RELIGION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS
BY KEITH RANSOM-KEHLER
AS WE examine the course of history we are constrained to recognize the all-important function of religion in man’s development and social progress. From age to age there has appeared on earth a Being “peerless and unique,” who has exercised over the hearts and minds and souls of those who have heard and accepted His message a power and an authority that is never shared by another person.
Few human beings can influence their fellowmen throughout the course of their own lifetime; to extend this influence to the third or four generation is the utmost of human capacity: But the Founders of the great religions of the world change and control the action of millions of people for hundreds, yes, thousands of years, as in the case of Moses and Zoroaster.
All existing civilizations in the world are civilizations originating in religion, so far as history reveals their origin, founded and fostered by great Prophets or Messengers: Brahmanism and Shintoism, being of prehistoric origin, must be excluded from historical evidence; but there is every indication of their springing from a personal, not a mythological source.
To repeat, no other than the Founders of the great religions of the world have ever been able to change and regiment whole peoples, races, nations and ethnic groups, within a few brief generations; demolishing the existing beliefs and practices of those to whom they have appeared and substituting their own new and ofttimes drastic teachings.
Up to the threshold of the present century, the great artistic, social, political, legal and educational institutions of history have grown out of the laws, ordinances and principles laid down by the Prophets to the era or people that produced these institutions. The vast scheme of enlightened and humanitarian administration introduced by King Asoka when he embraced Buddhism; the miraculous and dramatic energy of Gothic architecture; the educational enterprises under religious sponsorship in Arabia, India and Europe, the interdependence of church and state, as one of the most firmly established aspects of history; the evident influence of religious doctrine in the codification of Justinian law,—are only a few of the many instances that come to mind as illustrating the far reaching, unparalleled power of the Founders of the great religions of the world.
The only example of appreciable advancement in the fundamental social relations, and the spiritualizing of human practice is due, taking our evidence from history, to these great Messengers and Educators of mankind. Not the founders of new systems of philosophy, not the conquerors of vast territories, not the enlightened scientist, not the monarch, no matter how humane, can accomplish these great ethnological movements over more than brief periods and sporadically.
The One who comes with the authentic religious message from age to age holds the allegiance of His followers when every earthly aspect that accompanied His arrival has been discarded and forgotten.
A study of the comparative religions of
the world reveals to us the inescapable fact
that they all teach the same great spiritual
truths. All religions teach that there is but
one great creative power, the source of light
and life. To the Buddhist this creative power
is an abstract principle, not a personal being,
but nevertheless the Buddha teaches a fundamental
unifying creative power. All religions
teach the oneness of humanity; a fact only
recently established through the science of
anthropology, of which Prof. Franz Boas of
Columbia University is the chief proponent.
All religions have for their basis of action the
practice of love and good will as the one
attitude through which mankind can be well
pleasing to God thus accomplishing the great
purpose for which he was created. All religions
teach some form of survival, advancing a belief
in immortality; and all religions,
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without exception, teach that through their
Founder and through Him alone can mankind
know God or attain the essential path to
salvation. Each one of the religions, as it has
been founded in turn, has displayed always
this changeless aspect of its teaching.
However, side by side with these spiritual truths there is invariably revealed by each great Messenger who establishes His religion in the world, a body of laws and ordinances that constitute a temporal social program. These laws vary according to the time, place, condition of society and the human needs of those to whom the Prophet makes His revelation. The liveliest source of divergence among the followers of the great religions of the world is the difference in these temporal or social teachings that have been given by their Founder, as the plan and desire of God. For long after the conditions have passed which made teachings necessary, men still cling to these obsolescent forms and ceremonies. The Founder of each religion has always covenanted with His followers that a successor would follow Him; that that same spirit which had enabled Him to lighten men’s burdens and to purify their hearts would appear in another being like unto Himself; but the course of history always reveals the same story—the Promised One comes into the world with a great message of authority, more advanced teachings than those which men had received in the past dispensation, and is met in every age with the most violent and perhaps tragic rejection on the part of those to whom He had been sent. One of the irrefutable proofs of His reality has been that ofttimes with no prestige, no power, no position, but facing the organized opposition of society as well, in spite of all opposition and denial He has triumphantly succeeded in establishing His cause.
A study of comparative religions shows that their Founders have always claimed to derive their power from God, have always taught the same basic spiritual truths, have always brought an uplifting and progressive social program and have always obtained the same historical results,—that of elevating men to loftier human relations and to greater spiritual ideals.
As previously stated each of the great religions of the world today have been promised by its Founder that the same spirit which was in Him will return and dwell amongst men. The Buddha taught his followers that He was not the first Buddha nor would He be the last. Therefore the Buddhists are expecting the fifth Buddha. The Zoroastrians have been promised Shah Baroum; the Christians are expecting the Second Coming; the Muḥammadans, the Imam Mahdi; the Brahmans, the twelfth incarnation of Vishnu; the Jews are still expecting their Messiah. Each religion has been promised by its Founder that when this promised One appears He will establish love and brotherhood, peace and goodwill throughout the earth. With each religion divided into innumerable sects it would seem impossible to reconcile the conflicting and contending divisions of any one of the religions within itself. To produce affection and sympathetic understanding among the great religions themselves would indeed require the incomparable influence of One endowed with the power of God, as in each instance this Promised One was to be.
It is self-evident that each of the religions, in this sublime expectation, is referring to one Personality, not several; for if each of these expected Messengers came, as promised, He would not produce harmony and accord, but greater conflict and misunderstanding. When sincere and spiritually-minded men and women, of whatever faith, examine the identity of teaching in all of the great religions, as previously explained, they are compelled, if they are candid and dispassionate, to admit the basic unity of all religious teaching. To find these earnest exponents of true religion to whom the spirit and not the letter of their faith is of paramount importance, would be to obliterate religious differences and to institute the practice rather than the profession of one’s belief; for all religions are based upon the law of love. That “pressed down and running over men give back into our bosoms” the sympathy and generosity which we express towards them is not only a teaching common to all religions, but is sound psychology as well.
Not by the arrogance of assuming everyone else
to be in the wrong and ourselves in
the right; not by a blind refusal to investigate
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and accredit the beliefs of others, but
by an independent approach to the study:
first—of what we owe to religions; second—of
the great basic teachings which they hold
in common; and third—of the immeasurable
influence which they have exerted through-
out the ages over the lives of the millions
who have teemed this earth. By this approach
can we find the reconciling attitude that will
enable us to enter into sincere accord with
those who are seeking and worshipping God
everywhere.
The New Politics
One of the lively sources of divergence and misunderstanding among men is religion. Something which will create in men the will to harmony and friendship is basic to a solution of the world’s more material problems. Religious accord presupposes the determination to solve the world’s problems on the basis of justice and goodwill. But even with a desire for goodwill we must have some intelligent method, some sane and workable plan by which the inequalities and miseries of human life can be readjusted to safer and nobler ends. When men arise with religious fervor, determined to carry forward a great spiritual command, as in the case of the religious teachings of the past, history discloses to us with a startling rapidity old methods, standards and practices are discarded and new ones established, under religious sanction.
In the case of the serious political problems which confront the world, erupting from generation to generation in war, which not only dislocates civil and economic life but destroys valuable human life as well, it is evident, even to ignorant people, that some power higher than the state is essential to that internal regulation amongst the governments of the world that will adjudicate national differences without resort to arms.
The participation of various states in a League of Nations and in a World Court is convincing evidence that thinking people realize that the old world in which governments and nations could live to themselves alone has given place to a new world, shrunk to such all-inclusive dimensions that today the nations of the world are, "members one of another.”
In times past war brought merely political changes, but today, with an active revolutionary party in all of the great industrialized countries, war would produce changes of such profound social and economic significance as to be fraught with the gravest danger to civilization.
Therefore some method must be devised whereby all the nations heartily and willingly give over political affairs of an international character to a body empowered to act. In order to draw every nation into such a scheme the group comprising this final parliament must be completely impartial, just and free from all political entanglements.
Many of the great nations today are suffering under political schemes devised for a world which has vanished. At present most of the problems treated through political channels, in accordance with past custom, are not in the least political in nature: reparations, unemployment, tariff, state insurance protection, all kinds of improvement of domain are not political but economic considerations, while other issues, handled through the mechanism of politics, are legal. The simple, easy, uncomplicated problems of the past could be solved by party methods, but today’s problems are different.
Government to be effective must be efficient. Those who govern must be equipped for government. Social experimentation proves that governing is a very exact science that cannot be spontaneously put into practice by ignorant, uninformed men no matter how lofty and humanitarian their sentiments.
After finding men with ideals of justice
and human betterment, selfless and dedicated
to the common good—there are such in every
country of the world—they must next possess
enlightenment and information, relying
in all exact matters upon expert opinion and
advice. To correct the inefficiency of party
politics those elected to that ultimate
international office suggested in this article, would
have but one task before them: to administer
public affairs not upon the basis of party
patronage, political allegiance and the whim
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of constituencies, but upon the basis of
intelligent inquiry, unbiased investigation and
impartial judgment. Free and open expression
of opinion is essential in such considerations,
but there could be no final interest as
to which opinion prevailed. Personal loyalty
and adherence to preconceptions would have
to be effaced. What happened to personal
opinions and ideas would in such a body become
a matter of indifference: for the only
objective would be arrival at true, just and
workable conclusions. This would constitute
government consultation, which could be
established in the simplest village, as well as
in international affairs, thus relieving the
world from the strife and inefficiency of
party conflicts. Popular suffrage won at such
sacrifice and expense should never be
relinquished. All local governments could be
directly elected; national bodies elected by
delegates, democratically chosen; and the
final international body could then be elected
by the various national governments; this
would preclude either popular favor or
prejudice.
Having suggested a basis for religious and nationalistic harmony there still remains a very lively source of misunderstanding and conflict in the racial prejudices that separate mankind. Fortunately the youth of the world is not yet inured to the blindness and folly of racial antagonism. Exchange professors and students, enormously increased travel, the radical conclusions of anthropologists and biologists concerning the basic likeness of the races, increasing recognition of the danger to world peace in racial conflicts, as well as the ordinary common sense view that any race that has survived the incalculable vicissitudes of history has valuable power and assets that make it worthy of respect: these and other considerations have formed a strong bond of racial amity around the world.
To trace the infiltrations and modifications of the races through migration and admixture is merely another means of telling the story of human progress. The Ainus and Pigmy are illustrations of pure races. Ethnology gives no example of any race that has attained to high superiority without a fecundating contact with those different from itself.
As we know, human beings increase in geometrical ratio: we have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, sixteen great-great-grandparents, etc. At this rate, a rudimentary knowledge of arithmetic acquaints us with the fact that by the end of twenty generations, or about seven hundred years, every man has 1,937,152 ancestors; adding another three hundred years, or ten more generations, the total comes to 1,743,643,248 ancestors in one thousand years. Just one generation more, the thirty-first, brings our ancestry to 3,487,286,496, and as there have never been as many people as that on the globe at any time all our hysteria about pure and superior races is not only, in the words of Professor Best, “pure myth, but pure bunk.”
That mankind is one great family is common to all religious beliefs. “God made of one blood all men to dwell upon the face of the earth.” “Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created us?” If this view be pressed and humanity be so regarded, we must admit that the more evolved and advanced the organism the more differentiated the organs. Each organ is specialized for its own peculiar function, which cannot be performed by any other organ. The most important contribution to the body is the high degree of distinction in its parts; and so with the great organism of humanity: each race, each nationality has its own peculiar part and function in the development of mankind; due to its differences, no other can fill that place, no other can perform that service.
The growing interdependence of mankind, his increasing enlightenment, his ever-widening acquaintance with other peoples and races, as well as the social security of a better understanding, are once more reviving the old religious sanctions of universal brotherhood and increasing human sentiments of goodwill and sympathy.
The special gift deposited in each of the
so-called races (for ethnology has not accepted
the idea of a basic difference) is of
enormous value and advantage to the welfare
and advancement of the organism of humanity;
therefore racial differences should never
be discredited, but enthusiastically fostered
and developed. The recognition of those
superiorities possessed by each of the races
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constitutes a basis whereon racial enmity may
be annulled; for the conquest of prejudice is
fundamental to any lasting solution of
human problems.
The day has passed when one must speak with bated breath of the existing economic structure as a sacrosanct institution derived from God.
The educated youth of every land are studying economics and freely discussing the fallacies, inadequacies and failures of the present system. In this world-wide depression capital and labor alike are suffering from the deficiencies of our economic practice.
The spectacle of 355,000,000,000 bushels of excess wheat in the world with millions of people undernourished and starving; virgin products and raw materials going to waste while the nations suffer from unemployment; low wages prohibiting distribution and consumption, upon which economic welfare depends; these and many other pressing problems are challenging the attention of statesmen, economists, manufacturers, laborers, farmers, everywhere.
Whatever the world’s political status, we are obliged to recognize that it is an economic unit; no nation today can solve its economic problem independently.
With the establishment of an International House of Justice along the lines previously suggested, these pressing economic problems could be solved for the whole world. There could be, for example, an international control of the food supply, a stabilized international currency, equitable distribution and administration in matters too far-reaching for local control.
Since the earth is the basis of wealth, and food the necessity for human welfare, any solution of the economic problem would start with the farmer. If he were permitted to pay his taxes either in money or in kind the produce could be distributed by the community authorities to those points where it was most needed, thereby bringing the best price. For this purpose a common storehouse would be required, such for example, as the Canadian farmers used in their Wheat Pool. A competent secretary to control this storehouse would levy a graduated tax, those producing the most paying perhaps, a fifth, while those producing little would be tax exempt. Those producing less than their requirements would be assisted from the common store to the extent of their legitimate needs.
There should be several sources of income locally: taxes on animals, wealth without inheritors, a portion of the mines, and so forth; while the common treasury would have to pay from its revenue running expenses, such as public safety, hygiene and the like; its national tax, support of an orphanage, a hospital, the poor relief already mentioned and education. Thus this most fundamental of all public services would be removed from politics and expediency.
Economists say that the world is suffering from under—consumption of both men and materials. If every man labored there would be no drudgery. If all men worked consumption would be universal and leisure a common benefaction. In a well ordered world there would be no idle rich and no idle poor.
The yawning gulf between capital and labor cannot be spanned through wages: the time will never come when the laborer will be satisfied with his hire. The abolition of wages and the substitution of profit-sharing would obviate this fundamental source of disagreement. Then if each workman became a stockholder in the business for which he worked he would give to it his utmost loyalty and effort. Such a plan would not work satisfactorily unless it were universally adopted.
With every man working and every man owner in a business everyone would then become both a capitalist and a laborer: the wide divergence existing between them would by this method be bridged.
Under international direction, strong laws could be made to protect the capitalist from heavy losses and the laborer from want. A form of testamentary will redistributing wealth with every generation would safeguard society from the concentration of capital in the hands of the few.
With such a plan as given in this and the preceding article the sabotage that the nations of the world are now practicing on the economic machine would cease.
The program for social advancement and
world betterment outlined in previous
articles constitute part of the plan of Bahá’u’lláh,
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Founder of the Bahá’í Cause, for the solution
of human problems.
Born near Ṭihrán, Persia, in 1817, a descendant of the ancient royal dynasty, He passed from this world a titular prisoner in the penal colony of ‘Akká, Palestine, in 1892. He spent forty years in exile and in prison for promulgating universal peace and human brotherhood.
In addition to the religious, racial, political and economical reconciliation already briefly described in this series, He has laid down as principles essential to human advancement: the independent search for truth, whereby we will free ourselves from ancient dogmas, inhibitions and superstitions in our investigation of reality; accord between religion, science, reason, and the abandonment of belief contrary to established proof; universal education; a universal auxiliary language; the equality between men and women; and, fundamental to all advancement, the conquest of prejudice.
It is important to note that all of the great principles laid down by Bahá’u’lláh were enunciated between 1844 and 1866, long in advance of their general acceptance. Today many of them seem commonplace, but when we recall that they were set forth in central Asia, from sixty to eighty years ago, we realize how challenging they were.
How are we to account for the fact that Bahá’u’lláh formulated His program long in advance of its acceptance if not on the basis of an innate knowledge, power and influence on His part? Everything that He suggested is today, two generations later, being agitated as necessary to advancement and security. But when He called for peace in 1869 a disarmament conference would have been an impossibility. Peace was certainly not a new idea; it had been in the world for centuries; however its general pursuit did not start until long after Bahá’u’lláh had incorporated it into His plan, together with the Court of International Arbitration, which was first founded thirty years later at the Hague.
When Bahá’u’lláh called for universal education the rulers of the world prided themselves in keeping their subjects in ignorance; but today education is the ideal of every civilized government.
In Persia in 1844 the Báb, Who foretold the coming of Bahá’u’lláh, announced the era of the equality between men and women: its fulfillment since that time has been phenomenal.
When Bahá’u’lláh spoke of reason and science as supporting true religion Darwin and Huxley were being denounced as destroyers of faith. Today Eddington, Pupin, Milliken and other great scientists declare materialism much too fantastic for science.
It is unnecessary to continue this form of argument for it is self-evident that the whole Bahá’í program was formulated by Bahá’u’lláh long in advance of its agitation or adoption in the world.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, son of Bahá’u’lláh, and Interpreter of the Bahá’í teachings, says to His followers: “It is incumbent upon you to be submissive to all monarchs who are just and to show your fidelity to every righteous king. Serve ye the sovereigns of the world with utmost truth and loyalty. Show your obedience unto them and be their well-wishers, without their leave and permission do not meddle with political affairs; well is it with them that act accordingly.”
The sane and noble plan given by Bahá’u’lláh to emancipate us from our present difficulties is a plan that would have to be voluntarily and peacefully embraced, in order to establish its glorious results.
The Bahá’í Faith, numbering many millions of followers throughout the world, has for its immediate objective the fostering of love and good-will among mankind. Representatives of every religion, every race, every nationality, every social class, every degree of humanity from the lowest unto the highest are daily swelling our numbers and enhancing the prestige of peace and of brotherhood in the world.
Hereditary animosities, age-old enmities, apparently insurmountable barriers are being abrogated and forgotten under the compelling influence of these mighty teachings of Bahá’u’lláh. To Bahá’ís, this practice of world friendship is not a mere wistful idea; it is the common basis of everyday life.
The world is full of societies and movements,
some working for peace, some for the
advancement of women, some for the solution
of the economic problems, some for education,
some for a universal language, some
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for racial amity, some for brotherhood and
understanding: but the Bahá’í Cause is the
only one that combines all of these objectives
under the guidance of Bahá’u’lláh, Who first
compiled the all-inclusive program from
which each in turn has sprung.
The following words of Bahá’u’lláh are recorded by Prof. E. G. Browne of Cambridge University, who visited Him in ‘Akká in 1889: “We desire but the good of the world and the happiness of the nations; yet they deem us a stirrer up of strife and sedition worthy of bondage and banishment . . . that all nations should become one in faith and all men as brothers; that the bonds of affection and unity between the sons of men should be strengthened; that diversity of religion should cease, and differences of race be annulled. . . . So it shall be; these fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall pass away, and the ‘Most Great Peace’ shall come. . . . These strifes and this bloodshed and discord must cease and all men be as one kindred and one family. . . . Let not a man glory in this that he loves his country; let him rather glory in this, that he loves his kind.”
Ṭihrán, Persia.
House owned and occupied by Bahá’u’lláh in Ṭihrán, Persia.
