter acknowledged with appreciation the achievements
> of the interfaith movement, to which Bahá'ís have sought to contribute since an
> early point in the movement's emergence. Nevertheless, we felt we must be forthright
> in saying that, if the religious crisis is to be addressed as seriously as is
> occurring with respect to other prejudices afflicting humankind, organized religion
> must find within itself a comparable courage to rise above fixed conceptions inherited
> from a distant past.
> 
> Above all, we expressed our conviction that the time has come when religious
> leadership must face honestly and without further evasion the implications of
> the truth that God is one and that, beyond all diversity of cultural expression
> and human interpretation, religion is likewise one. It was intimations of this
> truth that originally inspired the interfaith movement and that have sustained
> it through the vicissitudes of the past one hundred years. Far from challenging
> the validity of any of the great revealed faiths, the principle has the capacity
> to ensure their continuing relevance. In order to exert its influence, however,
> recognition of this reality must operate at the heart of religious discourse,
> and it was with this in mind that we felt that our letter should be explicit in
> articulating it.
> 
> Response has been encouraging. Bahá'í institutions throughout the world ensured
> that thousands of copies of the document were delivered to influential figures
> in the major faith communities. While it was perhaps not surprising that the message
> it contained was dismissed out of hand in a few circles, Bahá'ís report that,
> in general, they were warmly welcomed. Particularly affecting has been the obvious
> sincerity of many recipients' distress over the failure of religious institutions
> to assist humanity in dealing with challenges whose essential nature is spiritual
> and moral. Discussions have turned readily to the need for fundamental change
> in the way the believing masses of humankind relate to one another, and in a significant
> number of instances, those receiving the letter have been moved to reproduce and
> distribute it to other clerics in their respective traditions. We feel hopeful
> that our initiative may serve as a catalyst opening the way to new understanding
> of religion's purpose.
> 
> However rapidly or slowly this change occurs, the concern of Bahá'ís must be
> with their own responsibility in the matter. The task of ensuring that His message
> is engaged by people everywhere is one that Bahá'u'lláh has laid primarily on
> the shoulders of those who have recognized Him. This, of course, has been the
> work that the Bahá'í community has been pursuing throughout the history of the
> Faith, but the accelerating breakdown in social order calls out desperately for
> the religious spirit to be freed from the shackles that have so far prevented
> it from bringing to bear the healing influence of which it is capable. If they
> are to respond to the need, Bahá'ís must draw on a deep understanding of the process
> by which humanity's spiritual life evolves. Bahá'u'lláh's writings provide insights
> that can help to elevate discussion of religious issues above sectarian and transient
> considerations. The responsibility to avail oneself of this spiritual resource
> is inseparable from the gift of faith itself. "Religious fanaticism and hatred",
> Bahá'u'lláh warns, "are a world-devouring fire, whose violence none can quench.
> The Hand of Divine power can, alone, deliver mankind from this desolating affliction...."
> Far from feeling unsupported in their efforts to respond, Bahá'ís will come increasingly
> to appreciate that the Cause they serve represents the arrowhead of an awakening
> taking place among people everywhere, regardless of religious background and indeed
> among many with no religious leaning.
> 
> Reflection on the challenge has prompted us to commission the commentary that
> follows. One Common Faith, prepared under our supervision, reviews relevant passages
> from both the writings of Bahá'u'lláh and the scriptures of other faiths against
> the background of the contemporary crisis. We commend it to the thoughtful study
> of the friends.
> 
> THE UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE
> 
> Naw-Ruz 2005
> 
> One Common Faith
> 
> 1
> 
> THERE IS EVERY REASON FOR confidence that the period of history now opening
> will be far more receptive to efforts to spread Bahá'u'lláh's message than was
> the case in the century just ended. All the signs indicate that a sea change in
> human consciousness is under way.
> 
> 2
> 
> Early in the twentieth century, a materialistic interpretation of reality had
> consolidated itself so completely as to become the dominant world faith insofar
> as the direction of society was concerned. In the process, the civilizing of human
> nature had been violently wrenched out of the orbit it had followed for millennia.
> For many in the West, the Divine authority that had functioned as the focal centre
> of guidance-however diverse the interpretations of its nature-seemed simply to
> have dissolved and vanished. In large measure, the individual was left free to
> maintain whatever relationship he believed connected his life to a world transcending
> material existence, but society as a whole proceeded with growing confidence to
> sever dependence on a conception of the universe that was judged to be at best
> a fiction and at worst an opiate, in either case inhibiting progress. Humanity
> had taken its destiny into its own hands. It had solved through rational experimentation
> and discourse-so people were given to believe-all of the fundamental issues related
> to human governance and development.
> 
> 3
> 
> This posture was reinforced by the assumption that the values, ideals and disciplines
> cultivated over the centuries were now reliably fixed and enduring features of
> human nature. They needed merely to be refined by education and reinforced by
> legislative action. The moral legacy of the past was just that: humanity's indefeasible
> inheritance, requiring no further religious interventions. Admittedly, undisciplined
> individuals, groups or even nations would continue to threaten the stability of
> the social order and call for correction. The universal civilization towards the
> realization of which all the forces of history had been bearing the human race,
> however, was irresistibly emerging, inspired by secular conceptions of reality.
> People's happiness would be the natural result of better health, better food,
> better education, better living conditions-and the attainment of these unquestionably
> desirable goals now seemed to be within the reach of a society single-mindedly
> focused on their pursuit.
> 
> 4
> 
> Throughout that part of the world where the vast majority of the earth's population
> live, facile announcements that "God is Dead" had passed largely unnoticed. The
> experience of the peoples of Africa, Asia,
> Latin America and the Pacific had long confirmed them in
> the view not only that human nature is deeply influenced by spiritual forces,
> but that its very identity is spiritual. Consequently, religion continued, as
> had always been the case, to function as the ultimate authority in life. These
> convictions, while not directly confronted by the ideological revolution taking
> place in the West, were effectively marginalized by it, insofar as interaction
> among peoples and nations was concerned. Having penetrated and captured all significant
> centres of power and information at the global level, dogmatic materialism ensured
> that no competing voices would retain the ability to challenge projects of world
> wide economic exploitation. To the cultural damage already inflicted by two centuries
> of colonial rule was added an agonizing disjunction between the inner and outer
> experience of the masses affected, a condition invading virtually all aspects
> of life. Helpless to exercise any real influence over the shaping of their futures
> or even to preserve the moral well-being of their children, these populations
> were plunged into a crisis different from but in many ways even more devastating
> than the one gathering momentum in Europe and North
> America. Although retaining its central role in consciousness, faith
> appeared impotent to influence the course of events.
> 
> 5
> 
> As the twentieth century approached its close, therefore, nothing seemed less
> likely than a sudden resurgence of religion as a subject of consuming global importance.
> Yet that is precisely what has now occurred in the form of a groundswell of anxiety
> and discontent, much of it still only dimly conscious of the sense of spiritual
> emptiness that is producing it. Ancient sectarian conflicts, apparently unresponsive
> to the patient arts of diplomacy, have re-emerged with a virulence as great as
> anything known before. Scriptural themes, miraculous phenomena and theological
> dogmas that, until recently, had been dismissed as relics of an age of ignorance
> find themselves solemnly, if indiscriminately, explored in influential media.
> In many lands, religious credentials take on new and compelling significance in
> the candidature of aspirants to political office. A world, which had assumed that
> with the collapse of the Berlin Wall an age of international peace had dawned,
> is warned that it is in the grip of a war of civilizations whose defining character
> is irreconcilable religious antipathies. Bookstores, magazine stands, Web sites
> and libraries struggle to satisfy an apparently inexhaustible public appetite
> for information on religious and spiritual subjects. Perhaps the most insistent
> factor in producing the change is reluctant recognition that there is no credible
> replacement for religious belief as a force capable of generating self-discipline
> and restoring commitment to moral behaviour.
> 
> 6
> 
> Beyond the attention that religion, as formally conceived, has begun to command
> is a widespread revival of spiritual search. Expressed most commonly as an urge
> to discover a personal identity that transcends the merely physical, the development
> encourages a multitude of pursuits, both positive and negative in character. On
> the one hand, the search for justice and the promotion of the cause of international
> peace tend to have the effect of also arousing new perceptions of the individual's
> role in society. Similarly, although focused on the mobilization of support for
> changes in social decision-making, movements like environmentalism and feminism
> induce a re-examination of people's sense of themselves and of their purpose in
> life. A reorientation occurring in all the major religious communities is the
> accelerating migration of believers from traditional branches of the parent faiths
> to sects that attach primary importance to the spiritual search and personal experiences
> of their members. At the opposite pole, extraterrestrial sightings, "self-discovery"
> regimens, wilderness retreats, charismatic exaltation, various New Age enthusiasms,
> and the consciousness-raising efficacy attributed to narcotics and hallucinogens
> attract followings far larger and more diverse than anything enjoyed by spiritualism
> or theosophy at a similar historical turning point a century ago. For a Bahá'í,
> the proliferation even of cults and practices that may arouse aversion in the
> minds of many serves primarily as a reminder of the insight embodied in the ancient
> tale of Majnun, who sifted the dust in his search for the beloved Layli, although
> aware that she was pure spirit: "I seek her everywhere; haply somewhere I shall
> find her."1
> 
> 7
> 
> The reawakened interest in religion is clearly far from having reached its
> peak, in either its explicitly religious or its less definable spiritual manifestations.
> On the contrary. The phenomenon is the product of historical forces that steadily
> gather momentum. Their common effect is to erode the certainty, bequeathed to
> the world by the twentieth century, that material existence represents ultimate
> reality.
> 
> 8
> 
> The most obvious cause of these re-evaluations has been the bankruptcy of the
> materialist enterprise itself. For well over a hundred years, the idea of progress
> was identified with economic development and with its capacity to motivate and
> shape social improvement. Those differences of opinion that existed did not challenge
> this world view, but only conceptions as to how its goals might best be attained.
> Its most extreme form, the iron dogma of "scientific materialism", sought to reinterpret
> every aspect of history and human behaviour in its own narrow terms. Whatever
> humanitarian ideals may have inspired some of its early proponents, the universal
> consequence was to produce regimes of totalitarian control prepared to use any
> means of coercion in regulating the lives of hapless populations subjected to
> them. The goal held up as justification of such abuses was the creation of a new
> kind of society that would ensure not only freedom from want but fulfilment for
> the human spirit. At the end, after eight decades of mounting folly and brutality,
> the movement collapsed as a credible guide to the world's future.
> 
> 9
> 
> Other systems of social experimentation, while repudiating recourse to inhumane
> methods, nevertheless derived their moral and intellectual thrust from the same
> limited conception of reality. The view took root that, since people were essentially
> self-interested actors in matters pertaining to their economic well-being, the
> building of just and prosperous societies could be ensured by one or another scheme
> of what was described as modernization. The closing decades of the twentieth century,
> however, sagged under a mounting burden of evidence to the contrary: the breakdown
> of family life, soaring crime, dysfunctional educational systems, and a catalogue
> of other social pathologies that bring to mind the sombre words of Bahá'u'lláh's
> warning about the impending condition of human society: "Such shall be its plight,
> that to disclose it now would not be meet and seemly."2
> 
> 10
> 
> The fate of what the world has learned to call social and economic development
> has left no doubt that not even the most idealistic motives can correct materialism's
> fundamental flaws. Born in the wake of the chaos of the Second World War, "development"
> became by far the largest and most ambitious collective undertaking on which the
> human race has ever embarked. Its humanitarian motivation matched its enormous
> material and technological investment. Fifty years later, while acknowledging
> the impressive benefits development has brought, the enterprise must be adjudged,
> by its own standards, a disheartening failure. Far from narrowing the gap between
> the well-being of the small segment of the human family who enjoy the benefits
> of modernity and the condition of the vast populations mired in hopeless want,
> the collective effort that began with such high hopes has seen the gap widen into
> an abyss.
> 
> 11
> 
> Consumer culture, today's inheritor by default of materialism's gospel of human
> betterment, is unembarrassed by the ephemeral nature of the goals that inspire
> it. For the small minority of people who can afford them, the benefits it offers
> are immediate, and the rationale unapologetic. Emboldened by the breakdown of
> traditional morality, the advance of the new creed is essentially no more than
> the triumph of animal impulse, as instinctive and blind as appetite, released
> at long last from the restraints of supernatural sanctions. Its most obvious casualty
> has been language. Tendencies once universally castigated as moral failings mutate
> into necessities of social progress. Selfishness becomes a prized commercial resource;
> falsehood reinvents itself as public information; perversions of various kinds
> unabashedly claim the status of civil rights. Under appropriate euphemisms, greed,
> lust, indolence, pride-even violence-acquire not merely broad acceptance but social
> and economic value. Ironically, as words have been drained of meaning, so have
> the very material comforts and acquisitions for which truth has been casually
> sacrificed.
> 
> 12
> 
> Clearly, materialism's error has lain not in the laudable effort to improve
> the conditions of life, but in the narrowness of mind and unjustified self-confidence
> that have defined its mission. The importance both of material prosperity and
> of the scientific and technological advances necessary to its achievement is a
> theme that runs through the writings of the Bahá'í Faith. As was inevitable from
> the outset, however, arbitrary efforts to disengage such physical and material
> well-being from humanity's spiritual and moral development have ended by forfeiting
> the allegiance of the very populations whose interests a materialistic culture
> purports to serve. "Witness how the world is being afflicted with a fresh calamity
> every day", Bahá'u'lláh warns. "Its sickness is approaching the stage of utter
> hopelessness, inasmuch as the true Physician is debarred from administering the
> remedy, whilst unskilled practitioners are regarded with favour, and are accorded
> full freedom to act."3
> 
> 13
> 
> In addition to disillusionment with the promises of materialism, a force of
> change undermining the misconceptions about reality that humanity brought into
> the twenty-first century is global integration. At the simplest level, it takes
> the form of advances in communication technologies that open broad avenues of
> interaction among the planet's diverse populations. Along with facilitating interpersonal
> and intersocial exchanges, general access to information has the effect of transmuting
> the cumulative learning of the ages, until recently the preserve of privileged
> elites, into the patrimony of the entire human family, without distinction of
> nation, race or culture. With all the gross inequities that global integration
> perpetuates-indeed intensifies-no informed observer can fail to acknowledge the
> stimulus to reflection about reality that such changes have produced. With reflection
> has come a questioning of all established authority, no longer merely that of
> religion and morality, but also of government, academia, commerce, the media and,
> increasingly, scientific opinion.
> 
> 14
> 
> Apart from technological factors, unification of the planet is exerting other,
> even more direct effects on thought. It would be impossible to exaggerate, for
> example, the transformative impact on global consciousness that has resulted from
> mass travel on an international scale. Greater still have been the consequences
> of the enormous migrations that the world has witnessed during the century and
> a half since the Báb declared His mission. Millions of refugees fleeing from persecution
> have swept like tidal waves back and forth across the European, African and Asiatic
> continents, particularly. Amid the suffering such turmoil has caused, one perceives
> the progressive integration of the world's races and cultures as the citizenry
> of a single global homeland. As a result, people of every background have been
> exposed to the cultures and norms of others about whom their forefathers knew
> little or nothing, exciting a search for meaning that cannot be evaded.
> 
> 15
> 
> It is impossible to imagine how different the history of the past century and
> a half would have been had any of the leading arbiters of world affairs addressed
> by Bahá'u'lláh spared time for reflection on a conception of reality supported
> by the moral credentials of its Author, moral credentials of the kind they professed
> to hold in the highest regard. What is unmistakable to a Bahá'í is that, despite
> such failure, the transformations announced in Bahá'u'lláh's message are resistlessly
> accomplishing themselves. Through shared discoveries and shared travails, peoples
> of diverse cultures are brought face to face with the common humanity lying just
> beneath the surface of imagined differences of identity. Whether stubbornly opposed
> in some societies or welcomed elsewhere as a release from meaningless and suffocating
> limitations, the sense that the earth's inhabitants are indeed "the leaves of
> one tree"4 is slowly becoming the standard by which humanity's collective efforts
> are now judged.
> 
> 16
> 
> Loss of faith in the certainties of materialism and the progressive globalizing
> of human experience reinforce one another in the longing they inspire for understanding
> about the purpose of existence. Basic values are challenged; parochial attachments
> are surrendered; once unthinkable demands are accepted. It is this universal upheaval,
> Bahá'u'lláh explains, for which the scriptures of past religions employed the
> imagery of "the Day of Resurrection": "The shout hath been raised, and the people
> have come forth from their graves, and arising, are gazing around them."5 Beneath
> all of the dislocation and suffering, the process is essentially a spiritual one:
> "The breeze of the All-Merciful hath wafted, and the souls have been quickened
> in the tombs of their bodies."6
> 
> 17
> 
> Throughout history, the primary agents of spiritual development have been the
> great religions. For the majority of the earth's people, the scriptures of each
> of these systems of belief have served, in Bahá'u'lláh's words, as "the City of
> God",7 a source of a knowledge that totally embraces consciousness, one so compelling
> as to endow the sincere with "a new eye, a new ear, a new heart, and a new mind".8
> A vast literature, to which all religious cultures have contributed, records the
> experience of transcendence reported by generations of seekers. Down the millennia,
> the lives of those who responded to intimations of the Divine have inspired breathtaking
> achievements in music, architecture, and the other arts, endlessly replicating
> the soul's experience for millions of their fellow believers. No other force in
> existence has been able to elicit from people comparable qualities of heroism,
> self-sacrifice and self-discipline. At the social level, the resulting moral principles
> have repeatedly translated themselves into universal codes of law, regulating
> and elevating human relationships. Viewed in perspective, the major religions
> emerge as the primary driving forces of the civilizing process. To argue otherwise
> is surely to ignore the evidence of history.
> 
> 18
> 
> Why, then, does this immensely rich heritage not serve as the central stage
> for today's reawakening of spiritual quest? On the periphery, earnest attempts
> are being made to reformulate the teachings that gave rise to the respective faiths,
> in the hope of imbuing them with new appeal, but the greater part of the search
> for meaning is diffused, individualistic and incoherent in character. The scriptures
> have not changed; the moral principles they contain have lost none of their validity.
> No one who sincerely poses questions to Heaven, if he persists, will fail to detect
> an answering voice in the Psalms or in the Upanishads. Anyone with some intimation
> of the Reality that transcends this material one will be touched to the heart
> by the words in which Jesus or Buddha speaks so intimately of it. The Qur'án's
> apocalyptic visions continue to provide compelling assurance to its readers that
> the realization of justice is central to the Divine purpose. Nor, in their essential
> features, do the lives of heroes and saints seem any less meaningful than they
> did when those lives were lived centuries ago. For many religious people, therefore,
> the most painful aspect of the current crisis of civilization is that the search
> for truth has not turned with confidence into religion's familiar avenues.
> 
> 19
> 
> The problem is, of course, twofold. The rational soul does not merely occupy
> a private sphere, but is an active participant in a social order. Although the
> received truths of the great faiths remain valid, the daily experience of an individual
> in the twenty-first century is unimaginably removed from the one that he or she
> would have known in any of those ages when this guidance was revealed. Democratic
> decision-making has fundamentally altered the relationship of the individual to
> authority. With growing confidence and growing success, women justly insist on
> their right to full equality with men. Revolutions in science and technology change
> not only the functioning but the conception of society, indeed of existence itself.
> Universal education and an explosion of new fields of creativity open the way
> to insights that stimulate social mobility and integration, and create opportunities
> of which the rule of law encourages the citizen to take full advantage. Stem cell
> research, nuclear energy, sexual identity, ecological stress and the use of wealth
> raise, at the very least, social questions that have no precedent. These, and
> the countless other changes affecting every aspect of human life, have brought
> into being a new world of daily choices for both society and its members. What
> has not changed is the inescapable requirement of making such choices, whether
> for better or worse. It is here that the spiritual nature of the contemporary
> crisis comes into sharpest focus because most of the decisions called for are
> not merely practical but moral. In large part, therefore, loss of faith in traditional
> religion has been an inevitable consequence of failure to discover in it the guidance
> required to live with modernity, successfully and with assurance.
> 
> 20
> 
> A second barrier to a re-emergence of inherited systems of belief as the answer
> to humanity's spiritual yearnings is the effects already mentioned of global integration.
> Throughout the planet, people raised in a given religious frame of reference find
> themselves abruptly thrown into close association with others whose beliefs and
> practices appear at first glance irreconcilably different from their own. The
> differences can and often do give rise to defensiveness, simmering resentments
> and open conflict. In many cases, however, the effect is rather to prompt a reconsideration
> of received doctrine and to encourage efforts at discovering values held in common.
> The support enjoyed by various interfaith activities doubtless owes a great deal
> to response of this kind among the general public. Inevitably, with such approaches
> comes a questioning of religious doctrines that inhibit association and understanding.
> If people whose beliefs appear to be fundamentally different from one's own nevertheless
> live moral lives that deserve admiration, what is it that makes one's own faith
> superior to theirs? Alternatively, if all of the great religions share certain
> basic values in common, do not sectarian attachments run the risk of merely reinforcing
> unwanted barriers between an individual and his neighbours?
> 
> 21
> 
> Few today among those who have some degree of objective familiarity with the
> subject are likely, therefore, to entertain an illusion that any one of the established
> religious systems of the past can assume the role of ultimate guide for humankind
> in the issues of contemporary life, even in the improbable event that its disparate
> sects should come together for that purpose. Each one of what the world regards
> as independent religions is set in the mould created by its authoritative scripture
> and its history. As it cannot refashion its system of belief in a manner to derive
> legitimacy from the authoritative words of its Founder, it likewise cannot adequately
> answer the multitude of questions posed by social and intellectual evolution.
> Distressing as this may appear to many, it is no more than an inherent feature
> of the evolutionary process. Attempts to force a reversal of some kind can lead
> only to still greater disenchantment with religion itself and exacerbate sectarian
> conflict.
> 
> 22
> 
> The dilemma is both artificial and self-inflicted. The world order, if it can
> be so described, within which Bahá'ís today pursue the work of sharing Bahá'u'lláh's
> message is one whose misconceptions about both human nature and social evolution
> are so fundamental as to severely inhibit the most intelligent and well-intentioned
> endeavours at human betterment. Particularly is this true with respect to the
> confusion that surrounds virtually every aspect of the subject of religion. In
> order to respond adequately to the spiritual needs of their neighbours, Bahá'ís
> will have to gain an in-depth understanding of the issues involved. The effort
> of imagination this challenge requires can be appreciated from the advice that
> is perhaps the most frequently and urgently reiterated admonition in the writings
> of their Faith: to "meditate", to "ponder", to "reflect".
> 
> 23
> 
> A commonplace of popular discourse is that by "religion" is intended the multitude
> of sects currently in existence. Not surprisingly, such a suggestion at once arouses
> protest in other quarters that by religion is intended rather one or another of
> the great, independent belief systems of history that have shaped and inspired
> whole civilizations. This point of view, in turn, however, runs up against the
> inevitable query as to where one will find these historic faiths in the contemporary
> world. Where, precisely, are "Judaism", "Buddhism", "Christianity", "Islam" and
> the others, since they obviously cannot be identified with the irreconcilably
> opposed organizations that purport to speak authoritatively in their names? Nor
> does the problem end there. Yet another response to the enquiry will almost certainly
> be that by religion is intended simply an attitude to life, a sense of relationship
> with a Reality that transcends material existence. Religion, so conceived, is
> an attribute of the individual person, an impulse not susceptible of organization,
> an experience universally available. Again, however, such an orientation will
> be seen by a majority of religiously minded persons as lacking the very authority
> of self-discipline and the unifying effect that give religion meaning. Some objectors
> would even argue that, on the contrary, religion signifies the lifestyle of persons
> who, like themselves, have adopted severe regimens of daily ritual and self-denial
> that set them entirely apart from the rest of society. What all such differing
> conceptions have in common is the extent to which a phenomenon that is acknowledged
> to completely transcend human reach has nevertheless gradually been imprisoned
> within conceptual limits-whether organizational, theological, experiential or
> ritualistic-of human invention.
> 
> 24
> 
> The teachings of Bahá'u'lláh cut through this tangle of inconsistent views
> and, in doing so, reformulate many truths which, whether explicitly or implicitly,
> have lain at the heart of all Divine revelation. Although in no way a comprehensive
> reading of His intent, Bahá'u'lláh makes it clear that attempts to capture or
> suggest the Reality of God in catechisms and creeds are exercises in self-deception:
> "To every discerning and illumined heart it is evident that God, the unknowable
> Essence, the divine Being, is immensely exalted beyond every human attribute,
> such as corporeal existence, ascent and descent, egress and regress. Far be it
> from His glory that human tongue should adequately recount His praise, or that
> human heart comprehend His fathomless mystery."9 The instrumentality through which
> the Creator of all things interacts with the ever-evolving creation He has brought
> into being is the appearance of prophetic Figures who manifest the attributes
> of an inaccessible Divinity: "The door of the knowledge of the Ancient of Days
> being thus closed in the face of all beings, the Source of infinite grace ...
> hath caused those luminous Gems of Holiness to appear out of the realm of the
> spirit, in the noble form of the human temple, and be made manifest unto all men,
> that they may impart unto the world the mysteries of the unchangeable Being, and
> tell of the subtleties of His imperishable Essence."10
> 
> 25
> 
> To presume to judge among the Messengers of God, exalting one above the other,
> would be to give in to the delusion that the Eternal and All-Embracing is subject
> to the vagaries of human preference. "It is clear and evident to thee", are Bahá'u'lláh's
> precise words, "that all the Prophets are the Temples
> of the Cause of God, Who have appeared clothed in divers attire. If thou wilt
> observe with discriminating eyes, thou wilt behold Them all abiding in the same
> tabernacle, soaring in the same heaven, seated upon the same throne, uttering
> the same speech, and proclaiming the same Faith."11 To imagine, further, that
> the nature of these unique Figures can be-or needs to be-encompassed within theories
> borrowed from physical experience is equally presumptuous. What is meant by "knowledge
> of God", Bahá'u'lláh explains, is knowledge of the Manifestations Who reveal His
> will and attributes, and it is here that the soul comes into intimate association
> with a Creator Who is otherwise beyond both language and apprehension: "I bear
> witness", is Bahá'u'lláh's assertion about the station of the Manifestation of
> God, "...that through Thy beauty the beauty of the Adored One hath been unveiled,
> and through Thy face the face of the Desired One hath shone forth...."12
> 
> 26
> 
> Religion, thus conceived, awakens the soul to potentialities that are otherwise
> unimaginable. To the extent that an individual learns to benefit from the influence
> of the revelation of God for his age, his nature becomes progressively imbued
> with the attributes of the Divine world: "Through the Teachings of this Day Star
> of Truth", Bahá'u'lláh explains, "every man will advance and develop until he
> ... can manifest all the potential forces with which his inmost true self hath
> been endowed."13 As humanity's purpose includes the carrying forward of "an ever-advancing
> civilization",14 not the least of the extraordinary powers that religion possesses
> has been its ability to free those who believe from the limitations of time itself,
> eliciting from them sacrifices on behalf of generations centuries into the future.
> Indeed, because the soul is immortal, its awakening to its true nature empowers
> it, not only in this world but even more directly in those worlds that lie beyond,
> to serve the evolutionary process: "The light which these souls radiate", Bahá'u'lláh
> asserts, "is responsible for the progress of the world and the advancement of
> its peoples.... All things must needs have a cause, a motive power, an animating
> principle. These souls and symbols of detachment have provided, and will continue
> to provide, the supreme moving impulse in the world of being."15
> 
> 27
> 
> Belief is thus a necessary and inextinguishable urge of the species that has
> been described by an influential modern thinker as "evolution become conscious
> of itself".16 If, as the events of the twentieth century provide sad and compelling
> evidence, the natural expression of faith is artificially blocked, it will invent
> objects of worship however unworthy-or even debased-that may in some measure appease
> the yearning for certitude. It is an impulse that will not be denied.
> 
> 28
> 
> In short, through the ongoing process of revelation, the One Who is the Source
> of the system of knowledge we call religion demonstrates that system's integrity
> and its freedom from the contradictions imposed by sectarian ambitions. The work
> of each Manifestation of God has an autonomy and an authority that transcend appraisal;
> it is also a stage in the limitless unfolding of a single Reality. Because the
> purpose of the successive revelations of God is the awakening of humankind to
> its capacities and responsibilities as the trustee of creation, the process is
> not simply repetitive, but progressive, and is fully appreciated only when perceived
> in this context.
> 
> 29
> 
> In no sense can Bahá'ís profess to have grasped at this early hour more than
> a minute portion of the truths inherent in the revelation on which their Faith
> is based. With reference, for example, to the evolution of the Cause, the Guardian
> said, "All we can reasonably venture to attempt is to strive to obtain a glimpse
> of the first streaks of the promised Dawn that must, in the fullness of time,
> chase away the gloom that has encircled humanity."17 Apart from encouraging humility,
> this fact should serve also as a constant reminder that Bahá'u'lláh has not brought
> into existence a new religion to stand beside the present multiplicity of sectarian
> organizations. Rather has He recast the whole conception of religion as the principal
> force impelling the development of consciousness. As the human race in all its
> diversity is a single species, so the intervention by which God cultivates the
> qualities of mind and heart latent in that species is a single process. Its heroes
> and saints are the heroes and saints of all stages in the struggle; its successes,
> the successes of all stages. This is the standard demonstrated in the life and
> work of the Master and exemplified today in a Bahá'í community that has become
> the inheritor of humanity's entire spiritual legacy, a legacy equally available
> to all the earth's peoples.
> 
> 30
> 
> The recurring proof of the existence of God, therefore, is that from time immemorial
> He has repeatedly manifested Himself. In the larger sense, as Bahá'u'lláh explains,
> the vast epic of humanity's religious history represents the fulfilment of the
> "Covenant", the enduring promise by which the Creator of all things assures the
> race of the unfailing guidance essential to its spiritual and moral development,
> and calls on it to internalize and give expression to these values. One is free
> to dispute through historicist interpretations of the evidence the unique role
> of this or that Messenger of God, if that is one's purpose, but such speculation
> is of no help in accounting for developments that have transformed thought and
> produced changes in human relationships critical to social evolution. At intervals
> so rare that the known instances can be counted on one's fingers, the Manifestations
> of God have appeared, have each been explicit as to the authority of His teachings
> and have each exerted an influence on the advance of civilization incomparably
> beyond that of any other phenomenon in history. "Consider the hour at which the
> supreme Manifestation of God revealeth Himself unto men", Bahá'u'lláh points out:
> "Ere that hour cometh, the Ancient Being, Who is still unknown of men and hath
> not as yet given utterance to the Word of God, is Himself the All-Knower in a
> world devoid of any man that hath known Him. He is indeed the Creator without
> a creation."18
> 
> 31
> 
> The objection most commonly raised against the foregoing conception of religion
> is the assertion that the differences among the revealed faiths are so fundamental
> that to present them as stages or aspects of one unified system of truth does
> violence to the facts. Given the confusion surrounding the nature of religion,
> the reaction is understandable. Chiefly, however, such an objection offers Bahá'ís
> an invitation to set the principles reviewed here more explicitly in the evolutionary
> context provided in Bahá'u'lláh's writings.
> 
> 32
> 
> The differences referred to fall into the categories of either practice or
> doctrine, both of them presented as the intent of the relevant scriptures. In
> the case of religious customs governing personal life, it is helpful to view the
> subject against the background of comparable features of material life. It is
> most unlikely that diversity in hygiene, dress, medicine, diet, transportation,
> warfare, construction or economic activity, however striking, would any longer
> be seriously advanced in support of a theory that humanity does not in fact constitute
> one people, single and unique. Until the opening of the twentieth century, such
> simplistic arguments were commonplace, but historical and anthropological research
> now provides a seamless panorama of the process of cultural evolution by which
> these and countless other expressions of human creativity came into existence,
> were transmitted through successive generations, underwent gradual metamorphoses
> and often spread to enrich the lives of peoples in far distant lands. That present-day
> societies represent a wide spectrum of such phenomena, therefore, does not in
> any way define a fixed and immutable identity of the peoples concerned, but merely
> distinguishes the stage through which given groups are-or at least until recently
> have been-passing. Even so, all such cultural expressions are now in a state of
> fluidity in consequence of the pressures of planetary integration.
> 
> 33
> 
> A similar evolutionary process, Bahá'u'lláh indicates, has characterized the
> religious life of humankind. The defining difference lies in the fact that, rather
> than representing simply the accidents of history's ongoing method of trial and
> error, such norms were explicitly prescribed in each case, as integral features
> of one or another revelation of the Divine, embodied in scripture, their integrity
> scrupulously maintained over a period of centuries. While certain features of
> each code of conduct would eventually fulfil their purpose and in time be overshadowed
> by concerns of a different nature brought on by the process of social evolution,
> the code itself would lose none of its authority during the long stage of human
> progress in which it played a vital role in training behaviour and attitudes.
> "These principles and laws, these firmly-established and mighty systems", Bahá'u'lláh
> asserts, "have proceeded from one Source, and are the rays of one Light. That
> they differ one from another is to be attributed to the varying requirements of
> the ages in which they were promulgated."19
> 
> 34
> 
> To argue, therefore, that differences of regulations, observances and other
> practices constitute any significant objection to the idea of revealed religion's
> essential oneness is to miss the purpose that these prescriptions served. More
> seriously, it misses the fundamental distinction between the eternal and the transitory
> features of religion's function. The essential message of religion is immutable.
> It is, in Bahá'u'lláh's words, "the changeless Faith of God, eternal in the past,
> eternal in the future".20 Its role in opening the way for the soul to enter into
> an ever-more mature relationship with its Creator-and in endowing it with an ever-greater
> measure of moral autonomy in disciplining the animal impulses of human nature-is
> not at all irreconcilable with its providing auxiliary guidance that enhances
> the process of civilization building.
> 
> 35
> 
> The concept of progressive revelation places the ultimate emphasis on recognition
> of the revelation of God at its appearance. The failure of the generality of humankind
> in this respect has, time and again, condemned entire populations to a ritualistic
> repetition of ordinances and practices long after these latter have fulfilled
> their purpose and now merely stultify moral advance. Sadly, in the present day,
> a related consequence of such failure has been to trivialize religion. At precisely
> the point in its collective development where humanity began to struggle with
> the challenges of modernity, the spiritual resource on which it had principally
> depended for moral courage and enlightenment was fast becoming a subject of mockery,
> first at those levels where decisions were being made about the direction society
> should take, and eventually in ever-widening circles of the general population.
> There is little cause for surprise, then, that this most devastating of the many
> betrayals of trust from which human confidence has suffered should, in the course
> of time, undermine the foundations of belief itself. So it is that Bahá'u'lláh
> repeatedly urges His readers to think deeply about the lesson taught by such repeated
> failures: "Ponder for a moment, and reflect upon that which has been the cause
> of such denial...."21 "What could have been the reason for such denial and avoidance...?"22
> "What could have caused such contention...?"23 "Reflect, what could have been
> the motive...?"24
> 
> 36
> 
> More detrimental still to religious understanding has been theological presumption.
> A persistent feature of religion's sectarian past has been the dominant role played
> by clergy. In the absence of scriptural texts that established unarguable institutional
> authority, clerical elites succeeded in arrogating to themselves exclusive control
> over interpretation of the Divine intent. However diverse the motives, the tragic
> effects have been to impede the current of inspiration, discourage independent
> intellectual activity, focus attention on the minutiae of rituals and too often
> engender hatred and prejudice towards those following a different sectarian path
> from that of self-appointed spiritual leaders. While nothing could prevent the
> creative power of Divine intervention from continuing its work of progressively
> raising consciousness, the scope of what could be achieved, in any age, became
> increasingly limited by such artificially contrived obstacles.
> 
> 37
> 
> Over time, theology succeeded in constructing in the heart of each one of the
> great faiths an authority parallel with, and even inimical in spirit to, the revealed
> teachings on which the tradition was based. Jesus' familiar parable of the landowner
> who sowed seed in his field addresses both the issue and its implications for
> the present time: "But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the
> wheat, and went his way."25 When his servants proposed to uproot them, the landowner
> replied, "Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with
> them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will
> say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles
> to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn."26 Throughout its pages, the
> Qur'án reserves its severest condemnation for the spiritual harm caused by this
> competing hegemony: "Say: The things that my Lord hath indeed forbidden are: shameful
> deeds, whether open or secret; sins and trespasses against truth or reason; assigning
> of partners to God, for which he hath given no authority; and saying things about
> God of which ye have no knowledge."27 To the modern mind it is the greatest of
> ironies that generations of theologians, whose impositions on religion embody
> precisely the betrayal so strongly denounced in these texts, should seek to use
> the warning itself as a weapon in suppressing protest against their usurpation
> of Divine authority.
> 
> 38
> 
> In effect, each new stage in the progressively unfolding revelation of spiritual
> truth was frozen in time and in an array of literalistic images and interpretations,
> many of them borrowed from cultures which were themselves morally exhausted. Whatever
> their value at earlier stages in the evolution of consciousness, conceptions of
> physical resurrection, a paradise of carnal delights, reincarnation, pantheistic
> prodigies, and the like, today raise walls of separation and conflict in an age
> when the earth has literally become one homeland and human beings must learn to
> see themselves as its citizens. In this context one can appreciate the reasons
> for the vehemence of Bahá'u'lláh's warnings about the barriers that dogmatic theology
> creates in the path of those seeking to understand the will of God: "O leaders
> of religion! Weigh not the Book of God with such standards and sciences as are
> current amongst you, for the Book itself is the unerring Balance established amongst
> men."28 In His Tablet to Pope Pius IX, He advises the pontiff that God has in
> this day "stored away ... in the vessels of justice" whatever is enduring in religion
> and "cast into fire that which befitteth it".29
> 
> 39
> 
> Freed from the thickets with which theology has hedged religious understanding
> about, the mind is able to explore familiar scriptural passages through the eyes
> of Bahá'u'lláh. "Peerless is this Day," He asserts, "for it is as the eye to past
> ages and centuries, and as a light unto the darkness of the times."30 The most
> striking observation that results from taking advantage of this perspective is
> the unity of purpose and principle running throughout the Hebrew scriptures, the
> Gospel and the Qur'án, particularly, although echoes can readily be discerned
> in the scriptures of others among the world's religions. Repeatedly, the same
> organizing themes emerge from the matrix of precept, exhortation, narrative, symbolism
> and interpretation in which they are set. Of these foundational truths, by far
> the most distinctive is the progressive articulation and emphatic assertion of
> the oneness of God, Creator of all existence whether of the phenomenal world or
> of those realms that transcend it. "I am the Lord," the Bible declares, "and there
> is none else, there is no God beside me",31 and the same conception underpins
> the later teachings of Christ and Muhammad.
> 
> 40
> 
> Humanity-focal point, inheritor and trustee of the world-exists to know its
> Creator and to serve His purpose. In its highest expression, the innate human
> impulse to respond takes the form of worship, a condition entailing wholehearted
> submission to a power that is recognized as deserving of such homage. "Now unto
> the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory
> for ever and ever."32 Inseparable from the spirit of reverence itself is its expression
> in service to the Divine purpose for humankind. "Say: All bounties are in the
> hand of God: He granteth them to whom He pleaseth: and God careth for all, and
> He knoweth all things."33 Illumined by this understanding, the responsibilities
> of humanity are clear: "It is not righteousness that ye turn your faces towards
> East or West", the Qur'án states, "but it is righteousness-to believe in God ...
> to spend of your substance, out of love for Him, for your kin, for orphans, for
> the needy, for the wayfarer, for those who ask...."34 "Ye are the salt of the
> earth",35 Christ impresses on those who respond to His call. "Ye are the light
> of the world."36 Summarizing a theme that recurs time and again throughout the
> Hebrew scriptures and will subsequently reappear in the Gospel and the Qur'án,
> the prophet Micah asks, "...what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly,
> and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"37
> 
> 41
> 
> There is equal agreement in these texts that the soul's ability to attain to
> an understanding of its Creator's purpose is the product not merely of its own
> effort, but of interventions of the Divine that open the way. The point was made
> with memorable clarity by Jesus: "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man
> cometh unto the Father, but by me."38 If one is not to see in this assertion merely
> a dogmatic challenge to other stages of the one ongoing process of Divine guidance,
> it is obviously the expression of the central truth of revealed religion: that
> access to the unknowable Reality that creates and sustains existence is possible
> only through awakening to the illumination shed from that Realm. One of the most
> cherished of the Qur'án's surihs takes up the metaphor: "God is the Light of the
> heavens and the earth.... Light upon Light! God doth guide whom He will to His
> Light."39 In the case of the Hebrew prophets, the Divine intermediary that was
> later to appear in Christianity in the person of the Son of Man and in Islam as
> the Book of God assumed the form of a binding Covenant established by the Creator
> with Abraham, Patriarch and Prophet: "And I will establish my covenant between
> me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant,
> to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee."40
> 
> 42
> 
> The succession of revelations of the Divine also appears as an implicit-and
> usually explicit-feature of all the major faiths. One of its earliest and clearest
> expressions occurs in the Bhagavad-Gita: "I come, and go, and come. When Righteousness
> declines, O Bharata! When Wickedness is strong, I rise, from age to age, and take
> visible shape, and move a man with men, succouring the good, thrusting the evil
> back, and setting Virtue on her seat again."41 This ongoing drama constitutes
> the basic structure of the Bible, whose sequence of books recounts the missions
> not only of Abraham and of Moses-"whom the Lord knew face to face"42-but of the
> line of lesser prophets who developed and consolidated the work that these primary
> Authors of the process had set in motion. Similarly, no amount of contentious
> and fantastical speculation about the precise nature of Jesus could succeed in
> separating His mission from the transformative influence exerted on the course
> of civilization by the work of Abraham and Moses. He Himself warns that it is
> not He Who will condemn those who reject the message He bears, but Moses "in whom
> ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of
> me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?"43 With
> the revelation of the Qur'án, the theme of the succession of the Messengers of
> God becomes central: "We believe in God, and the revelation given to us, and to
> Abraham, Isma'il, Isaac, Jacob ... and that given to Moses and Jesus, and that
> given to (all) Prophets from their Lord...."44
> 
> 43
> 
> For a sympathetic and objective reader of such passages what emerges is a recognition
> of the essential oneness of religion. So it is that the term "Islam" (literally
> "submission" to God) designates not merely the particular dispensation of Providence
> inaugurated by Muhammad but, as the words of the Qur'án make unmistakably clear,
> religion itself. While it is true to speak of the unity of all religions, understanding
> of the context is vital. At the deepest level, as Bahá'u'lláh emphasizes, there
> is but one religion. Religion is religion, as science is science. The one discerns
> and articulates the values unfolding progressively through Divine revelation;
> the other is the instrumentality through which the human mind explores and is
> able to exert its influence ever more precisely over the phenomenal world. The
> one defines goals that serve the evolutionary process; the other assists in their
> attainment. Together, they constitute the dual knowledge system impelling the
> advance of civilization. Each is hailed by the Master as an "effulgence of the
> Sun of Truth".45
> 
> 44
> 
> It is, therefore, an inadequate recognition of the unique station of Moses,
> Buddha, Zoroaster, Jesus, Muhammad-or of the succession of Avatars who inspired
> the Hindu scriptures-to depict their work as the founding of distinct religions.
> Rather are they appreciated when acknowledged as the spiritual Educators of history,
> as the animating forces in the rise of the civilizations through which consciousness
> has flowered: "He was in the world," the Gospel declares, "and the world was made
> by him...."46 That their persons have been held in a reverence infinitely above
> those of any other historical figures reflects the attempt to articulate otherwise
> inexpressible feelings aroused in the hearts of unnumbered millions of people
> by the blessings their work has conferred. In loving them humanity has progressively
> learned what it means to love God. There is, realistically, no other way to do
> so. They are not honoured by fumbling efforts to capture the essential mystery
> of their nature in dogmas invented by human imagination; what honours them is
> the soul's unconditioned surrender of its will to the transformative influence
> they mediate.
> 
> 45
> 
> Confusion about the role of religion in cultivating moral consciousness is
> equally apparent in popular understanding of its contribution to the shaping of
> society. Perhaps the most obvious example is the inferior social status most sacred
> texts assign to women. While the resulting benefits enjoyed by men were no doubt
> a major factor in consolidating such a conception, moral justification was unquestionably
> supplied by people's understanding of the intent of the scriptures themselves.
> With few exceptions, these texts address themselves to men, assigning to women
> a supportive and subordinate role in the life of both religion and society. Sadly,
> such understanding made it deplorably easy to attach primary blame to women for
> failure in the disciplining of the sexual impulse, a vital feature of moral advancement.
> In a modern frame of reference, attitudes of this kind are readily recognized
> as prejudiced and unjust. At the stages of social development at which all of
> the major faiths came into existence, scriptural guidance sought primarily to
> civilize, to the extent possible, relationships resulting from intractable historical
> circumstances. It needs little insight to appreciate that clinging to primitive
> norms in the present day would defeat the very purpose of religion's patient cultivation
> of moral sense.
> 
> 46
> 
> Comparable considerations have pertained in relations between societies. The
> long and arduous preparation of the Hebrew people for the mission required of
> them is an illustration of the complexity and stubborn character of the moral
> challenges involved. In order that the spiritual capacities appealed to by the
> prophets might awaken and flourish, the inducements offered by neighbouring idolatrous
> cultures had, at all costs, to be resisted. Scriptural accounts of the condign
> punishments that befell both rulers and subjects who violated the principle illustrated
> the importance attached to it by the Divine purpose. A somewhat comparable issue
> arose in the struggle of the newborn community founded by Muhammad to survive
> attempts by pagan Arab tribes to extinguish it-and in the barbaric cruelty and
> relentless spirit of vendetta animating the attackers. No one familiar with the
> historical details will have difficulty in understanding the severity of the Qur'án's
> injunctions on the subject. While the monotheistic beliefs of Jews and Christians
> were to be accorded respect, no compromise with idolatry was permitted. In a relatively
> brief space of time, this draconian rule had succeeded in unifying the tribes
> of the Arabian Peninsula and launching the newly forged community on well over
> five centuries of moral, intellectual, cultural and economic achievement, unmatched
> before or since in the speed and scope of its expansion. History tends to be a
> stern judge. Ultimately, in its uncompromising perspective, the consequences to
> those who would have blindly strangled such enterprises in the cradle will always
> be set off against the benefits accruing to the world as a whole from the triumph
> of the Bible's vision of human possibilities and the advances made possible by
> the genius of Islamic civilization.
> 
> 47
> 
> Among the most contentious of such issues in understanding society's evolution
> towards spiritual maturity has been that of crime and punishment. While different
> in detail and degree, the penalties prescribed by most sacred texts for acts of
> violence against either the commonweal or the rights of other individuals tended
> to be harsh. Moreover, they frequently extended to permitting retaliation against
> the offenders by the injured parties or by members of their families. In the perspective
> of history, however, one may reasonably ask what practical alternatives existed.
> In the absence not merely of present-day programmes of behavioural modification,
> but even of recourse to such coercive options as prisons and policing agencies,
> religion's concern was to impress indelibly on general consciousness the moral
> unacceptability-and practical costs-of conduct whose effect would otherwise have
> been to demoralize efforts at social progress. The whole of civilization has since
> been the beneficiary, and it would be less than honest not to acknowledge the
> fact.
> 
> 48
> 
> So it has been throughout all of the religious dispensations whose origins
> have survived in written records. Mendicancy, slavery, autocracy, conquest, ethnic
> prejudices and other undesirable features of social interaction have gone unchallenged-or
> been explicitly indulged-as religion sought to achieve reformations of behaviour
> that were considered more immediately essential at given stages in the advance
> of civilization. To condemn religion because any one of its successive dispensations
> failed to address the whole range of social wrongs would be to ignore everything
> that has been learned about the nature of human development. Inevitably, anachronistic
> thinking of this kind must also create severe psychological handicaps in appreciating
> and facing the requirements of one's own time.
> 
> 49
> 
> The issue is not the past, but the implications for the present. Problems arise
> where followers of one of the world's faiths prove unable to distinguish between
> its eternal and transitory features, and attempt to impose on society rules of
> behaviour that have long since accomplished their purpose. The principle is fundamental
> to an understanding of religion's social role: "The remedy the world needeth in
> its present-day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age
> may require", Bahá'u'lláh points out. "Be anxiously concerned with the needs of
> the age ye live in, and centre your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements."47
> 
> 50
> 
> The exigencies of the new age of human experience to which Bahá'u'lláh summoned
> the political and religious rulers of the nineteenth century world have now been
> largely adopted, at least as ideals, by their successors and by progressive minds
> everywhere. By the time the twentieth century had drawn to a close, principles
> that had, only short decades earlier, been patronized as visionary and hopelessly
> unrealistic had become central to global discourse. Buttressed by the findings
> of scientific research and the conclusions of influential commissions-often lavishly
> funded-they direct the work of powerful agencies at international, national and
> local levels. A vast body of scholarly literature in many languages is devoted
> to exploring practical means for their implementation, and those programmes can
> count on media attention on five continents.
> 
> 51
> 
> Most of these principles are, alas, also widely flouted, not only among recognized
> enemies of social peace, but in circles professedly committed to them. What is
> lacking is not convincing testimony as to their relevance, but the power of moral
> conviction that can implement them, a power whose only demonstrably reliable source
> throughout history has been religious faith. As late as the inception of Bahá'u'lláh's
> own mission, religious authority still exercised a significant degree of social
> influence. When the Christian world was moved to break with millennia of unquestioning
> conviction and address at last the evil of slavery, it was to Biblical ideals
> that the early British reformers sought to appeal. Subsequently, in the defining
> address he gave regarding the central role played by the issue in the great conflict
> in America, the president of the United States warned that if "every drop of blood
> drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said
> three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgements of the Lord
> are true and righteous altogether'."48 That era, however, was swiftly drawing
> to a close. In the upheavals that followed the Second World War, even so influential
> a figure as Mohandas Gandhi proved unable to mobilize the spiritual power of Hinduism
> in support of his efforts to extinguish sectarian violence on the Indian subcontinent.
> Nor were leaders of the Islamic community any more effective in this respect.
> As prefigured in the Qur'án's metaphorical vision of "The Day that We roll up
> the heavens like a scroll",49 the once unchallengeable authority of the traditional
> religions had ceased to direct humanity's social relations.
> 
> 52
> 
> It is in this context that one begins to appreciate Bahá'u'lláh's choice of
> imagery about the will of God for a new age: "Think not that We have revealed
> unto you a mere code of laws. Nay, rather, We have unsealed the choice Wine with
> the fingers of might and power."50 Through His revelation, the principles required
> for the collective coming of age of the human race have been invested with the
> one power capable of penetrating to the roots of human motivation and of altering
> behaviour. For those who have recognized Him, equality of men and women is not
> a sociological postulate, but revealed truth about human nature, with implications
> for every aspect of human relations. The same is true of His teaching of the principle
> of racial oneness. Universal education, freedom of thought, the protection of
> human rights, recognition of the earth's vast resources as a trust for the whole
> of humankind, society's responsibility for the well-being of its citizenry, the
> promotion of scientific research, even so practical a principle as an international
> auxiliary language that will advance integration of the earth's peoples-for all
> who respond to Bahá'u'lláh's revelation, these and similar precepts carry the
> same compelling authority as do the injunctions of scripture against idolatry,
> theft and false witness. While intimations of some can be perceived in earlier
> sacred writings, their definition and prescription had necessarily to wait until
> the planet's heterogeneous populations could set out together on the discovery
> of their nature as a single human race. Through spiritual empowerment brought
> by Bahá'u'lláh's revelation the Divine standards can be appreciated, not as isolated
> principles and laws, but as facets of a single, all-embracing vision of humanity's
> future, revolutionary in purpose, intoxicating in the possibilities it opens.
> 
> 53
> 
> Integral to these teachings are principles that address the administration
> of humanity's collective affairs. A widely quoted passage in Bahá'u'lláh's Tablet
> to Queen Victoria expresses emphatic praise of the principle of democratic and
> constitutional government, but is also an admonition about the context of global
> responsibility in which that principle must operate if it is to realize its purpose
> in this age: "O ye the elected representatives of the people in every land! Take
> ye counsel together, and let your concern be only for that which profiteth mankind
> and bettereth the condition thereof, if ye be of them that scan heedfully. Regard
> the world as the human body which, though at its creation whole and perfect, hath
> been afflicted, through various causes, with grave disorders and maladies. Not
> for one day did it gain ease, nay its sickness waxed more severe, as it fell under
> the treatment of ignorant physicians, who gave full rein to their personal desires
> and have erred grievously. And if, at one time, through the care of an able physician,
> a member of that body was healed, the rest remained afflicted as before."51 In
> other passages, Bahá'u'lláh spells out some of the practical implications. The
> governments of the world are called upon to convene an international consultative
> body as the foundation, in the words of the Guardian, of "a world federal system"52
> empowered to safeguard the autonomy and territory of its state members, resolve
> national and regional disputes and coordinate programmes of global development
> for the good of the entire human race. Significantly, Bahá'u'lláh attributes to
> this system, once established, the right to suppress by force acts of aggression
> by one state against another. Addressing the rulers of His day, He asserts the
> clear moral authority of such action: "Should any one among you take up arms against
> another, rise ye all against him, for this is naught but manifest justice."53
> 
> 54
> 
> The power through which these goals will be progressively realized is that
> of unity. Although to Bahá'ís the most obvious of truths, its implications for
> the current crisis of civilization appear to escape most contemporary discourse.
> Few will disagree that the universal disease sapping the health of the body of
> humankind is that of disunity. Its manifestations everywhere cripple political
> will, debilitate the collective urge to change, and poison national and religious
> relationships. How strange, then, that unity is regarded as a goal to be attained,
> if at all, in a distant future, after a host of disorders in social, political,
> economic and moral life have been addressed and somehow or other resolved. Yet
> the latter are essentially symptoms and side effects of the problem, not its root
> cause. Why has so fundamental an inversion of reality come to be widely accepted?
> The answer is presumably because the achievement of genuine unity of mind and
> heart among peoples whose experiences are deeply at variance is thought to be
> entirely beyond the capacity of society's existing institutions. While this tacit
> admission is a welcome advance over the understanding of processes of social evolution
> that prevailed a few decades ago, it is of limited practical assistance in responding
> to the challenge.
> 
> 55
> 
> Unity is a condition of the human spirit. Education can support and enhance
> it, as can legislation, but they can do so only once it emerges and has established
> itself as a compelling force in social life. A global intelligentsia, its prescriptions
> largely shaped by materialistic misconceptions of reality, clings tenaciously
> to the hope that imaginative social engineering, supported by political compromise,
> may indefinitely postpone the potential disasters that few deny loom over humanity's
> future. "We can well perceive how the whole human race is encompassed with great,
> with incalculable afflictions", Bahá'u'lláh states. "They that are intoxicated
> by self-conceit have interposed themselves between it and the Divine and infallible
> Physician. Witness how they have entangled all men, themselves included, in the
> mesh of their devices. They can neither discover the cause of the disease, nor
> have they any knowledge of the remedy."54 As unity is the remedy for the world's
> ills, its one certain source lies in the restoration of religion's influence in
> human affairs. The laws and principles revealed by God, in this day, Bahá'u'lláh
> declares, "are the most potent instruments and the surest of all means for the
> dawning of the light of unity amongst men." 55 "Whatsoever is raised on this foundation,
> the changes and chances of the world can never impair its strength, nor will the
> revolution of countless centuries undermine its structure." 56
> 
> 56
> 
> Central to Bahá'u'lláh's mission, therefore, has been the creation of a global
> community that would reflect the oneness of humankind. The ultimate testimony
> that the Bahá'í community can summon in vindication of His mission is the example
> of unity that His teachings have produced. As it enters the twenty-first century,
> the Bahá'í Cause is a phenomenon unlike anything else the world has seen. After
> decades of effort, in which surges of growth alternated with long stretches of
> consolidation, often shadowed by setbacks, the Bahá'í community comprises several
> million people representative of virtually every ethnic, cultural, social and
> religious background on earth, administering their collective affairs without
> the intervention of a clergy, through democratically elected institutions. The
> many thousands of localities in which it has put down its roots are to be found
> in every country, territory and significant island group, from the Arctic
> to Tierra del Fuego, from Africa
> to the Pacific. The assertion that this community may today already constitute
> the most diverse and geographically widespread of any similarly organized body
> of people on the planet is unlikely to be challenged by one familiar with the
> evidence.
> 
> 57
> 
> The achievement calls out for understanding. Conventional explanations-access
> to wealth, the patronage of powerful political interests, invocations of the occult
> or aggressive programmes of proselytism that instil fear of Divine wrath-none
> have played any role in the events involved. Adherents of the Faith have achieved
> a sense of identity as members of a single human race, an identity that shapes
> the purpose of their lives and that, clearly, is not the expression of any intrinsic
> moral superiority on their own part: "O people of Baha! That there is none to
> rival you is a sign of mercy."57 A fair-minded observer is compelled to entertain
> at least the possibility that the phenomenon may represent the operation of influences
> entirely different in nature from the familiar ones-influences that can properly
> be described only as spiritual-capable of eliciting extraordinary feats of sacrifice
> and understanding from ordinary people of every background.
> 
> 58
> 
> Particularly striking has been the fact that the Bahá'í Cause has been able
> to maintain the unity thus achieved, unbroken and unimpaired, through the most
> vulnerable early stages of its existence. One will search in vain for another
> association of human beings in history-political, religious, or social-that has
> successfully survived the perennial blight of schism and faction. The Bahá'í community,
> in all its diversity, is a single body of people, one in its understanding of
> the intent of the revelation of God that gave it birth, one in its devotion to
> the Administrative Order that its Author created for the governance of its collective
> affairs, one in its commitment to the task of disseminating His message throughout
> the planet. Over the decades of its rise, several individuals, some of them highly
> placed and all of them driven by the spur of ambition, did their utmost to create
> separate followings loyal to themselves or to the personal interpretations they
> had imposed on Bahá'u'lláh's writings. At earlier stages in the evolution of religion,
> similar attempts had proved successful in splitting the newborn faiths into competing
> sects. In the case of the Bahá'í Cause, however, such intrigues have failed, without
> exception, to produce more than transient outbursts of controversy whose net effect
> has been to deepen the community's understanding of its Founder's purpose and
> its commitment to it. "So powerful is the light of unity", Bahá'u'lláh assures
> those who recognize Him, "that it can illuminate the whole earth."58 Human nature
> being what it is, one can readily appreciate the Guardian's anticipation that
> this purifying process will long continue-paradoxically but necessarily-to be
> an integral feature of the maturation of the Bahá'í community.
> 
> 59
> 
> A corollary of the abandonment of faith in God has been a paralysis of ability
> to address effectively the problem of evil or, in many cases, even to acknowledge
> it. While Bahá'ís do not attribute to the phenomenon the objective existence it
> was assumed at earlier stages of religious history to possess, the negation of
> the good that evil represents, as with darkness, ignorance or disease, is severely
> crippling in its effect. Few publishing seasons pass that do not offer the educated
> reader a range of new and imaginative analyses of the character of some of the
> monstrous figures who, during the twentieth century, systematically tortured,
> degraded and exterminated millions of their fellow human beings. One is invited
> by scholarly authority to ponder the weight that should be given, variously, to
> paternal abuse, social rejection, professional disappointments, poverty, injustice,
> war experiences, possible genetic impairment, nihilistic literature-or various
> combinations of the foregoing-in seeking to understand the obsessions fuelling
> an apparently bottomless hatred of humankind. Conspicuously missing from such
> contemporary speculation is what experienced commentators, even as recently as
> a century ago, would have recognized as spiritual disease, whatever its accompanying
> features.
> 
> 60
> 
> If unity is indeed the litmus test of human progress, neither history nor Heaven
> will readily forgive those who choose deliberately to raise their hands against
> it. In trusting, people lower their defences and open themselves to others. Without
> doing so, there is no way in which they can commit themselves wholeheartedly to
> shared goals. Nothing is so devastating as suddenly to discover that, for the
> other party, commitments made in good faith have represented no more than an advantage
> gained, a means of achieving concealed objectives different from, or even inimical
> to, what had ostensibly been undertaken together. Such betrayal is a persistent
> thread in human history that found one of its earliest recorded expressions in
> the ancient tale of Cain's jealousy of the brother whose faith God had chosen
> to confirm. If the appalling suffering endured by the earth's peoples during the
> twentieth century has left a lesson, it lies in the fact that the systemic disunity,
> inherited from a dark past and poisoning relations in every sphere of life, could
> throw open the door in this age to demonic behaviour more bestial than anything
> the mind had dreamed possible.
> 
> 61
> 
> If evil has a name, it is surely the deliberate violation of the hard-won covenants
> of peace and reconciliation by which people of goodwill seek to escape the past
> and to build together a new future. By its very nature, unity requires self-sacrifice.
> "...self-love", the Master states, "is kneaded into the very clay of man."59 The
> ego, termed by Him the "insistent self",60 resists instinctively constraints imposed
> on what it conceives to be its freedom. To willingly forgo the satisfactions that
> licence affords, the individual must come to believe that fulfilment lies elsewhere.
> Ultimately, it lies, as it has always done, in the soul's submission to God.
> 
> 62
> 
> Failure to meet the challenge of such submission has manifested itself with
> especially devastating consequences throughout the centuries in betrayal of the
> Messengers of God and of the ideals they taught. This discussion is not the place
> for a review of the nature and provisions of the specific Covenant by means of
> which Bahá'u'lláh has successfully preserved the unity of those who recognize
> Him and serve His purpose. It is sufficient to note the strength of the language
> He reserves for its deliberate violation by those who simultaneously pretend allegiance
> to it: "They that have turned away therefrom are reckoned among the inmates of
> the nethermost fire in the sight of thy Lord, the Almighty, the Unconstrained."61
> The reason for the severity of this condemnation is obvious. Few people have difficulty
> in recognizing the danger to social well-being of such familiar crimes as murder,
> rape or fraud, nor the need for society to take effective measures of self-protection.
> But how are Bahá'ís to think about a perversity which, if unchecked, would destroy
> the very means essential to the creation of unity-would, in the uncompromising
> words of the Master, "become even as an axe striking at the very root of the Blessed
> Tree"?62 The issue is not one of intellectual dissent, nor even of moral weakness.
> Many people are resistant to accepting authority of one kind or another, and eventually
> distance themselves from circumstances that require it. Persons who have been
> attracted to the Bahá'í Faith but who decide, for whatever reason, to leave it
> are entirely free to do so.
> 
> 63
> 
> Covenant-breaking is a phenomenon fundamentally different in nature. The impulse
> it arouses in those under its influence is not simply to pursue freely whatever
> path they believe leads to personal fulfilment or contribution to society. Rather,
> are such persons driven by an apparently ungovernable determination to impose
> their personal will on the community by any means available to them, without regard
> for the damage done and without respect for the solemn undertakings they entered
> into on being accepted as members of that community. Ultimately, the self becomes
> the overriding authority, not only in the individual's own life, but in whatever
> other lives can be successfully influenced. As long and tragic experience has
> demonstrated all too certainly, endowments such as distinguished lineage, intellect,
> education, piety or social leadership can be harnessed, equally, to the service
> of humanity or to that of personal ambition. In ages past, when spiritual priorities
> of a different nature were the focus of the Divine purpose, the consequences of
> such rebellion did not vitiate the central message of any of the successive revelations
> of God. Today, with the immense opportunities and horrific dangers that physical
> unification of the planet has brought with it, commitment to the requirements
> of unity becomes the touchstone of all professions of devotion to the will of
> God or, for that matter, to the well-being of humankind.
> 
> 64
> 
> Everything in its history has equipped the Bahá'í Cause to address the challenge
> facing it. Even at this relatively early stage of its development-and relatively
> limited as its resources presently are-the Bahá'í enterprise is fully deserving
> of the respect it is winning. An onlooker need not accept its claims to Divine
> origin in order to appreciate what is being accomplished. Taken simply as this-worldly
> phenomena, the nature and achievements of the Bahá'í community are their own justification
> for attention on the part of anyone seriously concerned with the crisis of civilization,
> because they are evidence that the world's peoples, in all their diversity, can
> learn to live and work and find fulfilment as a single race, in a single global
> homeland.
> 
> 65
> 
> This fact underlines, if further emphasis were needed, the urgency of the successive
> Plans devised by the Universal House of Justice for the expansion and consolidation
> of the Faith. The rest of humanity has every right to expect that a body of people
> genuinely committed to the vision of unity embodied in the writings of Bahá'u'lláh
> will be an increasingly vigorous contributor to programmes of social betterment
> that depend for their success precisely on the force of unity. Responding to the
> expectation will require the Bahá'í community to grow at an ever-accelerating
> pace, greatly multiplying the human and material resources invested in its work
> and diversifying still further the range of talents that equip it to be a useful
> partner with like-minded organizations. Along with the social objectives of the
> effort must go an appreciation of the longing of millions of equally sincere people,
> as yet unaware of Bahá'u'lláh's mission but inspired by many of its ideals, for
> an opportunity to find lives of service that will have enduring meaning.
> 
> 66
> 
> The culture of systematic growth taking root in the Bahá'í community would
> seem, therefore, by far the most effective response the friends can make to the
> challenge discussed in these pages. The experience of an intense and ongoing immersion
> in the Creative Word progressively frees one from the grip of the materialistic
> assumptions-what Bahá'u'lláh terms "the allusions of the embodiments of satanic
> fancy"63-that pervade society and paralyze impulses for change. It develops in
> one a capacity to assist the yearning for unity on the part of friends and acquaintances
> to find mature and intelligent expression. The nature of the core activities of
> the current Plan-children's classes, devotional meetings and study circles-permits
> growing numbers of persons who do not yet regard themselves as Bahá'ís to feel
> free to participate in the process. The result has been to bring into existence
> what has been aptly termed a "community of interest". As others benefit from participation
> and come to identify with the goals the Cause is pursuing, experience shows that
> they, too, are inclined to commit themselves fully to Bahá'u'lláh as active agents
> of His purpose. Apart from its associated objectives, therefore, wholehearted
> prosecution of the Plan has the potentiality of amplifying enormously the Bahá'í
> community's contribution to public discourse on what has become the most demanding
> issue facing humankind.
> 
> 67
> 
> If Bahá'ís are to fulfil Bahá'u'lláh's mandate, however, it is obviously vital
> that they come to appreciate that the parallel efforts of promoting the betterment
> of society and of teaching the Bahá'í Faith are not activities competing for attention.
> Rather, are they reciprocal features of one coherent global programme. Differences
> of approach are determined chiefly by the differing needs and differing stages
> of inquiry that the friends encounter. Because free will is an inherent endowment
> of the soul, each person who is drawn to explore Bahá'u'lláh's teachings will
> need to find his own place in the never-ending continuum of spiritual search.
> He will need to determine, in the privacy of his own conscience and without pressure,
> the spiritual responsibility this discovery entails. In order to exercise this
> autonomy intelligently, however, he must gain both a perspective on the processes
> of change in which he, like the rest of the earth's population, is caught up and
> a clear understanding of the implications for his own life. The obligation of
> the Bahá'í community is to do everything in its power to assist all stages of
> humanity's universal movement towards reunion with God. The Divine Plan bequeathed
> it by the Master is the means by which this work is carried out.
> 
> 68
> 
> However central the ideal of the oneness of religion unquestionably is, therefore,
> the task of sharing Bahá'u'lláh's message is obviously not an interfaith project.
> While the mind seeks intellectual certainty, what the soul longs for is the attainment
> of certitude. Such inner conviction is the ultimate goal of all spiritual seeking,
> regardless of how rapid or gradual the process may be. For the soul, the experience
> of conversion is not an extraneous or incidental feature of the exploration of
> religious truth, but the pivotal issue that must eventually be addressed. There
> is no ambiguity about Bahá'u'lláh's words on the subject and there can be none
> in the minds of those who seek to serve Him: "Verily I say, this is the Day in
> which mankind can behold the Face, and hear the Voice, of the Promised One. The
> Call of God hath been raised, and the light of His countenance hath been lifted
> up upon men. It behoveth every man to blot out the trace of every idle word from
> the tablet of his heart, and to gaze, with an open and unbiased mind, on the signs
> of His Revelation, the proofs of His Mission, and the tokens of His glory."64
> 
> 69
> 
> One of the distinguishing features of modernity has been the universal awakening
> of historical consciousness. An outcome of this revolutionary change in perspective
> that greatly enhances the teaching of Bahá'u'lláh's message is the ability of
> people, given the chance, to recognize that the whole body of humanity's sacred
> texts places the drama of salvation itself squarely in the context of history.
> Beneath the surface language of symbol and metaphor, religion, as the scriptures
> reveal it, operates not through the arbitrary dictates of magic but as a process
> of fulfilment unfolding in a physical world created by God for that purpose.
> 
> 70
> 
> In this respect, the texts speak with one voice: religion's goal is humanity's
> attainment of the age of "ingathering",65 of "one fold, and one shepherd"; 66
> the great age to come when "the Earth will shine with the glory of its Lord"67
> and the will of God is carried out "in earth, as it is in heaven";68 "the promised
> Day"69 when the "holy city"70 will descend "out of heaven, from ... God",71 when
> "the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains,
> and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it",72 when
> God will demand to know "what mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind
> the faces of the poor";73 the Day when scriptures that have been "sealed till
> the time of the end"74 would be opened and union with God will find expression
> in "a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name";75 an age utterly beyond
> anything humanity will have experienced, the mind conceived or language as yet
> encompassed: "even as We produced the first Creation, so shall We produce a new
> one: a promise We have undertaken: truly shall We fulfil it."76
> 
> 71
> 
> The declared purpose of history's series of prophetic revelations, therefore,
> has been not only to guide the individual seeker on the path of personal salvation,
> but to prepare the whole of the human family for the great eschatological Event
> lying ahead, through which the life of the world will itself be entirely transformed.
> The revelation of Bahá'u'lláh is neither preparatory nor prophetic. It is that
> Event. Through its influence, the stupendous enterprise of laying the foundations
> of the Kingdom of God
> has been set in motion, and the population of the earth has been endowed with
> the powers and capacities equal to the task. That Kingdom is a universal civilization
> shaped by principles of social justice and enriched by achievements of the human
> mind and spirit beyond anything the present age can conceive. "This is the Day",
> Bahá'u'lláh declares, "in which God's most excellent favours have been poured
> out upon men, the Day in which His most mighty grace hath been infused into all
> created things.... Soon will the present-day order be rolled up, and a new one
> spread out in its stead."77
> 
> 72
> 
> Service to the goal calls for an understanding of the fundamental difference
> distinguishing the mission of Bahá'u'lláh from political and ideological projects
> of human design. The moral vacuum that produced the horrors of the twentieth century
> exposed the outermost limits of the mind's unaided capacity to devise and construct
> an ideal society, however great the material resources harnessed to the effort.
> The suffering entailed has engraved the lesson indelibly on the consciousness
> of the earth's peoples. Religion's perspective on humanity's future, therefore,
> has nothing in common with systems of the past-and only relatively little relationship
> with those of today. Its appeal is to a reality in the genetic code, if it can
> be so described, of the rational soul. The Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus taught two
> thousand years ago, is "within".78 His organic analogies of a "vineyard",79 of
> "seed [sown] into the good ground",80 of the "good tree [that] bringeth forth
> good fruit"81 speak of a potentiality of the human species that has been nurtured
> and trained by God since the dawn of time as the purpose and leading edge of the
> creative process. The ongoing work of patient cultivation is the task that Bahá'u'lláh
> has entrusted to the company of those who recognize Him and embrace His Cause.
> Little wonder, then, at the exalted language in which He speaks of a privilege
> so great: "Ye are the stars of the heaven of understanding, the breeze that stirreth
> at the break of day, the soft-flowing waters upon which must depend the very life
> of all men...."82
> 
> 73
> 
> The process bears within itself the assurance of its fulfilment. For those
> with eyes to see, the new creation is today everywhere emerging, in the same way
> that a seedling becomes in time a fruit-bearing tree or a child reaches adulthood.
> Successive dispensations of a loving and purposeful Creator have brought the earth's
> inhabitants to the threshold of their collective coming-of-age as a single people.
> Bahá'u'lláh is now summoning humanity to enter on its inheritance: "That which
> the Lord hath ordained as the sovereign remedy and mightiest instrument for the
> healing of all the world is the union of all its peoples in one universal Cause,
> one common Faith."83
> 
> References
> 
> 1. Bahá'u'lláh refers to the ancient Persian and Arabian story of Majnun and
> Layli, The Seven Valleys and The Four Valleys (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust,
> 1991), page 6.
> 
> 2. Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing
> Trust, 1983), section LXI.
> 
> 3. ibid., section XVI.
> 
> 4. Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh revealed after the Kitáb-i-Aqdas (Wilmette: Bahá'í
> Publishing Trust, 1988), page 27.
> 
> 5. Gleanings, section XVII.
> 
> 6. Bahá'u'lláh, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing
> Trust, 1988), page 133.
> 
> 7. Bahá'u'lláh, The Kitáb-i-Íqán (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1993),
> paragraph 216.
> 
> 8. ibid. 9. ibid., paragraph 104.
> 
> 10. ibid., paragraph 106.
> 
> 11. Gleanings, section XXII.
> 
> 12. Prayers and Meditations by Bahá'u'lláh (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust,
> 1987), page 311.
> 
> 13. Gleanings, section XXVII.
> 
> 14. ibid., section CIX.
> 
> 15. ibid., section LXXXI.
> 
> 16. Julian Huxley, cited by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man
> (London: William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd., 1959), page 243. See also Julian Huxley,
> Knowledge, Morality, and Destiny (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957), page 13.
> 
> 17. Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh: Selected Letters (Wilmette:
> Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1991), page 35.
> 
> 18. Gleanings, section LXXVIII.
> 
> 19. ibid., section CXXXII.
> 
> 20. Bahá'u'lláh, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas: The Most Holy Book (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing
> Trust, 1993), paragraph 182.
> 
> 21. Bahá'u'lláh, The Kitáb-i-Íqán, paragraph 4.
> 
> 22. ibid., paragraph 8.
> 
> 23. ibid., paragraph 13.
> 
> 24. ibid., paragraph 14.
> 
> 25. St. Matthew 13.25, Authorized King James Version.
> 
> 26. ibid., 13.29-30.
> 
> 27. Qur'án, surih 7, verse 33, Abdullah Yusuf Ali translation, third edition,
> (n.p.: 1938).
> 
> 28. Bahá'u'lláh, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, paragraph 99.
> 
> 29. The Summons of the Lord of Hosts: Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh (Haifa:
> Bahá'í World Centre, 2002), paragraph 126.
> 
> 30. Bahá'u'lláh, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, The Advent of Divine Justice (Wilmette:
> Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1990), page 79.
> 
> 31. Isaiah 45.5.
> 
> 32. Timothy 1.17.
> 
> 33. Qur'án, surih 3, verse 73.
> 
> 34. ibid., surih 2, verse 177.
> 
> 35. St. Matthew 5.13.
> 
> 36. ibid., 5.14.
> 
> 37. Micah 6.8.
> 
> 38. St. John 14.6.
> 
> 39. Qur'án, surih 24, verse 35.
> 
> 40. Genesis 17.7.
> 
> 41. Bhagavad-Gita, chapter IV, Sir Edwin Arnold translation.
> 
> 42. Deuteronomy 34.10.
> 
> 43. St. John 5.45-47.
> 
> 44. Qur'án, surih 2, verse 136.
> 
> 45. The Promulgation of Universal Peace: Talks Delivered by 'Abdu'l-Bahá during
> His Visit to the United States
> and Canada in
> 1912, revised edition (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1995), page 326.
> 
> 46. St. John 1.10.
> 
> 47. Gleanings, section CVI.
> 
> 48. Abraham Lincoln, quoted in Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the
> United States
> (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989).
> 
> 49. Qur'án, surih 21, verse 104.
> 
> 50. Bahá'u'lláh, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, paragraph 5.
> 
> 51. The Summons of the Lord of Hosts, paragraph 174.
> 
> 52. Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh, page 204.
> 
> 53. Bahá'u'lláh, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh,
> page 192.
> 
> 54. Gleanings, section CVI.
> 
> 55. Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh, page 129.
> 
> 56. Bahá'u'lláh, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh,
> pages 202-203.
> 
> 57. Bahá'u'lláh, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, The Advent of Divine Justice, page
> 84.
> 
> 58. Gleanings, section CXXXII.
> 
> 59. 'Abdu'l-Bahá, The Secret of Divine Civilization (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing
> Trust, 1990), page 96.
> 
> 60. Selections from the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá (Haifa: Bahá'í World Centre,
> 1997), page 256.
> 
> 61. Bahá'u'lláh, from a previously untranslated Tablet.
> 
> 62. Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Bahá (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust,
> 1944), page 25.
> 
> 63. Bahá'u'lláh, The Kitáb-i-Íqán, paragraph 213.
> 
> 64. Gleanings, section VII.
> 
> 65. The Summons of the Lord of Hosts, paragraph 126.
> 
> 66. St. John 10.16.
> 
> 67. Qur'án, surih 39, verse 69.
> 
> 68. St. Matthew 6.10.
> 
> 69. Qur'án, surih 85, verse 2.
> 
> 70. Revelation 21.2.
> 
> 71. ibid., 3.12.
> 
> 72. Isaiah 2.2.
> 
> 73. ibid., 3.15.
> 
> 74. Daniel 12.9.
> 
> 75. Isaiah 62.2.
> 
> 76. Qur'án, surih 21, verse 104.
> 
> 77. Gleanings, section IV.
> 
> 78. St. Luke 17.21.
> 
> 79. St. Matthew 21.33.
> 
> 80. ibid., 13.23.
> 
> 81. ibid., 7.17.
> 
> 82. Gleanings, section XCVI.
> 
> 83. ibid., section CXX.
> 
> METADATA
> 
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> 
> previous at archive.org.../one_common_faith;
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