Two Roads We Face/Text

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Two RoadS‘We Face

by

William K enneth C hristian

BAHA’I PUBLISHING COMMITTEE

WILMETTE, ILLINOIS

uf Ihc Nuliunul Spiriiuul Assembly

l’riILII'II in I/.S..4.

Reprinn-d hum Won”) ORDER. January1 1046

[Page 3]TWO ROADS WE FACE

By WILLIAM KENNETH CHRISTIAN

E STAND in the day of

opportunity. We say that peace has come. We mean that a titanic war has ended. That is about all we can say. Essentially the world has again entered a period of armistice. The armed might of the victorious United Nations is temporarily the guarantee of peace. But the causes of war, the hatreds, the fears, and the injustices from which wars spring, have not yet been removed; and their elimination is the task of this century.

We have seen two major steps this year toward a political peace ———the arrangements for the military control of Germany and of Japan, and the forging of the United Nations Charter at San F rancisco. Reinforcing these

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[Page 4]have been the beginnings of world arrangements in agriculture and finance.

The difference between a creative peace and an armistice may be stated negatively in terms of fear, and positively in terms of security and social purpose. An armistice may have the outer appearance of peace for a number of decades, but if, during that period, common sense requires the development and maintenance of defense forces, then we may know that peace has not been achieved. The world will maintain an armistice as long as any one group, race, or nation fears a near or distant neighbor.

A creative peace, on the other hand, would be a world without fear. The defeat of Germany and Japan has not produced such a world, but it has given men and women the world over their last opportunity to transform an

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[Page 5]armistice into a creative peace. For peace in its true sense means that all people would share a certain basic security regardless of color, or religion, or geographic location. The phrase “winning the victory” will take on meaning in relation to the basic security gained by all the two billions of people on this planet.

But if we are to consider how to achieve a creative peace, we should look for a moment at the principle of ends and means. We must realize clearly and completely that the desired end does not justify the means. On the contrary, the means used must be in harmony with the desired end.

The American people wanted peace after World War I. Peace was the desired end. The general means used has been called isolation. It was a policy of : “We’ll let you live, so you let us live.”

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[Page 6]In such a spirit of selfish benevolence, Weak-kneed tolerance, and false high-mindedness, we shrugged off any world responsibility and worshipped our own golden calf of prosperity. As a nation, We were like a child refusing to grow up. The result: Years of tragedy have given us another opportunity.

And the present opportunity is wondrous and perilous because of the awesome harnessing of atomic power in the atomic bomb. There is now no postponement of our rendezvous with God and with destiny. “The time foreordained unto the peoples and kindreds of the earth is now come,” declared Bahá’u’lláh. “Bestir yourselves, O people, in anticipation of the days of Divine justice, for the promised hour is now come. Beware lest ye fail to apprehend its import and be accounted among the erring.”

[Page 7]If there is any evil nation or any large group of evil men in the world, you and I will not be safe in the years ahead. The armistice this time provides no geographic barricades for protection and no security in time. The dropping of two atomic bombs has profoundly changed the history of the world. Our concepts of military security, spheres of influence, economic rights, political sovereignty, and international law are all radically altered by this catastrophic event.

Our future, then, is between a creative peace or the haunting fear of armistice. At this hour of choice, we face two roads. First, we may try to create peace solely by the old methods of science, politics, economics, and sectarian religion. This would mean trying to achieve the desired end of peace by means which have already miserably

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[Page 8]failed. 0r, second, we may take the road of the World Faith of Bahá’u’lláh.

Let’s look at the means on this first road.

Science has brought unprecedented comfort and cleanliness to the world; it has conquered many a disease and helped greatly to clarify the mind of man. It has presented us with multitudinous machines as vehicles of power. All these things have been great blessings to millions of people, and science will continue to extend its beneficence. But science cannot create moral value. Science is amoral; it is a method; the knowledge it produces is a tool; it reflects the morality of those who possess it.

Science cannot remove cancerous prejudices from the mind. Anthropology has proven that there is no basic difierence in capacity between the races of man. But these carefully assem O 0

[Page 9]bled and well verified facts cannot solve the race question in the Southern States, cannot remove social hatred anywhere in the world. Science cannot cause men to love each other; it cannot create mutual trust or discipline; it cannot cause men to serve justice The atomic bomb is a final answer that science cannot create peace. Science can present men with awesome power. And that is all.

We have heard it said that the right economic conditions will he an absolute guarantee of peace. But we have had such a recent experience of the economic g0:pel in the United States that. we all should remember it vividly, and keep recalling it to mind as a lesson. The economic scriptures of the 1920’s told us that to be decent Americans we must own two automobiles, have a radio in every room, and never fry less than two chickens. We

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[Page 10]whittled God down to the size of a crumpled dollar bill—or thought we did.

An economic panacea is a delusion and a mirage. It reduces men to dollars and cents. We might well ask: what shall we have money and goods for? If we shall have material things for their own sake, then we shall build an unending spiral of greed. Never in history has the gospel of materialism provided a sound morality. Materialism has always bred disunity and division.

Modern world economics makes all peoples and nations closely interdependent, but this clear fact does not automatically show men how to live creatively together as a closely-knit, mutually interdependent world. Men make economics. Economics is as good as men are. Economics, like science, cannot wave a wand and create a moral pur 10

[Page 11]pose: adequate to the atomic age.

And economics is the whipping-boy of politics. Modern world politics is based upon the principle of national sovereignty. This principle was developed for an agricultural society, without the radio, the airplane, or the atomic bomb. When the modern states of western Europe took form, men tilled the soil in the same way that men had famed for thousands of years. The average individual never traveled. Life was localized to an extreme degree.

But the rush of inventions in the last century and the development of modern industry and world economies have destroyed the agricultural societies under which a national sovereignty developed. We cannot turn back the tide of industrial development. We have reached the point where the economic boundaries of any large nation interpene 11

[Page 12]trate the political boundaries of other nations in all the five continents. This process of economic interpenetration and interdependence we cannot change. Yet there has been no political development based upon this inescapable fact. The charter of the United Nations, like the old League, considers each member state as a sovereign and independent power.

The morality of the nationstate, directly in some cases and indirectly in all cases, determines the educational objectives in each particular nation. Children in the early grades especially are usually indoctrinated with a localized view of human life and human loyalty.

What good will independence do the people of any one nation when we realize that the secret of the atomic bomb is open to discovery and development by scientists everywhere? National

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[Page 13]sovereignty, if adhered to in the future, can only, like the Maginot Line in the past, serve to divide and entrap millions of people. The independent sovereignty of a nation is based upon the assumption of the superior race. The limited and divisive principle of national sovereignty can now destroy civilization.

In the world of the atomic bomb men must be united, not divided. Fear can’t serve as an enduring basis of unity. Men must be united in trust. Millions and millions of men must have a clear and firm basis» for trusting each other. Only religion can provide this basis for trust.

But the sectarian religions of the past cannot meet this challenge for the world. In the course of these last few years, the very term Christianity has been more and more replaced in the newspapers by the more accurate terms “the Roman Catholic and

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[Page 14]Protestant Faiths.” We read of conferences of Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, the tolerant meeting together of three faiths. These conferences represent the tolerance of armistice, a kind of balance of power between theological systems. They do not represent the uniting of the children of one God in one common spiritual allegiance. Sectarian religion in the western world is divided by the same antagonistic philosophy which .is represented in world politics by the principle of national sovereignty. And this same condition of conflict is found in the sectariauism Of the older faiths Of the Eastern world. The traditional sectarian faiths indoctriuate their followers with a limited, local view of truth similar to the primitive worship of the tribal gods.

The traditional religions are in competition, each seeking the triumph of its own theology and

[Page 15]1'. its own particular rituals. The sectarian religions function on the principle of the superior moral race. While religion in the past has provided dynamic moral values for the basis of society, we cannot turn to the older faiths since they suffer from the localisms and the divi. sions typical of the individualistic agricultural societies in which they were born.

We now face a new condition. We need, most desperately, to have a faith that will unite men literally anywhere in the world. We have seen in our time an attempt to deify every form of materialism. We have seen men crucified in order to preserve in wholeness and sanctity varied types of economic systems. We have seen human beings reduced to terms of dollars and cents. We have seen science exalted as the automatic saviour of humanity; and science, unable to create

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[Page 16]moral value, has given us the atomic bomb. We have fallen pitiful victims to the machines of our own creation. We have repeatedly placed our highest trust in political arrangements, and, forgetting that political arrangements are no better than the men who carry them out, we 'have been repeatedly betrayed. We have ignored the great political fact of our time—that national sovereignty can no longer serve the best interest of all the people. In the great moral crisis of these years, the old sectarian faiths have given the world’s peoples the polished stones of moral separation when they cried out for the living bread of unity and mutual faith.

If we wish an enduring, cren ative peace, we cannot place our reliance upon the first road of economics, science, politics, and sectarian religion. Economics and science are amoral, and we

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[Page 17]‘VJI need moral purpose. Politics and sectarian religion are dedicated to the proposition that men are by nature divided into competitive political and religious states. These methods will fail us because they depend upon and emphasize: materialism, the power and the mere mechanism of the machine, the continued political separation of people, and the moral division of peoples in denial of the fact that there is but one God.

A prominent university president, discussing the future, now that atomic power is within reach, has suggested that fear of the consequences will force us to keep the peace. But when did fear ever prevent two nations from fighting a war? When did fear ever keep two races at peace? When did fear ever create cooperation that endured?

The atomic bomb demands an answer based upon the nature of

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[Page 18]man. Not a negative answer of fear, but a positive answer of unity and justice. A moral and divisive means are not in harmony with the desired end of an enduring peace for all people. The answer lies on the alternate road, the road of the World Faith of Bahá’u’lláh. The price of world peace is world faith.

The teachings of Bahá’u’lláh give purpose to the fruits of science. Bahá’u’lláh has likened science and religion to the two wings of humanity. Both are needed if man is to rise in this age in fulfillment of the potential greatness of civilization which is his deserved destiny. Bahá’u’lláh has declared that unity is the monarch of all ambitions. This is the time of the coming of age of the entire human race.

Religion, in the Bahá’í view, would sink into the morass of superstition and prejudice without the aid of science and reason.

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[Page 19]Science, without the moral purpose and social direction of religion, becomes entangled in materialism and begets irresponsible and undirected power. By the restatement of the purpose of human life in our time, Bahá’u’lláh gives moral purpose to science. Individuals are born to know and love God, to live creatively together in unity throughout the whole earth.

In no uncertain terms, Bahá’u’lláh has condemned the barriers of racial, nationalistic, social, and religious prejudices which keep men apart. He advocates the adoption of a world auxiliary language to facilitate commerce and human understanding. He urges adoption of a basic world curriculum of education. He upholds high standards of cleanliness and health. He emphasizes the necessity for a minimum economic level for all people. When we survey the

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[Page 20]world’s misery and ignorance, here is a challenge of infinite human worth for the energy and creative skill of science. The principles of Bahá’u’lláh outline the basic foundation for a world civilization. But science cannot achieve these things until it is dedicated to the uniting of the world’s peoples. The Faith of Bahá’u’lláh gives moral purpose to all scientific ability.

“The earth is but one country; and mankind its citizens.” And again Bahá’u’lláh has said: “Let not a man glory in this, that he loves his country, let him rather glory in this, that he loves his kind.” Here is the spiritual answer of Bahá’u’lláh to the economic and political antagonisms of the modern world.

God, through Whose unspeakable majesty and power all of the seen and unseen universe was created, calls you and me, today, to the realization of the oneness of humankind. The pattern of

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[Page 21]the world society which Bahá’u’lláh advocates in His teachings may be described briefly thus:

“Some form of a world SuperState must needs be evolved, in whose favor all the nations of the world will have willingly ceded every claim to make war, certain rights to impose taxation and all rights to maintain armaments, except for purposes of maintaining internal order within their respective dominions. Such a state will have to include within its orbit an International Executive adequate to enforce supreme and unchallengeable authority on every recalcitrant member of the commonwealth; a World Parliament whose members shall be elected by the people in their respective countries and Whose election shall be confirmed by their respective governments; and a Supreme Tribunal whose judgment will have a binding effect even in such cases where

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[Page 22]the parties concerned did not voluntarily agree to submit their case to its consideration. A world community in which all economic barriers will have been permanently demolished and the interdependence of Capital and Labor definitely recognized; in which the clamor of religious fanaticism and strife will have been forever stilled; in which the flame of racial animosity will have been finally extinguished; in which a single code of international law—the product of the considered judgment of the world’s federated representatives ——~ shall have as its sanction the instant and coercive intervention of the combined forces of the federated units; and finally a world community in which the fury of a capricious and militant nationalism will have been transmuted into an abiding consciousness of world citizenship —— such indeed, appears, in its broadest

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[Page 23]outline, the Order anticipated by Bahá’u’lláh, an Order that shall come to be regarded as the faireet fruit of a slowly maturing age.”

Here is not limited nationalism, but a secure and creative internationalism. Here the good of men and women—-all men and women regardless of their color or place—is made the measuring rod of rightness and justice, of high social purpose. God calls us to dedicate ourselves, our time, our money, our talents of any kind, to the creation of a world order, durable, decent, and founded upon divine principle and law.

Where men and women are now organized against each other, Bahá’u’lláh commands unity. Where men and women now use the individualism of the localized agricultural era to justify many an unkindness, many an unsocial act, many an in 23

[Page 24]justice, Bahá’u’lláh commands a new standard of maturity.

In the Bahá’í view, any individual who evades social responsibility is immature and childish. Any individual who withdraws in a huff from others, nursing his pitiful ego, is like a child who, stuhbing his toe, in rage hlames not himself but some inanimate object. Any man or woman who tries to organize people against others is the enemy of mankind. is a potential tyrant. is setting: himself up as a god dividing mankind, is functioning by the vicious principle of the superior race.

A: Bahá’u’lláh condemns the murderer and the thief as despoilers of humanhappiness, so also He condemns the injustice of men who enforce the division and separation of peoples in order to maintain personal power. Therefore, any leader or party, wishing to continue the separa 2‘1

[Page 25]tion of people, merely continues the day of armistice and delays the merging of people in a universal and creative peace.

The oneness of mankind is the sole political motive great enough, clear enough to create a world society under the conditions of modern industry and world economics. “The principle of the Oneness of Mankind (is) the point around which all the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh revolve. . . . It represents the consummation of human evolution ——an evolution that has had its earliest beginnings in the birth of family life, its subsequent development in the achievement of tribal solidarity, leading in turn to the constitution of the citystate, and expanding later into the institution of independent and sovereign states.” It calls for the canalizing of human energy in the creation of a world federal state. For such an

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[Page 26]achievement of human solidarity, there can be no lesser political morality than is expressed by Bahá’u’lláh —— “The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens.”

How-will men move into this new world? What will stir their hearts and fire their minds? What vision will be clear and strong enough to sustain in discouragement and setback? Only the force of religion. But not the sectarianism which constitutes the pitiful inheritance from the past. The leaders of religion do not measure up to the new standard of world morality. What greater spiritual tyranny could there be than to divide men and women into sectarian groups, fostering the delusion that they possess the prize of personal salvation? The dark glasses of theological difference blind men to the worth of their fellows and cannot provide the required in 26

[Page 27]sight into the spiritual needs of our time.

But Bahá’u’lláh brings us the clean breath of unity. He restores the simple fundamentals of religion and gives them practical, universal purpose. He' points out that one God, unknown and unknowable, has created all human life and the infinite wonders of the universe. This God, the God of all men regardless of the name by which He has been known, has showered His bounties upon all people. In giving ' men freedom of choice, He gave them responsibility and the power of creative response to divine will.

God is the creative force behind the development of life on this planet. He has never ignored or excluded the children of His creation. Repeatedly He has focused His knowledge and power upon one Chosen Man and enabled that Person to enunciate

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[Page 28]His Will in terms of human understanding. Each age has seen the expression of God’s choice. Thus in every period of history a High Prophet has stated and restated the one religion of God. ~At one time it was Abraham, at another Moses, at another Zoroaster, and Buddha, and Jesus. and Muhammad. Others in distant times and places have been lost to the memory of man. But all these manifestations of God’s love and-knowledge have served one great, continuous purpose ~the spiritual education of the world’s peoples. Beneath the thick crusts of tradition and selfish theologies, We see the clear and progressive divine purpose.

All the traditional faiths of , the world, now reduced by sectarianism to disunity and harmful competition, are expressions of the one unfolding divine Faith. And in our time Bahá’u’lláh is

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[Page 29]the chosen Manifestation of God’s will. He it is Who has restated religion in terms of modern life. Of the Bahá’í Faith, He has written: “This is the eternal Faith of God, eternal in the past, eternal in the future.” The people in various parts of the world who become Bahá’ís, do not deny the basic truths of their particular inheritance. Instead, they enlarge upon the truths they already know. They enter a larger arena of salvation. They step from division into unity. They leave the localisms of childhood and enter the universal arena of maturity. The Bahá’í, catching the vision of God’s will in our time, struggles against the limitations of current public opinion that he may achieve for himself and for all men the blessings of a world civilization.

Bahá’u’lláh has declared: “The best beloved of all things

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[Page 30]in My sight is justice.” All the forces of life must be harnessed to this majestic ethical purpose for the world. The road of the World Faith of Bahá’u’lláh provides the means for attaining this universal goal. The teachings of Bahá’u’lláh give a just and universal moral purpose to science and economics. The teachings of Bahá’u’lláh outline the institutions of a world federal government and present the principles for the equitable administration of the world’s peoples. Here are the means adequate to the desired end of an enduring and creative peace.

Trust is the answer to the atomic bomb. A common world citizenship will remove the necessity for war preparation. But only through the uniting of men in one common faith can such an adequate trust be achieved, for men are trustworthy according to the moral purposes to which

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[Page 31]they are dedicated.

The price of world peace is world faith. The Bahá’í Faith is dedicated to the uniting of men and women everywhere in one common faith and one world order. This is the instrument raised by God in this day for the saving of humanity. It is for the achievement of world civilization that all the Prophets of God taught and lived. It is for this consummation that Jesus lived and died. While men may divide, God unites. This challenge of God is to you and to me. This opponunity from God is for you and for me. In proportion as we have moral courage, in proportion as we dedicate ourselves to God’s will for our age, will the strengthening confirmations of God sustain us as we move forward to the deliverance of men from the evils of division and toward the founding of the promised Kingdom.

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