Lord of the New Age/Text

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The LORD

of the NEW AGE

A Radio Talk by WINSTON EVANS

[Page 2][Page 3]'I'IIe lORD of the NEW AGE

by

WINSTON EVANS

Bahá’í PUBLISHING TRUST WILMETTE, ILLINOIS

Approved by the Bahá’í Reviewing Committee

PRINTED IN U.S.A.

[Page 5]REFERENCES TO THE BAHA’I FAITH

DR. GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER: “I sympathize with the Bahá’í faith with all my heart because it has the spirit of Christ in it.”

DR. NELS F. S. FERRE, Vanderbilt School of Religion, in his book, Strengthening the Spiritual Life,* writes, “I have been surprised at the depth and devotional character of the best in Bahá’í Scriptures as presented in Townshend’s The Promise of All Ages.” (*Harper & Brothers.)

DAVID RHYS WILLIAMS, in a recent book entitled World Religions and the Hape for Peace,* writes: “Bahá’u’lláh, in the judgment of many, possessed the tenderness of St. Francis, the courage of Socrates, the meekness of Moses, the sanity of Confucius, the missionary Vigor of Mohammed, the moral majesty of Isaiah, the compassion of Buddha, and the saintliness of Jesus.” “Today several millions of people throughout the world hail this person as the Hope of World Peace and the Saviour of all mankind.” (*Beacon Press.)

[Page 6][Page 7]TRUTHS FOR A NEW DAY

Promulgated by ‘Abdu’l-B ahé. Throughout North America in 1912

These teachings were given by Bahá’u’lláh in the latter half of the nineteenth century and are to be found in His published writings of that time.

The oneness of mankind. Independent investigation of truth. The foundation of all religions is one. Religion must be the cause of unity. Religion must be in accord with. science and reason. . Equality between men and women. . Prejudice of all kinds must be forgotten. 8. Universal peace. 9. Universal education. 10. Spiritual solution of the economic problem. '11. A universal language. 12. An international tribunal.

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N A WIDELY QUOTED Christian Century editorial recently there appeared these words: “Despair is creeping over us and over the best of us most of all. The stars of promise have all but faded from the sky. We are on the road to destruction and destruction is drawing close. We need something tremendous to lift us out of our infatuation with doom. It must be something that extends all the way down to the roots of thought and action. It must set blazing beacons that Will light a different path, an entirely “new path. Does the Christian Church know what that tremendous something is?”

Dr. Floyd H. Ross of California has stated that the peoples of the world must unite spiritually or perish physically. But Arnold Toynbee tells us that the brotherhood of man is an impossible ideal unless all men are bound together by a belief in a transcendent God.

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[Page 9]The late Henry C. Link in his Rediscovery of Man has stated that what the world needs is someone who can speak with authority. The moral law has been diluted here and diluted there. Everyone has been interpreting the rules of life for himself. Then Dr. Link adds that perhaps what is really needed is another Divine Revelation like the one J esus brought. This statement of Dr. Link should not surprise us, for a loving God has revealed His will in every age.

God has not forgotten man. He is still Lord of History. “Who, contemplating the helplessness, the fears and miseries of humanity in this day, can any longer question the neceésity for a fresh revelation of the quickening power of God’s redemptive love and guidance? Who . . . can be so blind as to doubt that the hour has at last struck for the advent of a new Revelation, for a restatement of the Divine Purpose . . .?”1

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[Page 10]Some of us believe that the purpose and meaning of life is spiritual growth. If this be true, then the coming of the F ounders of the world’s religions—the coming of a Krishna, a Moses, a Jesus, a Muhammad—these advents are the high spots in the history of mankind. These great ones have been the channels for a fresh outpouring of God’s redemptive love and guidance. Their coming is like the coming of spring. These spiritual suns have quickened the hearts and minds, giving new life and new hope to countless millions in every age. Once we realize the advents of the Founders of the world religions to be the greatest events in history, then we are better prepared for the greatest story of all time.

In the Christian Bible, in the Holy Books of all the world religions, we find this prophecy—this promise: that in the “latter days,” the “time of the end,” there shall appear a great world teacher or saviour to unite the peoples of all religions, races, and nations into one

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[Page 11]cause, one faith. In that day there shall be “one fold and one shepherd.” The advent of this Promised One would signalize the dawn of a new era of righteousness and peace on earth.

Now surely the coming of this Promised One would be the greatest story of all time and men everywhere would welcome such news. However, it might be well to recall the reception accorded Jesus and the Founders of the other world religions. Without exception they were all ignored, rejected and persecuted. V Now once again history repeats itself. The Promised One, the Lord of the Age, has come as “a thief in the night” and found the peoples of the world heedless and “wrapped in a strange sleep.”

In 1863, a Persian called Bahá’u’lláh, (which means “The Glory of God”) proclaimed to all mankind the advent of a new Revelation, a restatement of the Divine purpose. He repeatedly affirmed that His coming represented not only the Second Coming of Christ but also the

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[Page 12]fulfillment of the “latter day” prophecies found in all the Holy Books. To the Jews He was the “Everlasting Father,” “The Lord of Hosts.” To the Zoroastrians, He was the promised Sha-Bahram; to the Buddhists, the fifth Buddha; to the Hindus, the reincarnation of Krishna and to the Muhammadans, “The - Great. Announcement.”

. This Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh was either ignored or rejected by the religious leaders and authorities of His day. After four months in a dungeon where conditions were unspeakably foul, He was exiled to Baghdad and. later to the prison city of ’Akka. By banishing Bahá’u’lláh to the Holy Land, His enemies unwittingly helped to bring about the fulfillment of Bible prophecy that the Glory of God would come to the Holy Land from the East, and others about the events that would transpire in Sharon and the valley of Achor (’Akká).

From within prison walls Bahá’u’lláh wrote with great power and authority

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[Page 13]to the rulers of the day. He stated: “The time fore-ordained unto the peoples and kindreds of the earth, is now come. The premises of God, as recorded in the Holy Scriptures have all been fulfilled.”2 Bahá’u’lláh came as a Divine Physician and prescribed the Divine Remedy for our sick and frightened world. To Queen Victoria He wrote: “That which. the Lord hath ordained as the sovereign remedy and mightiest instrument for the healing of all the world is the union of all its people in one universal cause, one common Faith.”3

Many tablets, or letters, were addressed to Christian leaders. “0 King of Christendom!” Bahá’u’lláh called, “Heard ye not the saying of Jesus, the Spirit of God, ‘I go away and come again unto you?’ Wherefore, then, did ye fail, when He did come again unto you in the clouds of Heaven, to draw nigh .unto Him, that ye might behold His face and

2Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh 3T he World Order of Bahá’u’lláh ‘

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[Page 14]be of them that attaineth His presence? In another passage He saith, ‘When He the Spirit of Truth is come, He will guide you unto all Truth,’ and yet behold how, when He did bring the truth, ye refused to turn your faces towards Him and persisted in disporting yourselves with your pastimes and fancies.“

What has been the response to this Divine summons? Although there are Bahá’ís, followers of Bahá’u’lláh, in more than two hundred countries, territories and islands of the world, “humanity” has, ' for the most part, “stubbornly refused to . embrace the Light and acknowledge the sovereign authority of the one Power which can extricate it from its entanglements and avert the awful doom which threatens to engulf it.”

When men rejected or ignored Bahá’u’lláh’s message, He wrote that humanity would have to be purged in the crucible of fire and suffering before men would turn to God and finally establish peace

The Promised Day Is Come.

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[Page 15]on earth. He warned that “at the appointed hour there shall appear that which will cause the limbs of mankind to quake,” and said that there will be no place to flee to, no refuge anyone can seek save God.

Although mankind in general has been deaf to Bahá’u’lláh’s call, here and there throughout the world scholars have acclaimed the greatness of the Bahá’í Faith. For example, Dr. Benjamin J owett of, Oxford had this to say: “This Bahá’í movement is the greatest light that has come into the world since the time of Jesus Christ. You must watch it and never let it out of your sight. It is too great and too near for this generation to comprehend. The future alone will reveal its import.”

In 1908 Tolstoy wrote that the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh now present us with the highest and purest form of religious thinking.

Professor E. G. Browne of Cambridge University, a great orientalist, who visited

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[Page 16]Bahá’u’lláh in 1890 described Him in these words: “The face of him on whom I gazed I can never forget though I cannot describe it. Those piercing eyes seemed to read one’s very soul; power and authority sat on that ample brow. No need to ask in whose presence I stood as I bowed myself before One who is the object of a devotion and love which kings might envy and emperors sigh for in vain.”

Professor Browne further recorded for history Bahá’u’lláh’s own statement of His mission: “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 be strengthened; that diversity of religion should cease and difference of race be annulled—what harm is there in this? Yet so it shall be; these fruitless strifes, these ruinous

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[Page 17]wars shall pass away and the Most Great Peace shall come. Is not this that which Christ foretold?”

Dr. J . E. Esslemont, in a book entitled, Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era, wrote about the Bahá’í spirit: “The spirit which animated Bahá’u’lláh and His followers was unfailingly gentle, courteous, patient, yet it was a force of astonishing Vitality and transcendent power. It achieved the seemingly impossible. It changed human nature. Men who yielded to its influence became new creatures. They were filled with a love, a faith and enthusiasm compared with which earthly joys and sorrows are but as dust in the balance. They were willing to face lifelong suffering or violent death with perfect equanimity, nay, with radiant joy in the strength of fearless dependence on God.”

Now, back to that Christian Century editorial with its plea for something tremendous to lift us, out of our infatua 17

[Page 18]tion with doom.” In the Bible we read: “Before ye call I will answer.”

Something tremendous has happened. Long before man realized the seriousness of his plight, God had answered by ,sending Bahá’u’lláh, the Promised One of all ages, with a new Revelation, with a divine plan for the great age to come. Bahá’u’lláh wrote: “The world’s equilibrium has been upset by the vibrating influence of this most great, this new World Order.” “Soon will the present—day order be rolled up, and a new one spread out in its. stead.”6

The Bahá’í story lifts “us out of our infatuation with doom.” “Should a man all alone rise up in the name of Bahá and put on the armor of His love, him will the Almighty cause to be victorious through the forces of earth and heaven be arrayed against him.”°

“0, ye who are waiting, tarry no longer for He has come.”

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[Page 19]Books listed in footnotes and those following are recommended for additional study of this subject:

Christ and Bahá’u’lláh. By George Townshend. An eminent scholar reverently examines the history and meaning of the Christian expectation of the return of Christ. The gathering of the nations and peoples into one fold is depicted as the supreme significance of the tUrbulent upheavals witnessed in our day. 116 pp., cloth, $2.00.

Christ’s Promise Fulfilled. Some chapters on the Return of Christ and other Christian subjects (selected from Abdu’l-Bahá’s book, Some Answered Questions) with introduction by George Townshend, at one time Canon of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. 75 pp., paperbound, $0.25.

The Promise of all Ages. The author, George Townshend, traces the spiritual content of religion through the Dispensations of the past, to culminate in the Kingdom of God on earth. 163 pp., cloth, $2.50.

Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era. By J. E. Esslemont Standard introductory work on the Bahá’í Faith, 350 pp., cloth, $1.25.

, , Available from BAHA’I PUBLISHING TRUST WILMETTE. ILLINOIS

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