Bahá’í World/Volume 7/The Fulfillment of Religion
THE FULFILLMENT OF RELIGION
BY BERTHA HYDE KIRKPATRICK
THE vitality of men’s belief in God is dying out in every land; nothing short of His wholesome medicine can ever restore it. The corrosion of ungodliness is eating into the vitals of human society; what else but the Elixir of His potent Revelation can cleanse -and revive it?”1
These arresting words of Bahá’u’lláh, written over fifty years ago, are today more true than ever. No thoughtful person will deny the lack of vitality in religion today. In a recent issue of the Christian Century,2 Secretary Henry Wallace makes this statement: "The science, economics, and wealth of the past 150 years have destroyed among our educated, well-to-do, so-called leading families vital faith in a transcendent God, who is interested in the affairs of men.” He even includes the clergy in this declining faith, for he further says, “. . . apparently a minority of both ministers and church members have any vital belief in a future life or a transcendent God.”
But the very lack of vitality in religion, the very indifference of the majority of people toward religion, makes it seem impossible to these same people, even the more thoughtful among them, that religion can be the remedy the world needs today. Even in all the chaos and confusion of the times it seems fair to say that comparatively few look to religion for any aid in solving our urgent social, economic, political, and international problems. Remedy after remedy is proposed and if tried, fails. National leaders appear, class and race leaders arise, labor and capital both have their leadership,—with the result of more antagonism and more warfare and bloodshed. But there is "still a hope,” to quote E. G. Homrighausen, "that salvation can come through man's ideas and efforts. . . . There is lacking the sort of desperation and spirit of helplessness which seeks for a definite revelation, unique and sovereign in its own right, which is the only hope of the world.”3
A few there are, however, who understand that religion, renewed, vital, dynamic, is the real need and only hope of the world today; and that in the past, at times of great stress and peril, God has spoken to mankind and shown the path through His chosen Messenger. There are those, too, humble believers in the Bible and other Holy Books, who look for the coming of the Promised One and for the fulfillment of the many promises found in Holy Scriptures; for the day of peace in the world, when "nations shall not learn war any more,” when swords shall be beaten into plowshares, when "the knowledge of the Glory of God shall cover the earth,” when the Kingdom shall be established upon earth, when justice and abundance shall prevail, when Christ shall return, or when according to Muḥammadan scriptures the Mahdi shall come, or the seventh Buddha in fulfillment of Buddhist expectation.
But it is to a world largely divorced from God, through ignorance, superstition, creedal formalism or materialism, and a world wholly in confusion, that Bahá’u’lláh speaks today His "great and clear Message.” He declares openly that He speaks as a Messenger of God, not of His own will, that He is the One promised by all the Divine Prophets of the past, that Their work cannot be carried on to completion except through following His instructions. He speaks of this new age which we are entering as the Day of God, the time for which Christ told men to look when He taught us to pray "Thy Kingdom come upon earth.” “The time foreordained unto peoples and kindreds of the earth is now come,” He says. And while men for the most part are so engrossed in their own selfish desires that they are deaf to His call and blind to His beauty, yet all over the world are those who are responding to this call, who
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1Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 200.
2January 29, 1936.
3World Tomorrow, March 29, 1934.
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are assured that “The King
hath come” and
that Bahá’u’lláh is the Bearer of the
Message for which the world is yearning today.
They testify that He has pointed out the
perfect remedy for ailing society and that He
fills men’s hearts with such love that they
are eager to apply this remedy. When they
study His message they find that no vision of
poet or seer of the past is so lofty,
no conception of the fulfillment of
religion so sublime, as the pattern
Bahá’u’lláh has laid
down for the world-wide civilization
of tomorrow; that no plan tried
or dreamed of by
man has been so all-inclusive, so stupendous,
so just, and yet so workable, so reasonable,
and so impelling.
As we have seen in the previous articles in this series, Bahá’u’lláh establishes the oneness of mankind, the oneness of all the Divine Prophets and the oneness of Their message. This message which God’s Prophets all bring has two aspects. “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 insure the peace and tranquillity of mankind, and provide all the means by which they can be established.”4 First, He wins and illumines the hearts of men and second, sets standards and laws for community life, for peaceful and tranquil relations with our neighbors. Recall that Christ, too, said that all the law and the prophets hung on two things. The first, briefly, was the command to love God with all the heart, mind, and soul and the second was to love one’s neighbor as oneself. The first concerns the individual, the second society.
So Bahá’u’lláh makes His great appeal to the hearts of men. God yearns for men’s hearts, those only does He demand. “O son of dust! All that is in heaven and earth I have ordained for thee, except the human heart, which I have made the habitation of My beauty and glory.”5 “O son of man! I loved thy creation, hence I created thee. Wherefore do thou love Me, that I may name thy name and fill thy soul with the spirit of life.”6 This appeal for a rebirth of vital, energizing love of God in the heart of man Bahá’u’lláh made dynamic by His own life. Those who read the story of His life know that it was one of complete sacrifice. Thus we can know both by His precept and by His example what love for God means and what love for man is. Those who came under His influence forgot their differences, small and great, even racial and religious differences, and gathered around Bahá’u’lláh in a new brotherhood. Inspired with this new love they, too, were ready to sacrifice all, even life.
But while the fundamental appeal of Bahá’u’lláh, like that of Christ and Buddha and all the Divine Prophets, was to the hearts of men, His message was very definitely a social one and a universal one. Always has religion had its social aspect, its regard for fellowmen; always in its freshness, has it been a great unifier; but now for the first time has it been possible for the Prophet of God to show how the law of love can be expanded to include the whole of mankind. Bahá’u’lláh has laid down His great principle of the Oneness of Mankind and has shown us how to use it to bring justice to all men and include all mankind in one world-wide society. Modern communication has united the world physically; modern commerce and industry have made all countries interdependent. Even war, one of the last signs of a dying age, cannot be waged without showing the interdependence of nations. All these are outward signs of world unity. Spiritual unity is still lacking and this can only be obtained through the reestablishment of belief in God and obedience to His commands. This is the potent remedy which Bahá’u’lláh administers to the world today. "The 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.”7
The first outward sign of this world unity will be a world organized for peace. Peace is the acknowledged need of the world at present. No lasting peace can be established without world organization, a unified world with a central government and court of
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4Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 79.
5Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh, Iranian, 27.
6Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh, Arabic, 4.
7Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 286.
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justice accepted by
all nations, great and small.
Bahá’u’lláh foresaw this need and planned for
it in His Universal House of Justice. This
will have real power to settle disputes
referred to it by all the nations, none
withholding itself. At the same time all nations
will agree to disarm, except that sufficient
police force will be retained to insure order
in the nations and in the world.
But necessarily before such an organization can be accomplished we must abandon excessive national pride, any claims of inherent racial superiority, or class supremacy. In other words we must come into such a consciousness of the oneness of mankind that we desire nothing for our own nation which we do not desire for all nations. If the yellow or black or white race has the good things of this world it must not be at the expense of some other race. If the capitalistic class accumulates money it must not be by the exploitation of the laboring class. All are children of God and God’s bounties are meant for all and are sufficient for all.
Put into actual practice the principle of the oneness of mankind means, besides world government, employment for all, "no idle rich and no idle poor,” justice to both capital and labor, education for all. As an important aid to understanding between different nationalities and a means of simplifying education and travel, an international auxiliary language is advocated by Bahá’u’lláh. He also declares the equality of the sexes, that they must have equal opportunities, rights and privileges. There is no conflict, says Bahá’u’lláh, between science and religion, both are expressions of truth and truth is ultimately one. Modern progress, learning, scientific investigation and invention are praised by Bahá’u’lláh; for the mind, the intelligence of man, is God’s greatest gift to man and should be developed to its utmost. Thus man advances toward the fulfillment of his destiny, for "all men have been created to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization.”8 The intellect, however, should always be used with the object of producing that which benefits mankind. That man should use his intellect or inventive power for making destructive or even useless things is contrary to man’s true nobility.
Education is most important in Bahá’u’lláh’s scheme of things, but children should be instructed in that which is conducive to the progress of man and not in those subjects which “begin and end in mere words.” Education will be used as a great means of unification. History and literature will not be distorted to make one race or nation appear inferior or superior to another. The needs of every degree of intelligence, skill, and interest will be met so that each individual can develop to the utmost of his capacity.
Bahá’u’lláh has provided certain economic and tax regulations which will provide justice to all, a means of livelihood for all, and will make it impossible for some to amass great fortunes while others are deprived of the necessities of life. Capital, however, is not forbidden. The economic system, the legal system, the monetary system will become world-wide. There is no attempt in Bahá’u’lláh’s plan to reduce all classes and nations to a monotonous level and sameness. Diversity of taste, occupation, customs is desirable and necessary for a well-ordered world, for beauty, happiness, and contentment.
There will be one universal religion and this with moral and spiritual precepts will be taught in schools. No dissension over varying creeds will prevent this. Religion, indeed, will be the great unifier and so blended with life that it will be the basis for government and industry. Those high in spiritual attainments and in wisdom will be chosen for public positions. There will be no professional clergy, worship will be without ostentation and elaborate ceremony. The house of worship will be the center of every community and around it will be grouped schools and institutions for the care of orphans, the aged and all unfortunates.
“The Bahá’í community is to be a hive of activity and cooperation. Social intercourse and festal gatherings are encouraged. There are no recluses. All share the simple ordinary life of humanity. Marriage is commended and shown as consistent with, indeed conducive to, the highest spiritual attainment—all the three great examples, Bahá’u’lláh, the Báb, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, were married. There are no idlers nor parasites. Every man must have a business or profession
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8Ibid., p. 215.
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of some kind, and work
done in the spirit of
service to society is accepted by God as an
act of worship to Himself.”9
How can it be possible, some ask, that such an age of peace and justice is near at hand? All about us we see signs of increasing injustice, of conflict and strife. Confusion surrounds us; governments quickly rise and fall; there is depression in business with its resultant unemployment; suffering and oppression abound. Wars continue and rumors of greater wars are heard. Cataclysms of nature—floods, earthquakes, storms, droughts—are causing untold human misery.
Destructive forces are indeed in evidence. No doubt the old order and outworn institutions must destroy themselves before the new ones can take their places. This is in accord, too, with the Holy Books which depict in powerful language the calamitous times which directly precede the age of peace. Bahá’u’lláh does not overlook the destructive period. From the beginning of His teaching He gave repeated warnings of the disasters that were sure to come if nations and rulers persisted in spending such unlimited money for armies and munitions.
It was especially in His letters to various rulers in Europe and Asia that He gave these warnings. He sent letters to the Sháh of Írán, the Sulṭán of Turkey, the Czar of Russia, the Pope, the King of Prussia, Napoleon III, Queen Victoria, and the Presidents of the American Republics. In them He urged rulers to realize their high responsibilities for the welfare and happiness of their subjects and predicted calamities if they let selfish ambitions dominate their motives. Some of these predictions have already been fulfilled, as, for example, those connected with Napoleon III, the Sulṭán, the Sháh. Other calamitous predictions are still to come to pass, apparently at a not far distant time.
But the emphasis of Bahá’u’lláh’s teaching was always upon the "Glad Tidings” of the new civilization which is already gradually growing up on the foundation which He laid. The Book of Aqdas contains specific laws and regulations which are to be the basis of the new world order. Many of these are contained also in some of His shorter writings. He leaves us in no doubt that this higher type of civilization will prevail. It is for this that man has been created and what God has ordained must come to pass. Man has now reached the point in his spiritual evolution when he is capable under the guidance of God of developing a worthy civilization. Bahá’u’lláh constantly reminds man of his latent possibilities and urges him to rise to the heights for which he was created. This is the time for which the whole human race hath longed “that perchance it may fulfill that which well beseemeth its station, and is worthy of its destiny.” In the words of Shoghi Effendi, mankind has now arrived at the dawn of "the consummation of the whole process of human evolution.”
We should expect that such a consummation of human evolution would be of long duration and Bahá’u’lláh so assures us. Our part is to accept His remedy for present conditions, to return to the "Faith of God and His Religion” and, in obedience to His command, establish the world state on the foundation of the unity of the human race. “This is the straight Path,” He says, “the fixed and immovable foundation. Whatsoever is raised on this foundation, the changes and chances of the world can never impair its strength, nor will the revolution of countless centuries undermine its structure.”10
While the glorious possibilities of this new civilization are at present beyond even our imagination, Bahá’u’lláh affirms that nothing can prevent their attainment. He says: “The heights which, through the most gracious favor of God, mortal man can attain, in this Day, are as yet unrevealed to His sight. The world of being hath never had, nor doth it yet possess the capacity for such a revelation. The day, however, is approaching when the potentialities of so great a favor will, by virtue of His behest, be manifested unto men. Though the forces of the nations be arrayed against Him, though the kings of the earth be leagued to undermine His Cause, the power of His might shall stand unshaken. He, verily, speaketh the truth, and summoneth all mankind to the way of Him who is the Incomparable, the All-Knowing.”11
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9The Promise of All Ages, by Christophil, p. 196.
10Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 215.
11Ibid., p. 214.