Give ear, O My servant, unto that which is being sent down unto thee from the Throne of the Lord, the Inaccessible, the Most Great. There is none other God but Him. He hath called into being His creatures, that they may know Him, Who is the Compassionate, the All-Merciful. Unto the cities of all nations He hath sent His Messengers, Whom He hath commissioned to announce unto men tidings of the Paradise of His good pleasure, and to draw them nigh unto the Haven of abiding security, the Seat of eternal holiness and transcendent glory. (Baha'u'llah, Gleanings, 144-45)
God's purpose in sending His Prophets unto men is two-fold. The first is to liberate the children of men from the darkness of ignorance, and guide them to the light of true understanding. The second is to ensure the peace and tranquility of mankind, and provide all the means by which they can be established. (Baha'u'llah. Gleanings, XXIV, 79-80)
The Great Being saith: O ye children of men! The fundamental purpose animating the Faith of God and His Religion is to safeguard the interests and promote the unity of the human race, and to foster the spirit of love and fellowship amongst men. Suffer it not to become a source of dissension and discord, of hate and enmity." (Baha'u'llah. Gleanings, CX, 215)
Religion forms the foundation of the world's cultures. The traditions, social customs, laws, literature, art, and music that unite a people derive the essence of their inspiration from the Messengers of God. It is critical to the peace and security of the modern world that its citizenry adopt not only a posture of pragmatic tolerance for each other's religions but wholeheartedly accept the legitimacy of their origin in one God and celebrate the diversity of God's dispensations of grace to humankind. The grace of God unites hearts regardless of the religious dispensation with which it is associated.
Religion should unite all hearts and cause wars and disputes to vanish from the face of the earth, give birth to spirituality, and bring life and light to each heart. If religion becomes a cause of dislike, hatred and division, it were better to be without it, and to withdraw from such a religion would be a truly religious act. For it is clear that the purpose of a remedy is to cure, but if the remedy should only aggravate the complaint it had better be left alone. Any religion which is not a cause of love and unity is no religion. All the holy Prophets were doctors to the soul: they gave prescriptions for the healing of mankind; thus any remedy that causes disease does not come from the great and supreme Physician. (Paris Talks, p. 132)
An essential principle of Baha'u'llah's teaching is that religion must be the cause of unity and love amongst men; that it is the supreme effulgence of Divinity, the stimulus of life, the source of honor and productive of eternal existence. Religion is not intended to arouse enmity and hatred nor to become the source of tyranny and injustice. Should it prove to be the cause of hostility, discord and the alienation of mankind, assuredly the absence of religion would be preferable. Religious teachings are like a course of treatment having for its purpose the cure and healing of mankind. If the only outcome of a course of treatment should be mere diagnosis and fruitless discussion of symptoms, it would be better to abandon and abolish it. In this sense the absence of religion would be at least some progress toward unity. (Promulgation of Universal Peace, 394)
Religious absolutism is a more critical issue in the context of diversity. The world community is no longer a disparate collection of largely isolated cultural entities. It has converged into a neighborhood of cultural families. The realization of the underlying unity of religion is therefore central in the teachings of Baha'u'llah since His teachings are directed at the needs of global community. The Baha'i Faith specifically addresses current times. Central to its mission is the harmonization of the diverse cultural traditions in a unity that embraces and celebrates diversity. The spirit and teachings of the religions of God provide unity. The recognition that being without religious affiliation is better than subscribing to intolerance and fanaticism is not only a preferred value; it is a description of how things work.
When the Messenger appears with guidance to achieve the next level of human unity, the religious institutions that oppose the guidance lose credibility because of their opposition to beneficial outcomes for human society. To the degree that the primary purpose of religion, the unity of humankind at all levels of endeavor, is disregarded by the leaders of religion, fanaticism gains sway and serves to undermine the credibility of religion. The result is the abandonment of the religious practices that are contrary to the central purpose of religion.
We learn how reality works by choice and consequence. The Messengers of God
provide us with guidance that we accept through choice over time. For example,
the approach that Jesus submitted to the Sanhedrin to conquer the Romans with
love was rejected. It was heard by some; but it was dismissed by most. The groups
of religious zealots that were promoting armed resistance gained ascendancy
over enough of the population that the Jewish leadership eventually had to choose
war with Rome. In 70 AD the Jews rebelled against Rome to disastrous consequences.
The Messengers tell us the truth about how things work and give us guidance
sufficient to meet the particular demands for human cooperation and unity in
the times that they address. We learn by the consequences of our choices.
Baha'u'llah brings guidance for the development of global community. His teachings
address the questions and problems we are experiencing in the transition to
global society. He wrote letters to the kings, queens, and religious leadership
of the nineteenth-century world announcing His identity as the Messenger of
God and calling them to put away war in favor of global cooperation. His guidance
was dismissed. Since the rejection of His proposals for global unity, we have
suffered two world wars that resulted in the deaths of more than seventy million
men, women, and children and the suffering, through injury and loss, of nearly
all of the inhabitants of the globe.
We are still struggling with acceptance of the advice to put away war in favor of governance structures for resolving conflict. Currently, religion has taken center stage as an underlying cause of conflict for global community. It is becoming more abundantly clear to greater numbers of people that absolutism and fanaticism are not healthy expressions of religion. They run counter to the central purpose of all of the Messengers of God. The Messengers of God are spiritual and practical teachers and they call everyone to the same profession.
He Who is the Eternal Truth hath, from the Day Springs of Glory, directed His
eyes towards the people of Baha, and is addressing them in these words, "Address
yourselves to the promotion of the well being and tranquility of the children
of men. Bend your minds and wills to the education of the peoples and kindreds
of the earth, that haply the dissensions that divide it may, through the power
of the Most Great Name, be blotted out from its face, and all mankind become
the upholders of one Order, and the inhabitants of one City. Illumine and hallow
our hearts; let them not be profaned by the thorns of hate or the thistles of
malice. Ye dwell in one world, and have been created through the operation of
one Will. Blessed is he who mingleth with all men in a spirit of utmost kindliness
and love. (Baha'u'llah, Gleanings, 333-34)
The acceptance of the legitimacy of the Baha'i dispensation does not negate
the legitimacy of any of the previous dispensations. Instead, it reaffirms and
re-establishes their validity and reinvigorates them. The teachings of the new
dispensation clarify the continuity of the guidance provided by the former Messengers.
They fulfill the designs latent in the previous dispensations.
Each of the divine religions embodies two kinds of ordinances. The first is those which concern spiritual susceptibilities, the development of moral principles and the quickening of the conscience of man. These are essential or fundamental, one and the same in all religions, changeless and eternal - reality not subject to transformation. Abraham heralded this reality, Moses promulgated it, and Jesus Christ established it in the world of mankind. All the divine Prophets and Messengers were the instruments and channels of this same eternal, essential truth.
The second kind of ordinances in the divine religions is those which relate to the material affairs of human kind. These are the material or accidental laws which are subject to change in each day of manifestation, according to exigencies of the time, conditions and differing capacities of humanity. (Abdul-Baha, Promulgation of Universal Peace, 106)
Love for the former Messengers of God is infinitely enhanced by Baha'u'llah. For those previously confined to the love and trust of God through the religion they were raised in, the Baha'i Faith opens a depth and breadth of scriptural, cultural, and intellectual inspiration formerly unavailable, and it intimately connects individuals to others with richly diverse life experiences.
Trust, in each other and the institutions of society, is essential to human social order. The presence of God is its most potent source. Trust in God provides the spring of hope and creative energy essential to the well being of humankind. "The spirit that animateth the human heart is the knowledge of God" (Baha'u'llah. Gleanings, 291). The knowledge of God binds together the participants of society at both the spiritual and practical levels. At the spiritual level, communion with God provides the individual with the ability to love others selflessly.
At a practical level, members of a group with common beliefs are more likely to trust each other than strangers outside of the group. Global community is supported through recognition that all of the world's religions stem from the same source. We are all members of the same essential faith in God. We do not have to understand the particulars of all other faith traditions in order to realize that we each have access to a relationship with God. "Unto the cities of all nations He hath sent His Messengers, Whom He hath commissioned to announce unto men tidings of the Paradise of His good pleasure, and to draw them nigh unto the Haven of abiding security, the Seat of eternal holiness and transcendent glory" (Baha'u'llah, Gleanings, 145). At the level of personal experience, the Messengers show us that God takes care of everybody and that we do not have to personally understand or agree with someone's theology for this to be true. "Consort with the followers of all religions with a spirit of friendliness and fellowship" (Baha'u'llah. Gleanings, 95). Hindus, Jews, Zoroastrians, Moslems, Christians, Baha'is, and Buddhists all find their security and salvation in God, and they do this within the context of personal understandings of their respective faith traditions.
Baha'u'llah teaches explicitly that the various religions of the world were initiated by the Messengers of God. At the societal level, this is an essential realization for the maintenance of global social order. For institutions that hold to the absolute nature of religious truth and are therefore dedicated to the promotion of particular theologies, religious relativism is anathema. Globalization of civilization is seen as a threat to their survival unless they can enforce their version of religious hegemony. The path to harmonious and productive global civilization instead requires recognition of the unity underlying our diversity.
The Oneness of HumanityThe well-being of mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established. This unity can never be achieved so long as the counsels which the Pen of the Most High hath revealed are suffered to pass unheeded. (Baha'u'llah, Gleanings, 286)
The barriers to the unity of humankind in this age are the same as those that have plagued humanity throughout its social evolution - religious, racial, political and patriotic prejudices.
For a period of 6,000 years history informs us about the world of humanity. During these 6,000 years the world of humanity has not been free from war, strife, murder and bloodthirstiness. In every period war has been waged in one country or another and that war was due to either religious prejudice, racial prejudice, political prejudice or patriotic prejudice. It has therefore been ascertained and proved that all prejudices are destructive of the human edifice. As long as these prejudices persist, the struggle for existence must remain dominant, and bloodthirstiness and rapacity continue. Therefore, even as was the case in the past, the world of humanity cannot be saved from the darkness of nature and cannot attain illumination except through the abandonment of prejudices and the acquisition of the morals of the Kingdom. (Selections from the Writings of Abdul'Baha, 299)
The Messengers of God have always directed us to love one another. They have admonished us to transcend the prejudices of race, class, and culture. The consequences of heedlessness in the past, however, have not been as significant as today. There are no geographical barriers behind which we can hide from the potential now latent in our technical capacities for destruction. The world has become an interdependent neighborhood. Refusal to heed the directives of the Messengers of God to abandon our prejudices and join together to serve our common interests as creatures of the same God threatens destruction and human misery at levels unimaginable in the past.
The earth is one native land, one home; and all mankind are the children of one Father. God has created them, and they are the recipients of His compassion. Therefore, if anyone offends another, he offends God. It is the wish of our heavenly Father that every heart should rejoice and be filled with happiness, that we should live together in felicity and joy. The obstacle to human happiness is racial or religious prejudice, the competitive struggle for existence and inhumanity toward each other. (Abdul-Baha, Promulgation of Universal Peace, 468)
Therefore, it has been decreed by God in this day that these prejudices and differences shall be laid aside. All are commanded to seek the good pleasure of the Lord of unity, to follow His command and obey His will; in this way the world of humanity shall become illumined with the reality of love and reconciliation. (Abdul-Baha, Promulgation of Universal Peace, 316)