Summary
- History's Turning Point
- Disillusionment with the Promises of Materialism
- The Progressive Globalizing of Human Experience
- Humanity’s Current Needs Overwhelm Established Religions
- Bahá'u'lláh Recasts the Entire Conception of Religion
- Progressive Revelation and the Failure to Understand It
- Religion's Unity of Purpose
- Religion's Shaping of Civilization
- Enacting the Principles of the New Age
- The Power of Unity: The Model of the Bahá'í Community
- Disunity and the Persistence of Evil
- The Unfolding of the Bahá'í Global Community
- The Day of Fulfilment
-
- A sea change in consciousness is under way, creating new receptivity to Bahá'u'lláh's message.
- Early in the twentieth century a materialistic vision of reality had become the dominant world faith.
- History arrived at its supposed destination: a universal civilization based on secular reality.
- Beyond the West, announcements that "God is Dead" went largely unnoticed. Yet the people in these lands were marginalized and alienated.
- At century’s end: the sudden resurgence of religion as an all-consuming global phenomena.
- The intensification of humanity’s spiritual search continues, unabated, entering all spheres of human activity.
-
- Reawakened interest in religion is the product of historical forces that are gaining momentum.
- For over a hundred years, progress was identified soley with material development. Extreme forms culminated in totalitarian regimes.
- Other systems, while repudiating inhumane methods, derived their thrust from the same limited conception of reality. The resulting social ills can no longer be ignored.
- Even programs of “social and economic development” have proved a disheartening failure.
- The “gospel of human betterment” ultimately created a culture that fails to meet humanity’s deepest needs. The resulting perversions of truth reveal a civilization in decline.
- Materialism's error lies not in its laudable efforts to improve life, but in the disengagement of material progress from spiritual and moral development.
-
- Global integration also undermines the inherited certainties of the twentieth century. Interaction between diverse populations gives rise to a questioning of all established truths.
- Travel and migration expose people to new cultures and norms. People are brought face to face with their common humanity.
- Increasing recognition of the "oneness of humanity", a principle Baha'u'llah announced to the leaders of the world a century and a half ago—ignored, yet resistlessly accomplishing itself.
- Loss of faith in materialism, and progressive globalization of human experience, reinforce one another. The resulting upheaval is part of a spiritual process.
-
- Throughout history the great religions have been the primary agents of the civilizing process.
- Why does this heritage not serve as the stage for today's reawakening of spiritual quest?
- The social teachings of these religions, designed for earlier times, cannot address modernity.
- The close association of people with differing faiths causes confusion and doubt.
- None of the established religions can be refashioned to serve as an ultimate guide for modern life. Yet this is simply an inherent feature of an evolutionary process.
-
- In sharing Bahá'u'lláh's message, Bahá'is need to recognize the widespread misconceptions about the nature of religion.
- The diverse and conflicting conceptions of religion have one thing in common: all impose human limitations on something transcendent.
- Humans cannot "capture" God. The Creator interacts with an ever-evolving creation via the appearance of prophetic Figures.
- These "Manifestations" appear at different times, yet all proclaim the same Faith.
- The Manifestations imbue individuals with Divine attributes, helping them carry forward an "ever advancing civilization".
- Belief is a necessary and irrepressible urge of the human race.
- The work of the Manifestations is not merely repetitive but progressive. Successive revelations awaken humankind to its capacities and responsibilities as the trustees of creation.
- Bahá'u'lláh has not brought a new religion, but rather recast the entire conception of religion. Humanity today is the heir of history's entire spiritual legacy.
- God's "proof" is that He has repeatedly manifested Himself. The Manifestations exert an influence beyond that of any other historical phenomenon.
-
- The common objection to the idea of the unity of religion.
- Analogy of cultural life: the evolution and incredible diversity of human expression in no way invalidates the fact that humanity constitutes one "human race".
- A similar process characterizes religious life. Differing teachings, designed to meet the needs of each age, proceed from one source, forming one religion.
- Eternal versus transitory teachings: Religion's core message is immutable; auxiliary guidance is designed to enhance the process of civilization building.
- Importance of the recognition of God's revelation at its appearance. Failure to do so condemns people to practices that have long fulfilled their purpose.
- Typically, theology has assumed it had the right to interpret God’s purpose.
- Theology constructed its own authority in the heart of each great faith.
- Result: the construction of barriers between faiths. Each stage in a progressively unfolding revelation became frozen in time.
-
- Exploring past scriptures through Bahá'u'lláh's eyes reveals a unity of purpose and principle.
- The goal of humanity is to know God and to serve others.
- The soul’s ability to understand God’s purpose is dependent on interventions of the Divine.
- The succession of revelations has been an implicit, and usually explicit, feature of all revealed texts.
- A deep sense of the oneness of religion emerges. "Religion is religion, as science is science."
- It is inadequate recognition of the station of God's Manifestations to see them as the founders of separate religions. They are the spiritual Educators of history.
-
- Each religious dispensation focused on spiritual and material concerns of priority importance at that stage in history, leaving other desirable advances to be dealt with in future Revelations.
- Example of Islam: Laws that would be draconian today unified warring tribes and launched the faith on five centuries of development whose speed and scope is unmatched before or since.
- Issues of crime and punishment are especially contentious in understanding society's evolution towards spiritual maturity. Historical perspective is essential.
- Each dispensation focuses on reformations that are considered immediately essential.
- Bahá'u'lláh exhorts us: "be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in..."
-
- The needs of this age, enunciated by Bahá’u’lláh, are now accepted—at least as ideals—by progressive minds everywhere.
- What is lacking is the power of moral conviction that can implement these ideals.
- Through Bahá'u'lláh's revelation the principles required for the "coming of age of the human race" have been invested the spiritual power capable of tapping the roots of human motivation.
- Integral to these teachings are principles addressing the administration of humanity's collective affairs.
-
- Society’s progress is crippled by its inability to see “lack of unity” as the fundamental cause of the world’s ills.
- The world clings to prescriptions shaped by materialistic misconceptions of reality. But unity is a spiritual condition—its one certain source lies in the laws and principles revealed by God.
- Central to Bahá'u'lláh's mission is the creation of global community reflecting the diversity and unity of humankind—a phenomenon unlike anything the world has seen.
- The relevance of the achievement of the Bahá’í community calls out for appreciation.
- The Bahá'í Faith has maintained its unity, unbroken and without schism throughout its existence.
-
- The modern world is unable to effectively address the problem of evil.
- Since unity is the key to establishing peace and justice in the modern age, assaults on it represent evil in its most destructive form.
- Evil is identified as the deliberate violation of covenants of peace and reconciliation by which people of goodwill seek to escape the past and build a common future.
- Bahá’u’lláh created a Covenant to preserve the unity of His teachings, and the community of those who recognize Him.
- Covenant-breaking is not merely disagreement or moral failing, but a deliberate attempt to impose personal agendas that violate one's professed commitment.
-
- To anyone concerned with the crisis of civilization, the Bahá'ís should be cause for attention—evidence that humanity can find fulfillment as a single race in a global homeland.
- Urgency of the Faith's global Plans—need to multiply resources and diversify talents.
- The Faith's "culture of systematic growth"—core activities pursued in all corners of the globe.
- Sharing Bahá'u'lláh's message and promoting the betterment of society are reciprocal features of one global plan. The obligation to assist humanity's universal movement towards God.
- Sharing Bahá'u'lláh's message is not an interfaith project. The experience of conversion is not an extraneous feature of spiritual search. Bahá'u'lláh: "The call of God has been raised".
-
- The "coming of the Kingdom" is an historical process unfolding in a physical world.
- Religion’s goal is not only the salvation of the individual, but humanity’s collective attainment of “the Promised Day”.
- The Revelation of Baha'u'llah is neither preparatory nor prophetic: It is that Event.
- The fundamental difference between Bahá'u'lláh's mission and projects of human design. The appeal is to a potential in the human soul, nurtured and trained by God since the dawn of time.
- The coming of age of the human race. Bahá'u'lláh's summons to "one common Faith".