Letter to Worlds's Religous Leaders

Tom's Web Site | Home | Site Links

THE UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE

Baha'i World Centre

April 2002

TO THE WORLD'S RELIGIOUS LEADERS

The enduring legacy of the twentieth century is that it compelled the peoples of the world

to begin seeing themselves as the members of a single human race, and the earth as that race's

common homeland. Despite the continuing conflict and violence that darken the horizon,

prejudices that once seemed inherent in the nature of the human species are everywhere giving

way. Down with them come barriers that long divided the family of man into a Babel of

incoherent identities of cultural, ethnic or national origin. That so fundamental a change could

occur in so brief a period --- virtually overnight in the perspective of historical time --- suggests

the magnitude of the possibilities for the future.

Tragically, organized religion, whose very reason for being entails service to the cause of

brotherhood and peace, behaves all too frequently as one of the most formidable obstacles in

the path; to cite a particular painful fact, it has long lent its credibility to fanaticism. We feel a

responsibility, as the governing council of one of the world religions, to urge earnest

consideration of the challenge this poses for religious leadership. Both the issue and the

circumstances to which it gives rise require that we speak frankly. We trust that common

service to the Divine will ensure that what we say will be received in the same spirit of

goodwill as it is put forward.

The issue comes sharply into focus when one considers what has been achieved

elsewhere. In the past, apart from isolated exceptions, women were regarded as an inferior

breed, their nature hedged about by superstitions, denied the opportunity to express the

potentialities of the human spirit and relegated to the role of serving the needs of men. Clearly,

ther e are many societies where such conditions persist and are even fanatically defended. At

the level of global discourse, however, the concept of the equality of the sexes has, for all

practical purposes, now assumed the force of universally accepted principle. It enjoys similar

authority in most of the academic community and information media. So basic has been the

revisioning that exponents of male supremacy must look for support on the margins of

responsible opinion.

The beleaguered battalions of nationalism face a similar fate. With each passing crisis in

world affairs, it becomes easier for the citizen to distinguish between a love of country that

enriches one's life, and submission to inflammatory rhetoric designed to provoke hatred and

fear of others. Even where it is expedient to participate in the familiar nationalistic rites, public

response is as often marked by feelings of awkwardness as it is by the strong convictions and

ready enthusiasm of earlier times. The effect has been reinforced by the restructuring steadily

taking place in the international order. Whatever the shortcomings of the United Nations

system in its present form, and however handicapped its ability to take collective military action

against aggression, no one can mistake the fact that the fetish of absolute national sovereignty is

on its way to extinction.

Racial and ethnic prejudices have been subjected to equally summary treatment by

historical processes that have little patience left for such pretensions. Here, rejectio n of the past

has been especially decisive. Racism is now tainted by its association with the horrors of the

twentieth century to the degree that it has taken on something of the character of a spiritual

disease. While surviving as a social attitude in many parts of the world --- and as a blight on the

lives of a significant segment of humankind --- racial prejudice has become so universally

condemned in principle that no body of people can any longer safely allow themselves to be

identified with it.

It is not that a dark past has been erased and a new world of light has suddenly been

born. Vast numbers of people continue to endure the effects of ingrained prejudices of

ethnicity, gender, nation, caste and class. All the evidence indicates that such injustices will

long persist as the institutions and standards that humanity is devising only slowly become

empowered to construct a new order of relationships and to bring relief to the oppressed. The

point, rather, is that a threshold has been crossed from which there is no credible possibility of

return. Fundamental principles have been identified, articulated, accorded broad publicity and

are becoming progressively incarnated in institutions capable of imposing them on public

behaviour. There is no doubt that, however protracted and painful the struggle, the outcome

will be to revolutionize relationships among all peoples, at the grassroots level.

As the twentieth century opened, the prejudice that seemed more likely than any other

to succumb to the forces of change was that of religion. In the West, scientific advances had

already dealt rudely with some of the central pillars of sectarian exclusivity. In the context of

the transformation taking place in the human race's conception of itself, the most promising

new religious development seemed to be the interfaith movement. In 1893, the World's

Columbian Exposition surprised even its ambitious organizers by giving birth to the famed

"Parliament of Religions", a vision of spiritual and moral consensus that captured the popular

imagination on all continents and managed to eclipse even the scientific, technological and

commercial wonders that the Exposition celebrated.

Briefly, it appeared that ancient walls had fallen. For influential thinkers in the field of

religion, the gathering stood unique, "unprecedented in the history of the world". The

Parliament had, its distinguished principal organizer said, "emancipated the world from

bigotry". An imaginative leadership, it was confidently predicted, would seize the opportunity

and awaken in the earth's long-divided religious communities a spirit of brotherhood that could

provide the needed moral underpinnings for the new world of prosperity and progress. Thus

encouraged, interfaith movements of every kind took root and flourished. A vast literature,

available in many languages, introduced an ever wider public, believers and non-believers

alike, to the teachings of all the major faiths, an interest picked up in due course by radio,

television, film and eventually the Internet. Institutions of higher learning launched degree

programmes in the study of comparative religion. By the time the century ended, interfaith

worship services, unthinkable only a few decades earlier, were becoming commonplace.

Alas, it is clear that these initiatives lack both intellectual coherence and spiritual

commitment. In contrast to the processes of unification that are transforming the rest of

humanity's social relationships, the suggestion that all of the world's great religio ns are equally

valid in nature and origin is stubbornly resisted by entrenched patterns of sectarian thought.

The progress of racial integration is a development that is not merely an expression of

sentimentality or strategy but arises from the recognitio n that the earth's peoples constitute a

single species whose many variations do not themselves confer any advantage or impose any

handicap on individual members of the race. The emancipation of women, likewise, has

entailed the willingness of both society's institutions and popular opinion to acknowledge that

there are no acceptable grounds --- biological, social or moral ---- to justify denying women full

equality with men, and girls equal educational opportunities with boys. Nor does appreciation

of the contributions that some nations are making to the shaping of an evolving global

civilization support the inherited illusion that other nations have little or nothing to bring to the

effort.

So fundamental a reorientation religious leadership appears, for the most part, unable to

undertake. Other segments of society embrace the implications of the oneness of humankind,

not only as the inevitable next step in the advancement of civilization, but as the fulfilment of

lesser identities of every kind that our race brings to this critical moment in our collective

history. Yet, the greater part of organized religion stands paralyzed at the threshold of the

future, gripped in those very dogmas and claims of privileged access to truth that have been

responsible for creating some of the most bitter conflicts dividing the earth's inhabitants.

The consequences, in terms of human well-being, have been ruinous. It is surely

unnecessary to cite in detail the horrors being visited upon hapless populations today by

outbursts of fanaticism that shame the name of religion. Nor is the phenomenon a recent one.

To take only one of many examples, Europe's sixteenth century wars of religion cost that

continent the lives of some thirty percent of its entire population. One must wonder what has

been the longer term harvest of the seeds planted in popular consciousness by the blind forces

of sectarian dogmatism that inspired such conflicts.

To this accounting must be added a betrayal of the life of the mind which, more than

any other factor, has robbed religion of the capacity it inherently possesses to play a decisive

role in the shaping of world affairs. Locked into preoccupation with agendas that disperse and

vitiate human energies, religious institutions have too often been the chief agents in

discouraging exploration of reality and the exercise of those intellectual faculties that

distinguish humankind. Denunciations of materialism or terrorism are of no real assistance in

coping with the contemporary moral crisis if they do not begin by addressing candidly the

failure of responsibility that has left believing masses exposed and vulnerable to these

influences.

Such reflections, however painful, are less an indictment of organized religion than a

reminder of the unique power it represents. Religion, as we are all aware, reaches to the roots

of motivation. When it has been faithful to the spirit and example of the transcendent Figures

who gave the world its great belief systems, it has awakened in whole populations capacities to

love, to forgive, to create, to dare greatly, to overcome prejudice, to sacrifice for the common

good and to discipline the impulses of animal instinct. Unquestionably, the seminal force in the

civilizing of human nature has been the influence of the succession of these Manifestations of

the Divine that extends back to the dawn of recorded history.

This same force, that operated with such effect in ages past, remains an inextinguishable

feature of human consciousness. Against all odds, and with little in the way of meaningful

encouragement, it continues to sustain the struggle for survival of uncounted millions, and to

raise up in all lands heroes and saints whose lives are the most persuasive vindication of the

principles contained in the scriptures of their respective faiths. As the course of civilization

demonstrates, religion is also capable of profoundly influencing the structure of social

relationships. Indeed, it would be difficult to think of any fundamental advance in civilization

that did not derive its moral thrust from this perennial source. Is it conceivable, then, that

passage to the culminating stage in the millennia-long process of the organization of the planet

can be accomplished in a spiritual vacuum? If the perverse ideologies let loose on our world

during the century just past contributed nothing else, they demonstrated conclusively that the

need cannot be met by alternatives that lie within the power of human invention.

The implications for today are summed up by Baha'u'llah in words written over a

century ago and widely disseminated in the intervening decades:

There can be no doubt whatever that the peoples of the world, of whatever race or

religion, derive their inspiration from one heavenly Source, and are the subjects of one

God. The difference between the ordinances under which they abide should be

attributed to the varying requirements and exigencies of the age in which they were

revealed. All of them, except a few which are the outcome of human perversity, were

ordained of God, and are a reflection of His Will and Purpose. Arise and, armed with

the power of faith, shatter to pieces the gods of your vain imaginings, the sowers of

dissension amongst you. Cleave unto that which draweth you together and uniteth you.

Such an appeal does not call for abandonment of faith in the fundamental verities of any

of the world's great belief systems. Far otherwise. Faith has its own imperative and is its own

justification. What others believe --- or do not believe --- cannot be the authority in any individual

conscience worthy of the name. What the above words do unequivocally urge is renunciation

of all those claims to exclusivity or finality that, in winding their roots around the life of the

spirit, have been the greatest single factor in suffocating impulses to unity and in promoting

hatred and violence.

It is to this historic challenge that we believe leaders of religion must respond if

religious leadership is to have meaning in the global society emerging from the transformative

experiences of the twentieth century. It is evident that growing numbers of people are coming

to realize that the truth underlying all religions is in its essence one. This recognition arises not

through a resolution of theological disputes, but as an intuitive awareness born from the ever

widening experience of others and from a dawning acceptance of the oneness of the human

family itself. Out of the welter of religious doctrines, rituals and legal codes inherited from

vanished worlds, there is emerging a sense that spiritual life, like the oneness manifest in

diverse nationalities, races and cultures, constitutes one unbounded reality equally accessible

to everyone. In order for this diffuse and still tentative perception to consolidate itself and

contribute effectively to the building of a peaceful world, it must have the wholehearted

confirmation of those to whom, even at this late hour, masses of the earth's population look for

guidance.

There are certainly wide differences among the world's major religious traditions with

respect to social ordinances and forms of worship. Given the thousands of years during which

successive revelations of the Divine have addressed the changing needs of a constantly

evolving civilization, it could hardly be otherwis e. Indeed, an inherent feature of the scriptures

of most of the major faiths would appear to be the expression, in some form or other, of the

principle of religion's evolutionary nature. What cannot be morally justified is the

manipulation of cultural legacies that were intended to enrich spiritual experience, as a means

to arouse prejudice and alienation. The primary task of the soul will always be to investigate

reality, to live in accordance with the truths of which it becomes persuaded and to accord full

respect to the efforts of others to do the same.

It may be objected that, if all the great religions are to be recognized as equally Divine

in origin, the effect will be to encourage, or at least to facilitate, the conversion of numbers of

people fr om one religion to another. Whether or not this is true, it is surely of peripheral

importance when set against the opportunity that history has at last opened to those who are

conscious of a world that transcends this terrestrial one --- and against the responsibility that this

awareness imposes. Each of the great faiths can adduce impressive and credible testimony to

its efficacy in nurturing moral character. Similarly, no one could convincingly argue that

doctrines attached to one particular belief system have been either more or less prolific in

generating bigotry and superstition than those attached to any other. In an integrating world, it

is natural that patterns of response and association will undergo a continuous process of

shifting, and the role of institutions, of whatever kind, is surely to consider how these

developments can be managed in a way that promotes unity. The guarantee that the outcome

will ultimately be sound --- spiritually, morally and socially --- lies in the abiding faith of the

unconsulted masses of the earth's inhabitants that the universe is ruled not by human caprice,

but by a loving and unfailing Providence.

Together with the crumbling of barriers separating peoples, our age is witnessing the

dissolution of the once insuperable wall that the past assumed would forever separate the life of

Heaven from the life of Earth. The scriptures of all religions have always taught the believer to

see in service to others not only a moral duty, but an avenue for the soul's own approach to

God. Today, the progressive restructuring of society gives this familiar teaching new

dimensions of meaning. As the age-old promise of a world animated by principles of justice

slowly takes on the character of a realistic goal, meeting the needs of the soul and those of

society will increasingly be seen as reciprocal aspects of a mature spiritual life.

If religious leadership is to rise to the challenge that this latter perception represents,

such response must begin by acknowledging that religion and science are the two indispensable

knowledge systems through which the potentialities of consciousness develop. Far from being

in conflict with one another, these fundamental modes of the mind's exploration of reality are

mutually dependent and have been most productive in those rare but happy periods of history

when their complementary nature has been recognized and they have been able to work

together. The insights and skills generated by scientific advance will have always to look to the

guidance of spiritual and moral commitment to ensure their appropriate application; religious

convictions, no matter how cherished they may be, must submit, willingly and gratefully, to

impartial testing by scientific methods.

We come finally to an issue that we approach with s ome diffidence as it touches most

directly on conscience. Among the many temptations the world offers, the test that has, not

surprisingly, preoccupied religious leaders is that of exercising power in matters of belief. No

one who has dedicated long years to earnest meditation and study of the scriptures of one or

another of the great religions requires any further reminder of the oft-repeated axiom regarding

the potentiality of power to corrupt and to do so increasingly as such power grows. The

unheralded inner victories won in this respect by unnumbered clerics all down the ages have no

doubt been one of the chief sources of organized religion's creative strength and must rank as

one of its highest distinctions. To the same degree, surrender to the lur e of worldly power and

advantage, on the part of other religious leaders, has cultivated a fertile breeding ground for

cynicism, corruption and despair among all who observe it. The implications for the ability of

religious leadership to fulfil its social responsibility at this point in history need no elaboration.

Because it is concerned with the ennobling of character and the harmonizing of

relationships, religion has served throughout history as the ultimate authority in giving meaning

to life. In every age, it has cultivated the good, reproved the wrong and held up, to the gaze of

all those willing to see, a vision of potentialities as yet unrealized. From its counsels the

rational soul has derived encouragement in overcoming limits imposed by the world and in

fulfilling itself. As the name implies, religion has simultaneously been the chief force binding

diverse peoples together in ever larger and more complex societies through which the

individual capacities thus released can find expression. The great advantage of the present age

is the perspective that makes it possible for the entire human race to see this civilizing process

as a single phenomenon, the ever -recurring encounters of our world with the world of God.

Inspired by this perspective, the Baha'i community has been a vigorous promoter of

interfaith activities from the time of their inception. Apart from cherished associations that

these activities create, Baha'is see in the struggle of diverse religions to draw closer together a

response to the Divine Will for a human race that is entering on its collective maturity. The

members of our community will continue to assist in every way we can. We owe it to our

partners in this common effort, however, to state clearly our conviction that interfaith discourse,

if it is to contribute meaningfully to healing the ills that afflict a desperate humanity, must now

address honestly and without further evasion the implications of the over -arching truth that

called the movement into being: that God is one and that, beyond all diversity of cultural

expression and human interpretation, religion is likewise one.

With every day that passes, danger grows that the rising fires of religious prejudice will

ignite a worldwide conflagration the consequences of which are unthinkable. Such a danger

civil government, unaided, cannot overcome. Nor should we delude ourselves that appeals for

mutual tolerance can alone hope to extinguish animosities that claim to possess Divine

sanction. The crisis calls on religious leadership for a break with the past as decisive as those

that opened the way for society to address equally corrosive prejudices of race, gender and

nation. Whatever justification exists for exercising influence in matters of conscience lies in

serving the well-being of humankind. At this greatest turning point in the history of

civilization, the demands of such service could not be more clear. "The well-being of mankind,

its peace and security, are unattainable", Baha'u'llah urges, "unless and until its unity is firmly

established.

THE UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE