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The Bahá’í Faith |
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The Bahá'í Faith
is the youngest of the world's independent religions. Its founder, Bahá'u'lláh
(1817-1892), is regarded by Bahá'ís as the most recent in the line of
Messengers of God that stretches back beyond recorded time and that includes
Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, Christ and Muhammad.
The central
theme of Bahá'u'lláh's message is that humanity is one single race and that the
day has come for its unification in one global society. God, Bahá'u'lláh said,
has set in motion historical forces that are breaking down traditional barriers
of race, class, creed, and nation and that will, in time, give birth to a
universal civilization. The principal challenge facing the peoples of the earth
is to accept the fact of their oneness and to assist the processes of
unification.
One of the
purposes of the Bahá'í Faith is to help make this possible. A worldwide
community of some five million Bahá'ís, representative of most of the nations,
races and cultures on earth, is working to give Bahá'u'lláh's teachings
practical effect. Their experience will be a source of encouragement to all who
share their vision of humanity as one global family and the earth as one
homeland.
Teachings of Bahá’u’lláh
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Bahá'u'lláh taught
that there is one God whose successive revelations of His will to humanity have
been the chief civilizing force in history. The agents of this process have
been the Divine Messengers whom people have seen chiefly as the founders of
separate religious systems but whose common purpose has been to bring the human
race to spiritual and moral maturity.
Humanity is now
coming of age. It is this that makes possible the unification of the human
family and the building of a peaceful, global society. Among the principles
which the Bahá'í Faith promotes as vital to the achievement of this goal are
·
the
abandonment of all forms of prejudice
·
assurance
to women of full equality of opportunity with men
·
recognition
of the unity and relativity of religious truth
·
the
elimination of extremes of poverty and wealth
·
the
realization of universal education
·
the
responsibility of each person to independently search for truth
·
the
establishment of a global commonwealth of nations
·
recognition
that true religion is in harmony with reason and the pursuit of scientific
knowledge
Excerpted
from “The Bahá’í World,” < www.bahai.org >.