The Baha'i Faith and Syncretism
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Robert Stockman, The Baha'i Faith and Syncretism, bahai-library.com.
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The Baha'i Faith and Syncretism

Robert Stockman
published in Resource Guide for the Scholarly Study of the Bahá'í Faith

Wilmette, IL: Research Office of the USBNC, 1997

One of the most common assumptions about the Bahá'í Faith stated in Religious
Studies textbooks is that it is a syncretism. One introductory textbook even says the
Bahá'í Faith is "syncretistic by intention." It
is important to note, however, that the claim that the Bahá'í Faith is a syncretism is
strongly rejected by the Bahá'ís themselves and by their scriptures. Where does the idea
that the Bahá'í Faith is syncretic come from? What does the idea entail?

While the term syncretism has many meanings, a basic definition is
provided by the Oxford English Dictionary: it is an "attempted union or
reconciliation of diverse or opposite tenets or practices, especially in
philosophy or religion." Historically, the word has been used to denote a
religion that consists primarily, or wholly, of disparate ideas that are
borrowed from other religious traditions. Such a religion is an "artificial" or
"synthetic" religion, one which is not sui generis but is derivative.

Many scholars think that the Bahá'í Faith itself claims to be syncretic (hence
the above reference to "intention"). But this is not true. The Bahá'í religion
claims to consist of the teachings that God revealed to Bahá'u'lláh,
prophet-founder of the Bahá'í Faith. Bahá'ís take such a claim very seriously;
in fact, Bahá'u'lláh claimed to be the return of Christ, the Promised One of
all religions, and, in one sense, claimed to be God Godself.

The claim that the Bahá'í Faith is founded on revelation does not wholly
obviate the issue of syncretism, because the Bahá'í concept of revelation does
not necessarily imply that Bahá'u'lláh's writings were totally uninfluenced by
the world. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that virtually all of
Bahá'u'lláh's literary corpus consists of letters — some of book length — written
in reply to questions by followers, critics, or interested bystanders. Since
the revelation was in response to questions by human beings, the content of the
revelation was at least partly shaped by the cultural conditions of the
nineteenth-century Middle East. Furthermore, Bahá'u'lláh wrote in a distinct
style, a style different from those of the Bab and Muhammad, two
other individuals who, Bahá'ís believe, received revelation from God.

The fact that Bahá'u'lláh's revelation is in a distinctly personal style, and
was in response to culturally conditioned questions, can be understood in
different ways by Bahá'ís. Some Bahá'ís would be inclined to see the personal
style as a part of the process of divine revelation, and the questions as
God-intended stimuli to bring out the revelation. Other Bahá'ís might
understand revelation to consist of a divine assurance that Bahá'u'lláh's
answers to questions, inspired in some sense by God but phrased in his own
words and at least partly based on his education and experience, were
guaranteed by God to be valid. In the latter perspective, revelation includes a
creative process of sifting through existing ideas in Middle Eastern society,
accepting some and rejecting others, and innovating frequently when the
available ideas proved to be inadequate.

The influence of culture and language on revelation, however indirect, leaves
the door open to the argument that the Bahá'í writings represent a syncretism.
But study of cultural and linguistic influences on the Christian revelation, or
on the revelation claimed by any other religion, would lead one to draw the
same conclusion about other religions as well. Christian scholars have written
hundreds of books exploring the effect of Hellenistic religion and culture,
first-century Judaism, "heretical" Jewish sects, and even Zoroastrian ideas on
New Testament Christianity. From the point of view of these works, New
Testament Christianity was syncretic; and by implication, modern Christianity
is a syncretism as well. Even conservative Christians cannot deny that Christ
did not invent baptism, but "borrowed" it from John the Baptist. Thus it would
seem that for all religions, revelation must at least partly involve the
creative process of endorsing or rejecting ideas and practices that already
exist. In this sense, all religions are syncretisms.

Consequently it is not academically very useful to categorize the Bahá'í Faith
as a syncretism. If Bahá'ís claimed their religion is syncretic the description
would be useful; if syncretism were absent in the histories of other religions
the description would be useful; but to state the Bahá'í Faith is a syncretism
and imply that the others are not is a hasty generalization.

Of course, it is possible that a comparative study of Bahá'u'lláh's writings
would reveal them to be more syncretic than the Qur'an or the New Testament.
But those who argue that the Bahá'í Faith is a syncretism never offer such
comparative evidence. Usually they are unable to make such an argument because
they are unfamiliar with Bahá'u'lláh's life and writings in detail. This
constitutes another warning sign that the argument is hasty; any experienced
scholar knows it is a difficult and painstaking task to muster a strong
historical argument that X was influenced by Y, unless X, or someone who knew X
well, testifies to the influence of Y.

Many Christian theologians, recognizing the importance of bringing together
existing ideas in new, creative ways, have started to use the word
syncretism in a positive fashion. This is in contrast to the word's
usual connotation, which the Oxford English Dictionary notes is "almost
always. . . derogatory." Some theologians have called on Christians
to construct their theology in a deliberately "syncretistic" fashion; to
reappropriate old symbols in wholly new ways, ways suited to the values and
needs of postmodern culture. Such a process is not seen as a rejection of
Christianity, but a development of it, a moving of Christianity forward into
the twenty-first century.

It is, therefore, especially ironic to hear some liberal Protestant professors
of religion call the Bahá'í Faith syncretistic. For they do not use the term in
the positive, creative sense, but pejoratively. They would not refer to
liberation theology, which is clearly a syncretism of Marxist ideas and the
Bible, in that fashion; nor would they call feminist theology syncretic.

Where does the idea that the Bahá'í Faith is a syncretism come from? One source
is a misunderstanding of the Bahá'í concept of progressive revelation, the
teaching that states that all previous religions were divinely inspired and
ordained. When Christianity was founded, it developed out of Judaism and
recognized Judaism as a divinely founded religion. When Muhammad began his
teaching he recognized Judaism and Christianity — the religions already common
in Arabia — as divinely inspired and founded. The Bahá'í Faith is no different
in that it recognizes the religions that came before it as divinely inspired:
but in the modern world, this entails not just Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam, but Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, and Buddhism as well. By recognizing the
divine origin of these and other religions, the Bahá'í Faith takes a position
that is not very different from liberal Protestantism or the Catholicism of the
Second Vatican conference, which recognize the existence of truth in the other
religious traditions of the world.

In addition to giving praise where praise is due, the Bahá'í scriptures offer a
critique of various aspects of the religions that preceded it. For example, the
Bahá'í scriptures reject such beliefs as the Christian trinity, the Hindu
belief in transmigration of the soul, and the Muslim belief that the term "seal
of the prophets" meant that Muhammad was not to be succeeded by another
messenger. In this respect the Bahá'í Faith resembles New Testament
Christianity, which criticized the Judaism of its day, and the Qur'an, which
criticized Christians and Jews. But because of a lack of detailed understanding
of the Bahá'í perspective on other religions, individual Bahá'ís do not always
convey the balance of compliments and criticisms found in the Bahá'í
scriptures. Desiring to be positive about other religions, and not wishing to
offend other people, sometimes Bahá'ís will simply state that all the previous
religions are "true." They will often downplay the numerous Bahá'í criticisms
of central beliefs in other religions. As a result, a Bahá'í's understanding of
progressive revelation can sound like an uncritical belief that the Bahá'í
religion accepts everything that the previous religions teach. From this
misperception, and a misunderstanding of the principle of progressive
revelation, comes the belief that the Bahá'í Faith is a syncretism.

In conclusion, the question whether the Bahá'í Faith is syncretic needs to be
discussed at a more sophisticated level than it has been previously. If by
"syncretism" a scholar means the Bahá'ís themselves believe their religion is a
blending of the best from other religious traditions, this understanding of
Bahá'í self-identity is incorrect. If by "syncretism" a scholar means the
Bahá'í Faith is a simplistic mixture of ideas from other religions, with no
core of truths that are its own, this is a hasty generalization, and often is
partly based on inadequate explanations of the Bahá'í religion by its members.
If by "syncretism" a scholar means the Bahá'í Faith is a complex product of
original thought and original recombination of ideas already present in the
world, then all religions are syncretisms and nothing new is being said about
the Bahá'í Faith. If by "syncretism" a scholar — consciously or
unconsciously — means the Bahá'í Faith is an epiphenomenon unworthy of study,
then such a label impedes scholarship and interreligious dialogue. Hence use of
the term "syncretism" highlights the need for deeper thought about the Bahá'í
Faith in particular and the nature of religion in general.

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-- The Baha'i Faith and Syncretism (Used by permission of the curator)