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Volume 33 - Issue 4

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Religion - Socie’ry - Poli’ry - Ar’rs

A nterfaith Dialogue

Exclusivism? Inclusivism? Pluralism?

In this issue...

The Purpose of Religion Editorial

A Challenge to the World’s Religious Leaders

The Universal House of Justice

The Bahá’í Faith and Interfaith Relations: A Brief History

Robert Stockrmn

The Continuing Contest between Exclusivism and Pluralism: Thoughts on The 2002 Day of Prayer for Peace

Julio Savi

AflerWord ¢

A Short Bibliography on Religion, Specific Religions and Their Scriptures, and Interfaith Dialogue

Summer 2002

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Religion - Society . Polity - An‘s

VOLUME 33, NUMBER 4

WORLD ORDER IS INTENDED TO STIMULATE. INSPIRE. AND SERVE THINKING PEOPLE IN

THEIR SEARCH TO FlND RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CONTEMPORARY LlFE AND CONTEMPOv RARY RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS AND PHILOSOPHY

Editorial Board:

BETTY J. FISHER KEVIN A. MORRISON

ARASH ABIZADEH ROBERT H. STOCKMAN 2 MONIREH KAZEMZADEH JIM STOKES DIANE LOTFI

4 Consultant in Poetry: HERBERT WOODWARD MARTIN 7

WORLD ORDER is published quarterly by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the 9 United States, 536 Sheridan Road, Wilmette, IL 60091-1811. The views expressed herein are those of

the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opin— 17 ions of the publisher or of the Editorial Board.

Manuscripts and editorial correspondence: Manu scripts can be typewritten or computer generated. 19 Article manuscripts should be double spaced throughout, with the footnotes at the end and not attached electronically to the text. The contributor should 34

retain a copy. Return postage should be included. Send editorial correspondence to W0 RLD ORDER, 4516 Randolph Road, Apt. 99, Charlotte, N C 28211;

Evmail: <worldorder@usbnc.otg>.

Subscription rates: U.S.A. and surface to all other countries, 1 year, $19USD; 2 years, $36USD; single 51 copies, $5USD. Airmail to all other countries, 1 year, $24USD; 2 years, $46USD. Make checks and money orders payable to Bahá’í’ Distribution Serivce. Send address changes to and order subscriptions from Bahá’í Distribution and Subscriber Service, 54 4703 Fulton Industrial Boulevard, Atlanta, GA 303362017 Telephone:1—800—999—9019, United States and

Canada; 404-472—9019, all other countries; E—mail: 54 <subsctiption@usbnc.org>.

WORLD ORDER is protected through trademark registration in the U.S. Patent Office.

ISSN 0043—8804

55

IN THIS ISSUE

2 The Purpose of Religion Editorial

4 Interchange: Letters from and to the Editor

7 Littoral Birth at Isla Negra, a poem by David A. Petreman

9 A Challenge to the World’s Religious Leaders, a statement by The Universal House of Justice

17 Remember Me, a poem by S. K. Dapoz

19 The Bahá’í Faith and Interfaith Relations: A Brief History by Robert H. Stockman

34 The Continuing Contest between Exclusivism and Pluralism: Thoughts on the 2002 Day of Prayer for Peace by Julio Savi

51 AfterWord: A Short Bibliography of General Introductions to Religion, Specific Religions, the Scriptures of World Religions, Bahá’í Perspectives on Various Religions, and Interfaith Dialogue

54 Give Up Praying, a poem by Robert H. Stockman

54 Brass Band of Mine, a poem by Robert H. Stockman

55 Authors & Artists in This Issue

56 Calls for Papers: Global Cinema & Reviews

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[Page 2]The Purpose of Religion

IN THE twentieth century, religion may have hurt as many people as it has helped. It is a bitter fact that many of the world’s conflicts can be, at least partially, attributed to religion, whether it is the Protestant-Catholic conflict in Northern Ireland, the Catholic-Orthodox—Muslim wars in the former Yugoslavia, the Israeli—Palestinian conflicc, the India—Pakistan wars, the riots and struggles of Sikhs and Muslims against Hindus in India, or the Hindu Tamil rebellion against the Buddhist Sinhalese in Sri Lanka. In terms of human populations, these conflicts involve nearly every major religion in the world. On a less violent scale, the so—called culture wars in the United States are partially based on a split between conservatively religious people, on the one hand, and the more religiously liberal and the secular, on the other.

While obvious religious conflicts have led many to ignore or abandon religion or to actively pursue its abolition, such reactions ignore the fact that religion is, in many senses, inseparable from the foundations of society. It is a truism that anything that is capable of great good can also serve as an instrument for great evil. This is true of religion, and it is equally true of other branches of human activity, such as science and the acquisition of wealth. In the right hands, and With the right spirit, science and money—and religion—can bring about great good. In the wrong hands, they are sources of great suffering.

The Bahá’í sacred texts recognize that religion is a double-edged sword but stress its great potential for good. “The purpose of religion as revealed from the heaven of God’s holy Will is to establish unity and concord amongst the peoples of the world,” advised Bahá’u’lláh, founder of the Bahá’í Faith. But He went on to warn: “make it not the cause of dissension and strife.” These words from Bahá’u’lláh are more than mere platitudes. Unity is well defined throughout His writings. Indeed, the Bahá’í scriptures offer foundational principles for an entire ethical system based on the concept of unity, as revolutionary in its implications as the Christian notion of love was to Greek ethical systems (which were based on the notion of the good). To give an example: One consequence of taking unity seriously is the rejection of partisanship, an activity central to modern American civil society

[Page 3]EDITORIAL 3

and politics but one that is systematically and effectively avoided in Bahá’í’ consultation and governance.

Because their perspective of the world is shaped by their emphasis on unity, Bahá’ís feel great optimism about the potential of religion to contribute to humanity’s future. The pursuit of unity—creating it, strengthening it, and broadening its scope—-—will require a personal transformation on the part of everyone involved, and the world itself will have to examine the implications of the concept of unity. Religions may find that their natural role is to promote unity and begin to look for ways for bringing it about. If they take that step, religion’s reputation in the twenty—first century will be immeasurably better than it was at the end of the twentieth.

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WORLD ORDER: SUMMER 2002

InterChange LETTERS FROM AND TO THE EDITOR

As the tumultuous twentieth century has given way to the twenty—first, the optimism that Bahá’ís have about the potential of religion to contribute to humanity’s future can be seen in many places.

People at all levels of society and across all social and political groups have suddenly seemed to acquire a new interest in religion and a general willingness to discuss religion—all religions. University students are enrolling in religious studies courses in greater numbers. The media discuss Islam and Christianity (and other religions), and individuals seem to feel freer to mention faith and belief. After decades of being considered suitable only for fanatics, romantics, and nostalgics, religion has once again become a respectable topic of intellectual inquiry, if only because it offers the hope of reassurance in the current tension-filled cultural and social climate.

At the institutional level, religions themselves are beginning to reexamine the fundamentals of their relationships to other religions and to consider the possibility of interfaith dialogue and even of cooperative undertakings.

Though interfaith dialogue, with its selfimposed limitations, often remains a halting exercise, reasons for optimism can still be found buried in the historical scrapheaps of discord. In this issue dedicated to the subject of interfaith dialogue a forceful letter and two essays add to the optimism about the role religion has to play in our lives, our communities, our world.

A frank letter from the Universal House of Justice boldly challenges religious lead ers to lead by recognizing that God is one; that, “beyond all diversity of cultural expression and human interpretation,” religion is likewise one; and that religious leaders (and their followers) must draw closer together in response “to the Divine Will for a human race that is entering on its collective maturity.”

Robert H. Stockman provides a brief history of the Bahá’í Faith and its interfaith relationships from its inception in 1844 (when such efForts, he points out, “were unusual, unsystematic, and rarely seen as efforts between equals”) until the present day.

Julio Savi, using the January 2002 Day of Prayer called by Pope John Paul II as an example of what works and what doesn’t, examines, explains, and clarifies the continuing contest between exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism.

Our regular readers will have noticed that W/orld Order has been introducing new elements over the last several years: new takes on enduring themes such as racial and gender equality; an AfterWord column containing short reports on timely topics; an increased number of film and other reviews that culminated in our launching Matters of Opinion; and, most recently, a new cover design. In our Fall 2002 issue you will see newly designed interior pages.

Now we are turning our attention to Interchange. The column was conceived as informal comments by the editor and

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letters from you, our readers. But we would like to take the exchange of thoughts and ideas a step further and invite, in addition to your letters, your suggestions, and your manuscripts.

To give you a foretaste of our short— and long—range publishing plans, we have begun to run Calls for Papers in the journal itself (see page 56 for those on global cinema and on reviews). Forthcoming will be Calls for Papers on community building, evil, health and healing, poverty, sexuality, spirituality, stewardship of the planet, and travel.

But we would like to hear from you. What topics would you like to see erd Order address either in individual articles, in reviews, or in theme issues? We will give every suggestion serious consideration. We look forward to a bulging mailbox and to finding out what is on your minds. We can be found by snail mail at W/orld Order, 4516 Randolph Road, Apt. 99, Charlotte, NC 28211—2933, or by e—mail at <worldorder@usbnc.org>.

Before we close, two of our poets must be mentioned. To David A. Petreman, whose “Littoral Birth at Isla Negra” appeared in our Spring 2002 issue, we apologize for some typographical errors. To correct our mistakes, we are reprinting the poem in its entirety in this issue.

To Cynthia Sheperd Jaskwhich, four of whose poems appeared in our Spring 2002 poetry anthology (and many others in previous issues), we bid good-bye. She

INTERCHANGE

passed away on September 4, 2002, after a long bout with ovarian cancer. She was writing feverishly as she approached death—more poems and a short work called “Mema Says Goodbye,” 3 story about what Bahá’ís expect to happen after they die as told by a grandmother to her grandchildren. We will miss her penetrating and expertly crafted insights into human nature, living, loving, and dying.

Letters to the Editor RESPONSE TO NEW COVER DESIGN

The new cover design is so much more inviting than the previous one. The new direction World Order is taking is evidenced by fewer rigid lines and boundaries, a more flowing format, and softer colors. If visual images connote contents, I am attracted to this new design and plan to renew my lapsed subscription. Sometimes we get out of touch with things that we value and need to be jolted back to remembrance. Your new cover design surely woke me up. PAULA A. DREWEK

Humanities Professor

Macomb Community College

Warren, Michigan, USA

In response to your request in your Spring 2002 issue—“Let us hear your reactions to our new cover design!”—my three comments are as follows.

First, I find the cover design enjoyable and eye catching. It flows and reminds me of early web pages. The eye easily knows where to go to garner needed information.

Second, will there be Changes in each issue? I eagerly await the Fall issue.

Third, I did and still do enjoy the “Changing Seasons” of the earlier cover.

SAMUEL W. SMITH

Ranchester, Wyoming, and Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

5

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WORLD ORDER: SUMMER 2002

I have received the Spring 2002 issue of Warla' Order and, as always, am glad. Your new cover design refreshes an already great publication. Although I have always enjoyed the vintage covers, this design looks good, and it talks. The former covers were like lovely dreams; this one is like being awake.

Imagined pronouncement of the Editorial Board: “We can no longer hide how much we love what’s inside here, so we’ve designed a cover to give you an inkling.”

It’s both aesthetic and cybernetic. I almost clicked on it, forgetting it’s a page turner. The cover is precise and compels the read. The cover and the contents are more a match.

I’ve always seen World Order articles as a tad avant the avant garde, and now the cover is out there, too, where they both belong.

The treasures inside World Order deserve the

better chest. And I loved the blizzard of poems. Re-energized reader in the Republic of China, MICHAEL WOODWARD Dan Sui, Taiwan Republic of China

The Spring 2002 issue of World Order arrived I

and immediately the new direction in Which the Editorial Board has been moving was apparent. I particularly enjoyed the fresh, new cover design and the shorter, user—friendly blocks of reading. But the best part of the issue as far as I’m concerned was the poetry anthology, which I read in its entirety in one long sitting, then re—read later in sections. My work affords me the opportunity to read a great deal ofunpublishable poetry. Therefore, the chance to read really good work was to my soul like a rainfall in the desert. Thank you, thank you. Keep up the good work. I can’t wait to see what’s next. LYNNE YANCY Wheeling, Illinois, USA

[Page 7]Littoral Birth at Isla Negra

I

A boy stands on a beach At Isla Negra

Facing the horizon.

The line is straight There are no waves

The water has no color. He stares

Past the fish

Hurling themselves Onto the sand at his feet.

Only his head turns back

Toward the limits of land.

He cannot see the man behind him Worn green from a forest shroud, The avid embrace of tree and vine Curtailing the reach of his heart.

He comes with empty eyes To discover the sea

\With empty hands

To gather in nets of algae Filled With motion and blue. He hears a language Emerging from salt and foam. One by one, the waves Become his heartbeat.

II

On the beach at Isla Negra Neruda walks the rocks. His wary staff prods,

Then strokes igneous lumps Sprung by liquid fire.

They rise and fall, fluid

As a submarinal scheme.

Wth a wave of his hand

He taps the world of stone, Awakens spirits we have lost, Watches empty crevices

Fill with foam.

His words are the ocean’s

Breath as he recreates the planet.

III

When his words drop Into hearts like needed rain

People come to see What they have done to him.

Twice they buried him In the earth of his youth. He lies now at Isla Negra On a bed of salt, Dreams the sleep

Of silent motion,

While waves

Lift him gently

Toward a sea of stars. —-—David A. Petreman

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r A Challenge to the World’s

Religious Leaders

A Statement of the Universal House of Justice

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, there 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

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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, rejection 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 behavior. 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

[Page 11]A CHALLENGE TO THE WORLD’S RELIGIOUS LEADERS 11

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 nonbelievers 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 programs 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 religions 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 recognition 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

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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

[Page 13]A CHALLENGE TO THE WORLD’S RELIGIOUS LEADERS 13

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 Bahá’u’lláh 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

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thousands of years during which successive revelations of the Divine have addressed the changing needs of a constantly evolving civilization, it could hardly be otherwise. 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 from 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

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A CHALLENGE TO THE WORLD’S RELIGIOUS LEADERS

15

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 some 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. T0 the same degree, surrender to the lure 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 fulfill 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 Bahá’í community has been a vigorous promoter of interfaith activities from the time of their inception. Apart from cherished associations that these activities create, Bahá’ís 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

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WORLD ORDER: SUMMER 2002

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 overarching 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

[Page 17]17

Remember Me fir Dzamz and Yit

Remember Dachau

and the blazing holy halo

of the furnaces. . . .

The white—hot smell of death an obscene ambergris

that bled from the doors

and blotted out the sky.

Remember them, the nameless ones,

Twisted bones poking through their skin

as they hesitated, naked, in the doorway,

one hand trembling on the sill

as they smelled their fate,

their hungry eyes eating up the truth, too late, while all the world looked the other way.

And now, see, the shoemaker’s daughter from Banja Luka comes with a sacrament of sorrow Her hands full of ashes and broken dreams, her dark eyes closed on the future, and beyond our help.

And Yu, the Chinese waiter

who escaped to the land of all good things to find slavery in the musty kitchens

which were the only places he could labor.

In his real life he designed magical machines, like this one that I use

to compose his life.

Remember me, Remember me:

Can you see them in your dreams? Can you look at them?

Can you [00/6 away?

——S. K. Dapoz

[Page 18]

[Page 19]19

The Bah”i Faith and Interfaith Relations: A Brief History

BY ROBERT H. STOCKMAN

Introduction INCE its inception in 1844, the Bahá’í’ Faith has had a strong interest in interfaith efforts. Interfaith activities are prominently emphasized in its scripture—remarkable, considering that interfaith relations in the nineteenth century were unusual, unsystematic, and rarely seen as undertakings between equals. Bahá’í theology provides a basis for interfaith relations in its concept of progressive revelation, its call to “consort with the followers of all religions in a spirit of friendliness and fellowship,” and its emphasis 0n the oneness of religion.1 Throughout the century and a half of their religion’s history, Bahá’í’s have made efforts that were compatible with their resources and their freedom or lack of it. American Bahá’ís have been particularly active in interfaith efforts.2

1. Bahá’u’lláh, Dblm of Ba/azi’u’lla’l? revealed after the Kittib—i—Aqdas, comp. Research Department of the Universal House of Justice, trans. Habib Taherzadeh et aL, lst pocket—size ed. (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1988) 35.

2. This essay focuses primarily on the interfaith efforts of American Bahá’ís and provides information from other countries that was available to the author. It does not presume to provide a complete history of worldwide Bahá’í efforts in interfaith relations; the information is too scattered and will require years to collect.

3. Jesuits led the way with the translation of Chinese texts into Latin as early as 1615; See Eric]. Sharpe, Comparative Religion: A Hirtory (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1975) 15.

The Bahá’í Faith and the interfaith movement were born at roughly the same timethe nineteenth century—and were shaped by similar forces. Both were able to flourish because of the globalizing forces released by the steam boat, railroad, and telegraph, which, for the first time in human history, knit the world together, causing its peoples and religions to rub shoulders in unprecedented ways. Modern interfaith relations began as an almost accidental consequence of the efforts of some of the nations of Western Europe to unite the world on their own imperialistic military, political, economic, and religious terms.

T he Rise of Interfizitb Dialogue ONE can see antecedents of interfaith relations in Islam, which recognized Jews and Christians as people of the book and granted them certain privileges in Islamic society. India, also, has long been the scene of interreligious debate. The Muslim Mughal emperor Akbar the Great (1542—1605) sponsored in his court debates between various religions. In Christendom, interfaith dialogue was preceded by centuries of missionary efforts to conquer the world for Christ and for What was optimistically called (especially in the nineteenth century) Christian civilization. As early as the seventeenth century, missionaries and imperial civil servants translated the scriptures of other peoples into Latin, then into Western European languages.3 They often abridged the scriptures as well (although, when Indian scholars abridged and translated parts of the Bible into Sanskrit in the nineteenth

[Page 20]20 WORLD ORDER: SUMMER 2002

century, the missionaries protested vigorously, as they felt the Bible’s sacredness had not been respected). The attitude of mid—nineteenth-century American Christians toward other religions, at its most charitable, was summarized in Ten Great Religions, James Freeman Clarke’s 1871 classic in comparative religion; the book carefully and thoroughly describes ten “ethnic” religions from the ancient to the modern worlds (including Confucianism, “Brahmanism,” Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Islam) but does not include Christianity, because Christianity is a “catholic” religion and thus is universal and progressive, embracing and superseding them all.4 Clarke was not a Protestant reactionary; he was professor of natural religion and Christian doctrine at the Harvard Divinity School, a prominent Unitarian minister, and a friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

It should, therefore, come as no surprise that the first World’s Parliament of Religions,

4. See James Freeman Clarke, Tm Great Religions: An Essay in Comparative Theology (Boston: Houghton, Riverside P, 1871). For more information on Clarke, see Sharpe, Comparative Religion 137.

5. Richard Hughes Seager, The Worla/E Parliament of Religiom: The East/lVest Encounter, Chicago, I 893 (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1995) 50.

6. Henry H. Jessup, “The Religious Mission of the English—Speaking Nations,” in John H. Barrows, ed., The 1%er ’5 Parliament of Religions: An Illmtmtea’ and Popular Story of the erd} First Parliament afRe/igz'om, Held in Chicago in Connection with the Columbian Expoxitz'on Of1893 (Chicago: Parliament Publishing Co., 1893) 2:1122—26. Because it is paradigmatic of evangelical Protestant attitudes toward other religions, the article has been reprinted in Richard Hughes Seager, ed., The Dawn of Relzgz'om Pluralism: Voices from the 1%er ’5 Parliament OfRelz'gz'0m, 1893 (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1993) 37—42.

7. Thomas Kelly Cheyne, The Reconciliation afRaee: andRelzgiom (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1914). It is remarkable that, late in his life, Cheyne would publish a book about the Bahá’í Faith, filled with eXtensive references to other world religions and the research of the day on them.

convened in Chicago in 1893, was dominated by American Protestants. The approximately two hundred speakers included one Muslim, two African Americans, and no American Indians. Asian religions were represented by thirty delegates, including twelve Buddhists and eight Hindus. Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians numbered twenty—seven; Jews, eleven.5 The sessions of the Parliament were opened with the Lord’s Prayer. The non-Protestant speakers proved popular and fascinating, partly because they were a novelty, and provoked a storm of negative publicity about the Parliament in the conservative Protestant press. The Parliament was a major blow to many who saw Christianity as the most highly developed form of religion and the “ethnic” religions as timeand culture—bound.

The Parliament is well—known among Bahá’í’s because it was the first time the Bahá’í Faith was mentioned in a large public gathering in the Occident, but even its inclusion underscores the approach of many Protestants to other religions. Baha’u’llah’s life and teachings were mentioned by the Reverend Henry H. Jessup, head of Presbyterian missionary operations in north Syria, in his paper, “The Religious Mission of the English—Speaking Nations.” The presentation described the role of the Anglo—Saxon “race” in Christianizing the world.6 Baha’u’llah and His teachings are mentioned in the paper’s closing, probably as an example of the Christ spirit working in the world and preparing the ground for the conversion of the heathen to Christianity.

It has taken more than a century for a more pluralistic concept of interfaith relations to emerge. The field of religious studies (as opposed to the study of Christianity and Christian theology) first emerged in the 18703 and steadily gained strength; among the many pioneers was T. K. Cheyne, an Oxford professor of ancient Near Eastern religions, who became a Bahá’í late in life.7 The spread of

[Page 21]comparative religion mirrored growing interest by Americans in Eastern religions. The first popular manifestation of the trend was the founding in 1875 of Theosophy by Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, followed by the Vedanta Society (a Hindu group) in 1894. Dialogue among faith communitiesChristian ones, at least—was institutionalized in the first decade of the twentieth century with the formation of the Federal Council of Churches—forerunner of the National Council of Churches—Which united mainstream Protestant denominations in a single ecumenical organization.8 Its membership widened in the 19205 to include Eastern Orthodox churches, as they organized national structures in the United States. The Catholics obtained observer status in the organization; but they would not join, as full membership could imply equality between Catholicism and other Christian groups. The World Council of Churches, established in 1948, was modeled on the Federal Council.

The 19205 also saw a less imperialistie, more service-oriented concept of missionary work among the mainline Protestant churches

8. For an account of the organization of the Federal Council of Churches, see Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People, vol. 2 (Garden City, NJ: Image Books, 1975) 270—72. The body hecame the National Council of Churches in 1950. For a history of the World Council of Churches, see <http:// www.wcc—coe.org/wec/who/service—e.html>.

9. For a description of the revisioning of missionary work (such as in the Laymen’s Report) in the 19205, see William R. Hutchison, Errand to the World: American Protestant Thought and Foreign Missions (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1987) 150—75.

10. See Will Herberg, Protestant—Catholz'c—jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1955).

11. The claim is made in the title of Diana Eck’s book A New Religious America: How a "Christian Country” Hm Now Become the erd’: Most Religiously Diverse Nation (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 2001). On pages 6—8 she describes the impact of the 1965

immigration act on American religious diversity.

THE Bahá’í FAITH AND INTERFAITI—I RELATIONS 21

and more acceptance of other world religions as authentic in their own ways.9 In the United States, the “mainstream” continued to become more inclusivistic. In 1955 Will Herberg’s Protestant—Catholz’e—jew defined American religion as a “triple melting pot” in which‘ European immigrants shed their various languages and national cultures and acquired an American identity, complete with an Americanized version of their ancestral faiths.10 Herberg did not include Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists, not because he viewed them as illegitimate, but because, when he published his book, they were so rare in the United States. The Immigration Act of 1965 changed that, abolishing old, racist quotas based on northern European nationality and flinging open America’s doors to the entire world. The result was a dramatic change during the next thirty years in America’s religious complexion. The nation’s new diversity was vividly on display at the second Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago in 1993, an event planned by a committee representing many faiths. Greater Chicago in 1993 was a City with literally hundreds of Hindu, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, and Jain temples, Sikh gurudwaras, and mosques, as well as a Bahá’í House of Worship. The area had more Muslim residents than Episcopalians. No wonder that Diana Eek, a prominent participant in interfaith dialogue and an astute observer of American religion, has declared the United States the most religiously diverse nation in the world.11 Where else can one find Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese Buddhist temples in the same city?

The Expansion and Ethnic Diversi3cation Of the Bahá’í Faith THE steadily broadening notion of what constitutes the “mainstream” in American religion has benefited the Bahá’í Faith as its capacities to participate and contribute have deepened. The Faith’s expansion beyond the world of Iranian Shiism was facilitated by

[Page 22]

22 WORLD ORDER: SUMMER 2002

trade routes, telegraph networks, and the apparatus of travel (such as convertible currencies, passports, and steamer lines)—in short, the same means that facilitated interfaith dialogue. Middle Eastern Bahá’ís took their religion to Sudan by about 1870, Burma by 1878, Russian Central Asia by 1884, Indo 12. The spread of the Faith to Sudan is described in Haji’ Mirza Haydar—‘Ali, Stories from theDe/z'ght ofHeam: The Memoirs of Heijz’ Mirza’ Haydar—le', trans. and abridged A. Q. Faizi (Los Angeles, CA: Kalimat Press, 1980) 48—65 ; Burma in Moojan Momen, “Jamal Effendi and the early spread of the Bahá’í Faith in South Asia,” in The Bahá’í Studies Review 9 (1999—2000): 47—80; Russian Central Asia in A. A. Lee, “The Rise of the Bahá’í Community of ‘Iflqabadf in Bahá’í Studies 5 (1979): 1—13; Indonesia in Jelle deVries, The Bahz' Que:tz'on Yau Mentioned . . The Origin: of the Bahá’í Community of the Netherlands, 1844—1962 ([Louvain, Belgium]: Peeters, 2002) 141.

13. The introduction of the Bahá’í Faith to Europe is described in Robert H. Stockman, The Bahá’í Faith in America: Origin; 1892—1900, Volume 1 (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1985) 141; its introduction to Mexico is mentioned in Marion C. Yazdi, Youth in the Vimngreh Memoirs and Letters Collected hy the FirxtBahd’ ’1’ Student atBerkeley am! at Stanfiml University (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1982) 89; the arrival of Hyde and Clara Dunn in Australia is described in 0. Z. \Whitehead, Some Bahá’í': to Remember (Oxford, UK: George Ronald, 1983) 153—75; Fanny Knobloch’s sojourn in Capetown, South Africa, in Viola Ioas Tuttle, “Fanny A. Knobloch: 1859—1949,” in The 851th W'orld: A Biennial International Record, Vblume XI, 1946—1950, comp. National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Committee, 1952) 475.

14. Robert Turner, who became a Bahá’í when he met ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in 1898, is Widely recognized as the first African American Bahá’í; Shoghi Effendi described him as “the first member of his race to embrace the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh” (see God Passes By, intro. George Townshend, rev. ed. [Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1974, 1999 printing] 259). Pocahontas Pope may have been the first Bahá’í with American Indian blood; ‘Abdu’l-Bahá referred to her as “the first believer” of her “race” (‘Abdu’l-Bahá, in Baha’u’llah, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Shoghi Effendi, and the Universal House of Justice, LVomen: Extractsfiom the Witingx OfBahd’1/lla’h, 24100114 ’l—Bezha’, Shoghi Effendi and The Universal House of justice, comp. Research Department of the Universal

nesia by 1885, and North America by 1892.12 Shanghai became the home of Bahá’í merchants some time in the late nineteenth century. North Americans, in turn, took the Faith to Europe in 1898, Latin America in 1909, Australia in 1919, and South Africa in 1923.13 Hawaii, Which saw the founding of its Bahá’í community in 1901, became a key center for disseminating the Faith to Japan, Korea, and, eventually, China, Where American Bahá’ís met Iranian Bahá’ís and closed the circle of global expansion.

Geographic expansion of the Bahá’í community was matched by its ethnic diversification. While it began as a Faith attracting Iranian Shiite Muslims, by the 18703 its membership also embraced Sufis, Sunnis, Iranian Zoroastrians, and Iranian Jews. The 18805 saw the conversion of the first Lebanese Christians. Most likely, Burmese Buddhists first became Bahá’ís in the 18905; the next decade saw the first Bahá’ís of Hindu and Sikh background. The first decade of the twentieth century also marked the first attraction of significant numbers of African Americans to the Bahá’í Faith and probably the conversion of the first American Indian.14 By the end of the twentieth century, the Bahá’í world community embraced some two thousand ethnic groups, speaking more than eight hundred languages.

Bahá’í’ Involvement in Interfaith Dialogue, 1880—2002

Bahzi’z’ Teachings Encouraging Dialogue. The Bahá’í community’s racial, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity reflects the watchWord of its beliefs: the oneness of humanity and the unity in diversity it implies. But the Bahá’í community’s internal multiculturalism and pluralism are not situated in an ideological vacuum or in a minimalist structure of human values based on the golden rule. Rather, the Bahá’í scriptures provide parameters Within Which diversity and dialogue can flourish, together With mechanisms for adju [Page 23]dicating differences before they lead to disputation and contention.

The Bahá’í scriptures also lay a foundation for Bahá’ís and Bahá’í institutions being actively involved in interfaith and interethnie dialogue. Baha’u’llah’s exhortation to “consort with the followers of all religions in a spirit of friendliness and fellowship” and to “associate with all the peoples and kindreds of the earth with joy and radiance” calls on Bahá’ís to acquire such qualities as friendliness, loving fellowship, active listening, and service to others.15 Baha’u’llah often calls on Bahá’ís to teach their Faith to others, but He defines teaching as manifesting Virtues such as trustworthiness, tolerance, righteousness, and fair—mindedness and demonstrating kindly assistance, loving fellowship, exemplary action, wise counsel, and selfless service. Coercion, deceit, manipulation, and exploitation of fears and prejudices are explicitly forbidden. The purpose of teaching is not the same as interfaith dialogue because more than mutual understanding and respect are sought. The goal of teaching is mutual acceptance of the same divine revelation (that is, conversion of others to the Bahá’í Faith), whereas the goal of dialogue is mutual understanding. But the means are remarkably

House of Justice [ThornhilL Ont.: Bahá’í Canada Publications, 1986] 6). She is listed as an African American in the United States census for 1900, but she became a Bahá’í about six years after Robert Turner. Many African Americans have American Indian blood, though there is no evidence she did (except, possibly, her given name). For more information about Pope, see Robert H. Stockman, T/Je Balazi’z’ Faith in America: Early Expansion, 1900—1912: WlumeZ (Oxford: George Ronald, 1995) 225—26.

15. Baha’u’llah, 72251:“ OfBabé’zt’l/zih 35, 36.

16. See “Muhammad ‘Abduh and Rafiid Rida: A Dialogue on the Bahá’í Faith,” trans. and intro. Juan Ricardo Cole, in Wbrld Order 15:?) 8C 4 (Spring/Summer 1981): 7—16.

THE BAHA’I' FAITH AND INTERFAIT H RELATIONS 23

similar, and both dialogue and teaching are based on listening as well as speaking.

Ba/m’ 'z’/Muslz'm Dialogue. The earliest Bahá’í interfaith relations were with the Muslims. Because the Bahá’í Faith claims to fulfill Islam, and because most Muslims regard such claimS“ as impossible and heretical, dialogue between Bahá’ís and Muslims, in the current sense of the term, has hardly ever taken place. Yet Bahá’ís have attempted both to teach Muslims and to engage them in dialogue. There was a long history of Bahá’ís attending mosques, including ‘Abdu’l’Baha, the son of Baha’u’llah, the Founder of the Bahá’í Faith, and His father’s appointed successor. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá went to a mosque in Acre every Friday (possibly, in part, to strengthen relations with the community in which He was living). He also carried out a remarkable correspondence with Rafiid Rich and Muhammad ‘Abduh, two significant Arab modernists, in the 18805 and 18905.16 Had the correspondence become known publicly, Rida and ‘Abduh might have felt the need to break it off. More common—though still rare—were theological debates between Iranian Muslim clerics and Bahá’í teachers. Such meetings were usually contentious.

Even more common was outright hostility against the Bahá’í community. Hundreds of Bahá’ís were executed by the Iranian government or massacred by mobs, all at the direct or indirect instigation of Iran’s Shiite clerical establishment. The attacks were not confined to the “premodern” nineteenth century. In 1955 the Bahá’ís were attacked daily on the radio by a leading mulla, flayfi Muhammad Taqf Falsafi’; some were murdered, raped, or robbed; tens of thousands suffered harassment and discrimination; and a number of Bahá’í properties were damaged. The Islamic revolution of 1978—79 triggered an intensified effort at systematic persecution that resulted in the deaths of more than 200 Bahá’ís; the disbanding of all Bahá’í governing councils and institutions; the imprisonment of thou [Page 24]

24 WORLD ORDER: SUMMER 2002

sands; the systematic abuse, oppression, and impoverishment of 300,000 Bahá’ís; and more than 30,000 Bahá’ís having to leave Iran.17

To this day, dialogue between Bahá’ís and Muslims is exceedingly difficult. Many Muslims continue to regard Bahá’í’s, even if they were raised in Bahá’í families, as apostates from Islam and, as such, usually consider them worthy of death (in Islamic law execution is usually regarded as the proper punishment for apostasy).18 Persian-language publications outside Iran used to pretend that the Bahá’í Faith was a nineteenth— century epiphenomenon that no longer exists within the country, a policy still maintained by some periodicals.

Early Dialogues hetween Bfl/fli ’z’s and Christians. Early discussions between Bahá’ís and Christians provide useful illustrations of the overlap—indeed, confusion—between teaching and dialogue. (Considering the thinly disguised agendas manifested in the course of many interfaith dialogues, the confusion

17. For a detailed description of the 1955 and 197879 persecutions, see The Bahá’í Quextz'on: Iran’s Secret Blueprintfor the Destruction of a Religious Community, An Examination of the Persecution of the Bahá’í': oflmn (New York: Bahá’í International Community, 1999) 6—7.

18.For an account of the Muslim concept of apostasy (rejection of one’s religion) and the understandings by Muslim jurisprudents of the proper penalties, see Leila Rassekh Miiani and Kavian S. Milani, “Shia Islam Encounters the Messiah: The Case of Apostasy against the Báb,” 1%er Order 30.2 (Winter 1998—99): 35—44.

19. Haj Mihdi Arjmand’s debate with Dr. Holmes (his first name is not preserved) is described in Iraj Ayman, “Haj Mihdi’ Arjmand,” in Scripture tlmt’Rz’z/elation: Paper; Preyented at the First Irfhn Colloquium Newcaxt/e—upan—Yj/re, England, December 1993 and the Serum! Irftm Colloquium, Wlmette, USA, March 1994, ed. Moojan Momen (Oxford: George Ronald, 1997) 18—19.

20. See Stockman, Bahti’z’ Faith in America, Volume 2 144 and Anne Gordon Atkinson et aL, Green Acre oh the Piscataqua: A Centennial Celebration (Eliot, ME: Green Acre Bahá’í School Council, 1991) 17, 126.

appears not to be the exclusive problem of Bahá’ís.) In 1897 and 1898 in Hamadan, Iran, Haj Mihdi Arjmand, an Iranian Bahá’í of Jewish background, engaged Dr. Holmes, an American Presbyterian missionary, for about a year and a half in a series of weekly debates about the meaning of biblical texts (especially prophetic passages) after Dr. Holmes invited him to become a Christian. The men presented contrasting Bahá’í and Christian interpretations of the prophecies and proofs of their positions. While hardly dialogue in the modern sense, the debates apparently were characterized by a level of respect and cordiality, and considerable mutual understanding resulted.19

A few years later, in North America, a newly enrolled Bahá’í, Sarah Farmer, introduced Bahá’í speakers to her inn and school of religious ideas at Green Acre in Eliot, Maine. The summer religious program, which ran from 1896 through 1901, was called the Monsalvat School of the Comparative Study of Religion. It was organized by Lewis G. Janes, an instructor at Adelphi College in Brooklyn (1894—95) and President of the Brooklyn Ethical Association, and attracted hundreds of religious seekers from around North America.20 New Bahá’ís were exposed to the concepts of comparative religious study by distinguished authors and speakers, and the Bahá’í Faith received its first significant public discussion by people in the emerging field of comparative religions.

Among Bahá’ís, however, Green Acre was somewhat controversial because Farmer sought to make it a neutral platform for interfaith discussion, while most Bahá’ís wanted the Green Acre site to serve as a platform from which to proclaim Bahá’í perspectives. The school served both purposes rather uncomfortably, and when the Bahá’ís eventually acquired title to the property, it gradually became a Bahá’í retreat and conference center with interfaith matters taking on a secondary focus at best.

[Page 25]Elsewhere in the United States, relations between the Bahá’í Faith and Protestant churches were often difficult. For example, in 1898 Isabella Brittingham, an enthusiastic and talented new Bahá’í, took the message of Baha’u’llah to her Church—Grace Episcopal Church in Union City, New Jersey. Before being expelled from the church for her efforts, she found a dozen pairs of sympathetic ears, resulting in the founding in 1899 of New Jersey’s first Bahá’í community. In contrast, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, it was the churches themselves who took steps to attack and refute the teachings of the Bahá’í Faith, but only after nearly 2 percent of the population of the blue—collar industrial town of ten thousand had become Bahá’ís. The antiBahá’í' talks were open to the public, and some Bahá’í's attended to clarify the Bahá’í teachings, which resulted in considerable public wrangling.21

Relations with other “new religions” sometimes were better. In 1904 the Chicago House of Spirituality, the governing council of the Bahá’í’s in that city, was invited to send official representatives to the regular meetings of the New Thought Executive Committee, which conducted quarterly meetings involving all the New Thought groups in the city. The House of Spirituality decided that official representation of the “Bahai Faith”—for that was the term for their religion they used in their constitution that year—was improper, because “the Bahai Assembly, or Body, cannot properly or wisely commit itself to any action that could be construed as placing it

21. Stockman, Ba/m’?’ Fairly in America, Volume 1 127—28 (Brittingham) and 114—15 (Kenosha).

22. Thornton Chase to Corinne True (copy), 18 Feb. 1906, Chicago House of Spirituality Records, United States Bahá’í Archives, Wilmette, IL. This incident is described in more detail in Stockman, Babzi’z’ Faith in America, Volume 2 398—99.

THE BAHA’I FAITH AND INTERFAITH RELATIONS 25

among the cults of any religion or philosophy.” But they had no objection to Bahá’ís attending as individuals and endeavoring “to open doors of sincerity and spread knowledge of the Truth.”22 Hba’u ’l—Baz/ad and Inmfizz’tb Dialogue, 1911—‘ 13. The House of Spirituality’s statement of its motivations—opening the doors of sincerity and spreading knowledge of the Bahá’í Faith—aptly summarizes ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s many presentations about Bahá’í topics to Theosophical Societies, Unitarian congregations, New Thought gatherings, Spiritualist meetings, synagogues, and the churches of Methodists, Congregationalists, and Episcopalians. (Conservative Protestant churches were not among those that invited Him to speak.) 1n the years 1911 through 1913 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá visited Europe and North America and accepted scores of offers to speak to religious and racial groups, peace societies, and university classes. It would be anachronistic to describe ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s talks in such settings as models of interfaith dialogue; interfaith relations were in their infancy, specialized rules did not exist, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s concerns were both to encourage dialogue and to proclaim His religion’s truths. As He explained to the audience at St. James Methodist Church in Montreal, God has created man and endowed him with the power of reason whereby he may arrive at valid conclusions. Therefore, man must endeavor in all things to investigate the fundamental reality. If he does not independently investigate, he has failed to utilize the talent God has bestowed upon him.

From time immemorial the divine teachings have been successively revealed, and the bounties of the Holy Spirit have ever been emanating. All the teachings are one reality, for reality is single and does not admit multiplicity. Therefore, the divine Prophets are one, inasmuch as They reveal

the one reality, the Word Of God. Abraham

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26 WORLD ORDER: SUMMER 2002

announced teachings founded upon reality, Moses proclaimed reality, Christ established reality and Baha’u’llah was the Messenger and Herald of reality. . . .

. man must independently investigate reality, for the disagreements and dissensions which ainct and affect humanity primarily proceed from imitations of ancestral beliefs and adherences to hereditary forms of worship. These imitations are accidental and without sanction in the Holy Books. . . . The reality proclaimed in the heavenly Books and divine teachings is ever conducive to love, unity and fellowship.23 Statements such as the one ‘Abdu’l-Bahá

made to the St. James Methodist Church define certain basic principles relating to interfaith dialogue, such as independent investigation of reality, the oneness of religion, the role of revelation in all religions, and the purpose of all religions to unify humanity. In a sense, they are the Bahá’í religion’s contributions to constructing a common foundation for dialogue. But ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was also frank about some contentious matters in interfaith relations:

Today the Christians are believers in Moses, accept Him as a Prophet of God and praise Him most highly. . . . Could it be said that the acceptance of Moses by the Christians and Muslims has been harmful and detrimental to those people? . . . What harm could result to the Jewish people, then, if they in return should accept

23. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, T/aermulgdtion OfUnivermlPezzce‘: Elk: Delivered by Hbdu’l—Baim’ during Hi: Visit to the United State: and Canada in 1912, comp. Howard MacNutt, 2d ed. (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1982) 312—14.

24. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Pramulgzztz'on 368.

25. The letter from the Universal House of Justice to the world’s religious leaders is reprinted in W715!

Order 33.4 (Summer 2002): 9—16.

Christ and acknowledge the validity of

the Prophethood of Muhammad?24 The audience in this case was one of San Francisco’s Jewish congregations. In light of the Universal House of Justice’s 2002 statement to the world’s religious leaders, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s comments appear to be a call to investigate truth, to make truth a higher value than religious identity, and to reject blind and fanatical imitation of the past.25 Certainly His talk reminds Bahá’ís that interfaith exchange can, and often should, be frank. Yet it is also significant that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s talks to religious groups focused on the major spiritual and social teachings of the Bahá’í Faith but remained silent about its laws, such as obligatory prayer, fasting, and the prohibition of drinking alcohol. Not every aspect of the Bahá’í Faith was equally important in the context of public exposition of Bahá’í teachings.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá built on the friendships between local Bahá’ís and members of local Churches; in turn, the Bahá’ís often followed up, strengthening relations with local churches and sometimes developing friendships with people who became interested in the Bahá’í’ Faith. One tangible result was the conversion to the Bahá’í Faith of Howard Colby Ives, a Unitarian minister in Jersey City, New Jersey. There being no interfaith associations for American Bahá’ís to join, they turned their efforts at dialogue in other directions—to peace societies and to establishing racial unity.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá also took part in, or coordinated Bahá’í participation in, major conferences. While He was in the United States, He addressed the fourth annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the annual convention of the American Unitarian Association (the coordinating body of the Unitarian denomination), and the annual conference of the International Peace Society. His visit to Great Britain almost coincided with the Universal Races Congress; but, since He was

[Page 27]unable to be present, He asked Wellesley Tudor-Pole, a British Bahá’í, to speak.26 Inmfizz'th Dialogue, 19205-305. Efforts to spread the Bahá’í Faith to new localities and nations were often modeled on ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s travels in the Occident. Martha Root (18721939), an American Bahá’í who traveled almost continually for the Faith during the last two decades of her life, took the Bahá’í Faith to scores of countries on six continents. She often spoke about Bahá’í principles to Theosophical or Esperanto societies and then followed up with those whose interest in the new religion was stimulated.27 In many countries Theosophy provided some of the earliest converts.28 Root was invited to speak at various interfaith gatherings, such as the international conference on “Peace by Religion” held in The Hague in 1928. Another Bahá’í, Muhammad Rawhénl’, also spoke.29 Throughout the interwar period, Bahá’ís received invitations to present their ideas at

26. The Universal Races Congress took place in Ju1y 1912, when ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was in the United States; see H. M. Balyuzi, thu’l—Bahzz’: The Centre of the Covenant Of Baha'it’llah, 2d ed. (Oxford, UK: George Ronald, 1987) 138; Stockman, Bahá’íFait/a in America, Volume 2 401—02.

27. A perusal of the index of M. R. Garis, Martha Root: Lioness at the Threshold (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1983) shows the importance of Esperanto and Theosophy in Root’s travels.

28. For example, the role of Theosophy in preparing the ground for the Bahá’í Faith in the Netherlands has been described in de Vries, Bahi Question You Mentioned 89—95. Theosophy also played a role in the expansion of the Bahá’í Faith in Latin America and Australia.

29. de Vries, Bahz' Question You Mentioned 136—38.

30. Bahzi’z’News, no. 1 (Dec. 1924): 4.

31. Bahá’í participation is described in Douglas Martin, “Bahá’u’lláh’s Model for World Fellowship,” in 1W0rldom’er 11:1 (Fall 1976): 6—7.

32. Marcus Bach, Shoghi Effendi: An Appreciation (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1958). The exact date of his interview with Shoghi Effendi is not given in the book; apparently it took place in 1956 or 1957.

THE BAHA’I FAITH AND INTERFAITH RELATIONS 27

interreligious conferences. In 1924 Mountfort Mills, an American Bahá’í, spoke about the Bahá’í Faith at the Conference on Some Living Religions within the British Empire.30 In 1936, when Shoghi Effendi, the great—grandson of the Founder of the Bahá’í Faith and its ap- * pointed Guardian, was invited to speak at the World Congress of Faiths in Canterbury, England, he chose, instead, to send a prominent British Bahá’í, George Townshend, formerly Archdeacon of Clonfert and Canon of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin}l

Port— 1%er 11747 [I Inmfaith Dialogue. The postwar period saw a great increase in interfaith efforts. In 1945 Bahá’ís were active in the interfaith gatherings associated with the formation of the United Nations in San Francisco. In 1950 the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís Of the United States established World Religion Day (the third Sunday in January) to connect the Bahá’í Faith with the idea of world religions and to proclaim the Bahá’í teachings of the oneness of humanity, the oneness of races, and the oneness of religions. The holiday spread internationally; in Sri Lanka, for example, it has become a significant annual event. The Bahá’í Faith also began to attract some notice from interfaith participants. In the 19508 Marcus Bach (1906—95), an American Protestant minister and professor of religious studies with a sympathetic interest in other faiths, visited Shoghi Effendi, the head of the Bahá’í Faith, and wrote a friendly account of him.32 Bach was impressed by the Bahá’ís:

There is, however, one factor greater than all of the above which 1 consider the most powerful and relevant to these particular strangers at our door. It is the reality of a world fraternity already created in microcosm by those who are fiall—fledged Bahá’ís without any hyphenated loyalties. I mean by this that a Bahá’í can travel around the world and never be alone or lonely. He trusts his fellow Bahá’ís implicitly and they trust him. There is a com [Page 28]

28 WORLD ORDER: SUMMER 2002

rnon bond of faith that unites them, and this is remarkable in View of the fact that the membership represents a wide range of nationalities obedient to their homeland, a broad spectrum of color and culture, and an even wider spread in economic position. But whether rich or poor, colored or white, wise or otherwise, Bahá’ís are at home with Bahá’ís, and in our kind of world this is a precious heritage.33 Bach followed up with a sympathetic article titled “Bahá’í: A Second Look” in the 10 April 1957 issue of The Christian Century. He identified two stumbling blocks in the way of the Bahá’í Faith’s spread: the unwillingness of Americans to accept the claim that Christ has returned in the person of Baha’u’llah and the Faith’s lack of “personalized faith.” In both cases he gave the Bahá’í response to these two obstacles and, in particular, noted that the Bahá’í community was developing far more of a focus on personal faith and individual needs for health and healing.34 Intmfizitk Dialogue Activities, 1960—2002. In interfaith circles the 19605 are remembered for the second Vatican Council, held in Rome from 1963 through 1965, and for the subsequent publication of a series of papal encyclicals on a wide variety of topics. Among them was the 1965 “Declaration on the

33. March Bach, Strangers at the Door (Nashville: Abingdon P, 1971) 91. Chapter 4, “Unity of All Nations” (pp. 74—95), is dedicated to the Bahá’í Faith. The title, Stranger: at the Door, reflects the idea (common at the time) that America is a Christian or JudeoChristian nation and that other religionists are “strangers

34. Marcus Bach, “Bahá’í: A Second Look,” T176 Christian Century 74:15 (Apr. 10, 1957): 449—51; the article is also available at <http://www.uga.edu/bahai/

News/O41057.html>. 35. “Declaration on the Relationship of the Church

to Non—Christian Religions,” in Walter M. Abbott, ed., The Document: of Viztiam II (New York: Guild Press, 1966) 662—63.

Relationship of the Church to Non—Christian Religions,” which began by proclaiming the oneness of humanity, offering comments on Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and “other religions,” and laying out the relationship of the Catholic church to them: The Catholic Church rejects nothing which is true and holy in these religions. She looks with sincere respect upon those ways of conduct and of life, those rules and teachings which, though differing in many particulars from what she holds and sets forth, nevertheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men. Indeed, she proclaims and must ever proclaim Christ, “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), in whom men find the fullness of religious life, and in whom God has reconciled all things to Himself (cf. 2 Cor. 5:18—19). The Church therefore has this exhortation for her sons: prudently and lovingly, through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions, and in Witness of Christian faith and life, acknowledge, preserve, and promote the spiritual and moral goods found among these men, as well as the values in their society and culture.35 The declaration was widely influential in the interfaith movement and prompted many Protestant denominations to publish interfaith statements of their own. The language of interfaith dialogue was gradually refined, and neutral terms for many important concepts, such as “the Ultimate,” were promulgated (because not all religions taught one God; tribal faiths were polytheistic or stressed a spiritual force operating in nature, and the majority of Buddhist scholars rejected the idea that Buddhism taught any form of God).

The Bahá’í Faith’s growing Visibility caused it to attract more attention—friendly and critical—as well. In October 1967 James A. Pike (1913—69), Bishop of the American Epis copal Church for California, became a friend

[Page 29]of the Bahá’ís and spoke briefly at a large Bahá’í intercontinental conference in Wilmette and Chicago, Illinois, marking the centenary of Baha’u’llah’s letters to the kings and rulers of the world.36 The year 1973 saw the first attempt by a Christian theologian to offer a fair—minded critique of the Bahá’í teachings in a theological journal. Dr. John Niejenhuis’ “Bahá’í: World Faith for Modern Man?” identified a series of “critical questions” about the Bahá’í claims from the Protestant point of View: (1) the nature of the Bahá’í concept of progressive revelation (which gives the Bahá’í Faith precedence over other religions because it claims that Bahá’u’lláh fulfills all previous religions and because it “freezes” divine revelation for a thousand years); (2) the Bahá’í concept of Covenant-breaking and the limits on internal dialogue and pluriformity that it causes; (3) the fact that Bahá’u’lláh proclaimed His own station in ways that might not be compatible with humility; and (4) the Bahá’í concept of “revelational fundamentalism,” which views everything said by Baha’u’llah as direct from God and leaves no room for Bahá’u’lláh’s

36. James Albert Pike’s life is summarized at <httpz/ lwww.battleby.com/65/pi/Pike—Jam.html>. His talk at the Bahá’í Centenary Intercontinental Conference, Palmer House, Chicago, 6 Oct. 1967, is mentioned in the conference program, which can be found in the National Bahá’í Archives, Wilmette, IL.

37. See John Nijenhuis, “Bahá’í: World Faith for Modern Man?” in journal of Ecumenical Studies 10.3 (Summer 1973): 532-51. The section on “critical ques‘ tions” is found on pages 538—47. The title of the article echoes that of Arthur L. Dahl’s pamphlet Bahá’í: World Faith for Modern Man, first published in 1960 and revised in 1972 (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1972).

38. Jacques Choleur, “The Bahá’í Faith: World Religion of the Future?” World Order 12.1 (Fall 1977): 918. The original article was published in Annales Universitaire: d’Auz'gnon 1.2 (Nov. 1975).

THE BAHA’T FAITH AND INTERFAITH RELATIONS 29

humanity or personal genius; it also seems to reject divine inspiration working through historical figures and communities.37 Friendly but frank in tone, the article has been largely forgotten by the Bahá’ís, and its “critical questions” have never been systematically ad— dressed. More sympathetic was Jacques Choleur’s “La Poi Mondiale Bahá’íe: Religion Planetaire de l’avenir?” which was translated into English as “The Bahá’í Faith: World Religion of the Future?” and reprinted in the Fall 1977 issue of W/orld Order.38

In the 19605 and 19705 denominations, interfaith groups, and universities began to sponsor interfaith gatherings and publish their proceedings. Bahá’í involvement in such gatherings was limited by two factors. The first limitation lay in the paucity of Bahá’ís who had training or experience in interfaith dialogue. Bahá’í institutions were little known, had limited resources, and thus were often not informed of interfaith gatherings or had difficulty pursuing opportunities. The situation changed somewhat after 1980 when the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, the national governing body of the Bahá’ís in the forty-eight contiguous states, established a national Office of External Affairs, with personnel capable of representing the Bahá’í Faith.

The second limitation was more subtle. Often those planning interfaith dialogues did not want Bahá’ís to be involved, for many felt that including the Bahá’í Faith raised the issue of how broadly interfaith dialogue should be extended and that it could set a precedent for including small, cult—like groups (the exclusion of which was often a private concern of people involved in interfaith work). As a result, including the Bahá’í Faith proceeded at difl:erent paces in different con texts. In 1976 the Bahá’í Faith was invited to

take part in the World Congress of Faiths, held in Canterbury, England, on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of an earlier

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3O WORLD ORDER: SUMMER 2002

interfaith gathering.39 In 1987 the religion was invited to become the sixth faith in the World Wide Fund for Nature (together with Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam); in 1989 it helped to form the Sacred Literature Trust, which was created to publish editions of scripture; and in the same year it joined the Temple of Understanding, a New York-based interfaith group focusing on the United States.40 In 1986 Bahá’ís were invited to participate in a Vatican-sponsored interfaith gathering—the First Day of Prayer for Peace (although they were not invited to participate in the Second and Third Days of

Prayer for Peace in 1993 and 2002). In 1993 the Faith began to take part in the North American Interfaith Network. In 1994 the Bahá’í International Community joined the World Conference on Religions and Peace, probably the most important international interfaith body, and in 1996 became involved in its United States chapter.

U.S. Bahá’í involvement in local interfaith organizations varied widely from place to place. In some places, it was included from the very beginning. In 1972, for example,

39. A Bahá’í talk was presented at the Congress; see Douglas Martin, “Bahá’u’lláh’s Model for World Fellowship,” in LVorla' Order 11.1 (Fall 1976): 6—20.

40. A history of Bahá’í involvement in the World Wide Fund for Nature is given in One Country 7.1 (Apr.—]un. 1995): 12—13; the Sacred Literature Trust is described in One Country 1.3 (Jun.-Aug. 1989): 6—7.

41. Anthony Lee to the author (e—mail), 19 Jun. 2002.

42. Sheila Banani to the author (e—mail), 13 Jun. 2002.

43. Paul Glist to the author, e—mail, 29 Jun. 2002.

44. The 1893 event was called the World’s Parliament of Religions; the 1993 event was retitled the Parliament of the World’s Religions.

45. “Chicago Meeting not the only event commemorating the 1893 Parliament,” in One Country 5.2 (Jul.—Sept. 1993): 6. Albert Lincoln’s “Address to the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders” is published in The Balad’z’ era’, 2000—2001:An InternationalRecord (Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre Publications, 2002) 235—41.

Bahá’ís were among the founders of the United Religious Community of St. Joseph County, Indiana, the interfaith successor of the local council of churches. In 1975 or 1976 the Spiritual Assembly of Los Angeles joined the Interreligious Council of Southern California.41 In other cities Bahá’ís gradually came to be included. Around 1980 the Westside, California, Ecumenical Conference included the Spiritual Assembly of Santa Monica, California, as an “associate member” (because they were not Judeo—Christian). By 1986 the Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Santa Monica, California, had become a “full” member; by 1993 the organization evolved into the Santa Monica Bay Interfaith Council.42 Before planning for the 1993 Parliament in Chicago began, the largest interfaith organization in the Windy City was the National Conference of Christians and Jews, which by definition was unable to broaden its membership beyond those two faiths. But preparations for the Parliament gave rise in 1988 to a new, permanent interfaith organization, the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, in which the Bahá’í’s continue to be active. In Washington, D.C., Bahá’ís were not invited to join the Interfaith Conference of metropolitan Washington, D.C., when it was established in 1978 because the conference’s bylaws, designed to include more “established” faiths, required religions to have outlived their founder by one hundred years. After the centenary of Bahá’u’lláh’s passing in 1992, the Bahá’ís were eligible. They were finally admitted in 1997.43

Particularly important for the emergence of the Bahá’í Faith in the field of interfaith relations was the active role of Bahá’ís in the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago in 1993.44 Several Bahá’ís served on the coordinating council and on supporting committees and one Bahá’í served as a cochair of a plenary session. Bahá’ís were also actively involved in commemorations of the Parliament in London and Bangalore, India.“ Their

[Page 31]role was even stronger in 1999 at the third Parliament of the World’s Religions in Cape Town, South Africa; the cochairs of the Parliament were a female Bahá’í business professor and a Muslim imam. Including a Bahá’í representative in the World Faiths Development Dialogue (an annual meeting of representatives of nine world religions and

the head of the World Bank that began in 1998) and in the 2000 Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders serves as a measure of the Bahá’í Faith’s emergence into a public role in interfaith dialogue as a peer with the older traditions.46

A Letter to the World’s Religious Leaders, April 2002 TWO decades of growing experience in interfaith efforts raised questions and issues that are explored in a statement addressed by Universal House of Justice in April 2002 “To the World’s Religious Leaders.”47 The sevenpage statement offers key Bahá’í insights for advancing interfaith dialogue: that, if the religious communities do not recognize the oneness of the religions in their origin and their basic spiritual and moral truths, they will suffer consequences in the rise of religious fanaticism, the betrayal of the life of the mind, and the erosion of their public influence; and they will be unable to contribute to the well—being of humankind.

The statement opens with the observation that the events of the twentieth century “have compelled the peoples of the world to begin seeing themselves as the members of a single

46. “Dialogue between World Bank and world faiths sparks new approaches to poverty,” One Country 10.4 (Jan.~Mar. 1999): 4—5. Bahá’í involvement in the World Faiths Development Dialogue (the formal name of the dialogue that was eventually adopted) is mentioned in

Ba/M’z’ TVorla’, 2000—2001 124. 47. The letter is reprinted in W/orldom’er334 (Sum mer 2002): 9—16.

THE Bahá’í FAITH AND INTERFAITH RELATIONS 31

human race.” Yet “organized religion” has frequently remained “one of the most formidable obstacles” to “brotherhood and peace” because it has “lent its credibility to fanaticism.” In contrast, at the “level of global discourse,” the century saw the emergence of the equality of the sexes as a “universally accepted principle,” the erosion of “the fetish of absolute sovereignty,” and the rejection of “racial and ethnic prejudices”—in short, “the institutions and standards that humanity is devising” are slowly being “empowered to construct a new order of relationships and to bring relief to the oppressed.”

The April 2002 letter to the world’s religious leaders then turns to the history of the interfaith movement: its emergence at the first Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, its early promise for spiritual and moral consensus and the emancipation of humanity from “bigotry,” its expression in a “vast literature” and its institutionalization in comparative religion degree programs and interfaith efforts. But the statement also notes the lack of “intellectual coherence and spiritual commitment” of interfaith initiatives because of the stubborn resistance of “sectarian thought” to recognize the equal validity of the “world’s great religions.” The refusal of the “greater part of organized religion” to let go of its “claims of privileged access to truth” has had “ruinous” consequences for “human well-being”; it has been a cause of “outbursts of fanaticism” that have killed millions in wars and shamed “the name of religion.” It has also betrayed 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” and caused it to discourage the exercise of humanity’s intellectual faculties. Religion has been able to exercise such a negative influence because of the unique power it possesses, a power equally able to awaken “whole populations” to “capacities to love, to forgive, to create, to dare greatly, to over [Page 32]

32 WORLD ORDER: SUMMER 2002

come prejudice, to sacrifice for the common good and discipline the impulses of animal instinct.” Because of this unique power, religion has a key role to play in “profoundly influencing the structure of social relationships,” a role that human—conceived alternatives are unable to play.

Part three of the April 2002 letter from the Universal House of Justice begins by quoting Bahá’u’lláh on the central Bahá’í concept of progressive revelation:

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 subjects of one

God. The difference between the ordinances

under which they abide should be attrib uted to the varying requirements and

exigencies of the age in which they were

revealed. The implication of the principle is not “abandonment of faith in the fundamental verities of the world’s great belief systems” but rather the “renunciation” of “claims to exclusivity and finality.” The statement asserts that “growing numbers of people are coming to realize” the essential oneness of the religions and their equal access to the “one unbounded reality” in the spiritual life “equally accessible to everyone,” but this perception requires “confirmation” from the religious leaders to contribute effectively “to the building of a peaceful world.” The scriptures of the “world’s major religious traditions” also express “the principle of religions evolutionary nature.” Each religious tradition can “adduce impressive and credible testimony to its efficacy in nurturing moral character,” and all have been equally “prolific in generating bigotry and superstition.” Rather than fearing a loss of their followers through conversion to another religion, leaders should trust “a loving and unfailing Providence” and manage change “in a way that promotes unity.”

Religious leadership also faces other challenges: It must recognize that “meeting the

needs of the soul and those of society” are “reciprocal aspects of a mature spiritual life”; it must acknowledge “that religion and science are two indispensable knowledge systems through which the potentialities of consciousness develop”; and it must not “surrender to the lure of worldly power and advantage,” lest it cultivate ucynicism, corruption, and despair among those who observe it” and undermine its ability “to fulfill its social responsibility.”

The final part of the letter addressed to the world’s religious leaders turns to the role of religion in history to give “meaning to life,” cultivate “the good,” reprove “the wrong,” and hold up “a Vision of potentialities yet unrealized”; to counsel “the rational soul” to overcome limits; and to bind “diverse peoples together in ever larger and more complex societies through which the individual capacities thus released can find expression.” It notes that interfaith dialogue is a “response to the Divine Will for the human race that is entering its collective maturity” and is an effort the Bahá’í community has vigorously promoted “and will to continue to assist in every way” it can. However, it warns that “interfaith dialogue,” to “contribute meaningfially to healing humanity,” must recognize that “God is one and that, beyond all diversity of cultural expression and human interpretation, religion is likewise one.n Religious leadership “must break with the past” and focus on “serving the well—being of humankind,” a goal that, in Baha’u’llah’s words, is “‘unobtainable unless and until’” humanity’s “unity is firmly established.”

Conclusion WHILE it is too soon to discern the results of the Universal House of Justice’s letter to the world’s religious leaders, several implications seem clear. Release of the statement inaugurates a new era in Bahá’í involvement in interfaith efforts. Support for interfaith dialogue, never unanimous in the Bahá’í com [Page 33]munity, is strengthened. Interfaith effort is raised to the level of a major priority, perhaps on a par with world peace, racial unity, gender equality, and human rights. Bahá’í participants are given a clear message to convey and a way to relate the Faith’s central principle—the oneness and unity of humankind—to lesser Bahá’í principles that have already been generally accepted by the emerging world culture. The issue of how much to stress distinctive aspects of the Bahá’í Faith versus an emphasis on the oneness of religion—the Faith’s exclusivistic aspects, versus its pluralistic aspects—is resolved in favor of the latter. The Bahá’í community is aligned more clearly than ever against fanaticism and fundamentalism and in favor of investigation of truth and the life of the mind. Finally, the interfaith movement has been given

THE Bahá’í FAITH AND INTERFAITH RELATIONS 33

a challenge to consider some of the implications of the oneness of religion—ones hitherto little considered—in the furtherance of that movement and its ultimate destiny.

The impulse to engage in dialogue is inherent in the Bahá’í Faith. It is impelled by Baha’u’llah’s requirement that His followers consult about all things and His exhortation that they “consort with the followers of all religions in a spirit of friendliness and fellowship.” Its contours are shaped by His rejection of violence and His insistence on earning the trust of the other. Interfaith discussion and activity are integral to Bahá’í community life. With the increasing strength of the Bahá’í community and the greater encouragement of the Universal House of Justice, Bahá’í involvement in interfaith efforts can only grow.

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34

The Continuing Contest between Exclusivism and Pluralism: Thoughts on the 2002 Day of Prayer for Peace

BY JULIO SAVI

ON 24 January 2002 the Italian town of Assisi, the birthplace of St. Francis (1181—1226), hosted the third Day of Prayer for Peace convened by John Paul 11.1 The meeting was attended by 70 leaders of twelve religions, divided into 46 delegations, 31 of which were Christian, totaling 260 religious representatives.2 The Vatican Press Office solicited the cooperation of the mass media to publicize the event. As a result, some 1,160 journalists came to Assisi, and the event was broadcast worldwide, allowing potentially hundreds of millions of people on all continents to watch and listen to its messages. Moreover, this Day of Prayer, unlike the two previous ones, was accompanied by many other local meetings all over the world, either ecumenical (among Christians) 0r interfaith. Bernardo Valli, professor of Mass Media Sociology at the University of Urbino, remarked that the audience represented, “at least Virtually, eight inhabitants of the earth out of ten.”5

A Survey of the Event AT 8:40 AM. on 24 January 2002 a company that has been described as “the most singular pilgrimage after the times of Moses’ march toward Mount Sinai” left from the Vatican’s

rail station and arrived in Assisi at 10:30 AM.4 From there the attendees reached the Lower St. Francis Square in Assisi, where they gathered in front of a crowd of 2,300 people. At 11:00 AM. the Pope opened the meeting.

In a short introduction Cardinal Frangois Xavier N guyén Van Thuan, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, explained that the meeting was called

to bear witness before men and women of

good will,

by . . . [the delegates’] shared commitment

and by the prayer proper to each religious experience,

to . . . [the delegates’] will to overcome

opposition between peoples

on behalf of an authentic promotion of

peace. He went on to say that

[i]n the spirit of the first meeting in Assisi,

we welcome the invitation to proclaim before the world

that religion must never become

a pretext for conflicts and acts of hatred

and violence,

like those seen once more in our days.5 After him twelve religious representatives read their testimonies, echoing the theme of peace and unity among religions.

Bartholomew I of Constantinople, Ecumenical Patriarch, spoke first, stating that religions have the duty “to acknowledge the spiritual conditions for peace on earth.”6

Others, such as George Carey, Archbishop of

[Page 35]Canterbury, described (in a message read by a representative) the Day of Prayer in Assisi as “a new stage in our journey, a sign of our commitment to one another, and to God who leads us forward together.”7

The importance of deeds in interfaith dialogue, in addition to words and intentions, was stressed by Rabbi Israel Singer, President of the Governing Board of the World Jewish Congress, who said that, “[o]nly through serious dialogue and sincere commitment to physical engagement to peace on the part of the leaders of the major faiths, other [sic] than pronouncements alone . . . can we begin to change the current human condition.” Dr. Ishmael Noko, General Seeretary of the World Lutheran Federation, emphasized the importance of interfaith dialogue because, through it, we can “bear witness first and foremost to a God who loves the whole world, rather than to one who is bound to certain national, cultural, or political allegiances.”9

Chef Amadou Gasseto, Great Priest of Vodun Avéle’kété, an African traditional teligion, pointed out that the “values which we should promote as religious leaders are those of love and social interaction in a world where in reality we are all brothers and sisters.”10 Mrs. Didi Talwalkar, the representative of Hinduism, specifically of the Swadhyaya parimr (a self-help study movement), observed that “history repeatedly throws up instances where self—ptoclaimed saviors of religion have put religion in the service of power and divisive forces. We have seen how the religious orientation of the people is sought to be corrupted [sic] every so often.””

Finally, the contribution that religions, united among themselves as well as “with those who, without any relationship to religion, are men and women of good will,” could make to the advancement of the cause of peace in the world was underlined by

Catholic Chiara Lubich, founder of the Work of Mary (the Focolare Movement), who

EXCLUSIVISM AND PLURALISM 35

wished for and described “a single great dialogue which gives rise to that fraternity which can become, at this very difficult time in history, the soul of the vast world community which, paradoxically, is today beginning to be called for by ordinary people and their leaders.”12

The Pope then addressed the audience, saying:

We wish to do our part in fending off the dark clouds of terrorism, hatred, armed conflict, which in these last few months have grown particularly ominous on humanity’s horizon. For this reason we wish to listen to one other [sic]: we believe that this itself is already a sign of peace. . . . This already serves to scatter the slandows of suspicion and misunderstanding

He added that religious people and communities should in the clearest and most radical way repudiate violence, all Violence. . . . 7?) offend against man is, most certainly, to ofind against God. There is no religious goal which can possibly justify the use of violence by man against Inan.15 After the delivery of the twelve testimonies, the delegations separated to pray in various places, as arranged by the Pope. Orazio Petrosillo, special correspondent in Assisi for [l Messaggem, the most important daily newspaper in Rome, remarked that the prayers in Assisi are evidence “that humankind cannot achieve peace by itself, that true believers can only be in agreement with one another, . . . that true believers will never be terrorists.”14 At 3:30 P.M., all the attendees gathered again in the Lower St. Francis Square. Here, writes Luigi Geninazzi, an expert on the life of the Catholic Church in Eastern Europe, “[f]or the first time in history Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, and Animist representatives, together with spiritual leaders of other religions, have solemnly entered into a common covenant for peace.”15 Cardinal Francis Atinze, President of the

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36 WORLD ORDER: SUMMER 2002

Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, made short introductory remarks. After recalling the biblical prophecy of peace, “they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into sickles,” and briefly mentioning the highlights of the past hours, he said:

Now peace must be strengthened further

by the common commitment Which each

of us makes before the living God[,] before the brothers and sisters of our own religion, before those of other religions, and before all the world. Peace asks that we look With fresh courage to the future of humanity and of the Whole creation.16 Twelve religious representatives spoke after him, each stressing “the need to break down barriers of misunderstanding and contempt, and build a shared culture of dialogue.”17

Dr. Mesach Krisetya, President of the World Mennonite Conference, spoke last, observing that, “[i]n a world with ever more open borders, shrinking distances and better relations as a result of a broad network of communications, . . . security, freedom and peace will never be guaranteed by force but by mutual trust.”18 Pope John Paul 11 concluded the joint commitment by saying:

Violence never again!

War never again!

Terrorism never again!

In the name of God, may every religion

bring upon the earth

Justice and Peace,

Forgiveness and Life,

Love!19 To end the ceremony he placed a lit lamp at the front of the podium. Then all the representatives did the same.

When the meeting ended at 6:25 P.M., all the participants left by train for Rome. As a result of the enthusiasm raised by this event, a number of journalists began to speak of the Day of Prayer in Assisi as a tradition, and Father Vincenzo Coli, Superior of the Sacred Convent of Assisi, hoped for “‘a small assem bly of faithful of the various religions, gathering each year from today on in Assisi to meditate upon three common principles: faith in one God, the sacredness of each human being, the protection of Creation.”20

On 24 February 2002, one month after the third Day of Prayer in Assisi, Pope John Paul II addressed to the heads of state and governments of the world a Decalogue of Assisi for Peace, Which, in brief, called for

1. Doing everything possible to eliminate

the root causes of “Violence and terror ism.”

2. Educating people about “mutual re spect and esteem.”

3. Fostering a “culture of dialogue.”

4. Defending “the right of everyone to live

a decent life.”

5. Recognizing that “encountering the

diversity of others can become an oppor tunity for greater reciprocal understand ing.”

6. Forgiving “one another for past and

present errors and prejudices.”

7. Taking “the side of the poor and the

helpless,” “speaking out for those Who have

no voice,” and “working eEectively to

change these situations.”

8. Making “every effort possible to offer

the men and women of our time real hope

for justice and peace.”

9. Encouraging “all efforts to promote

friendship” among peoples.

10. Urging the “leaders of nations to make

every effort to create and consolidate, on

the national and international levels, a world

of solidarity and peace based on justice.”21

T be Purpose of the Event WHEN Pope John Paul II convened the first Day of Prayer in Assisi in 1986, the first international meeting of religious representatives was seen as a response to the decline of atheistic social states, the collapse of com munist ideologies, and the dying embers of the Cold War. The second Day of Prayer in

[Page 37]1993 was convened to pray for an end to the Bosnian war. The timing of the invitation to the 2002 Day of Prayer no doubt reflects the tumultuous events of the recent past—the wars in the former Yugoslavia, genocides in Africa, conflict in the Middle East, and, most recently, the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.

According to Vatican spokesman Cardinal Roget Etchegaray, president emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, the Vatican organized the Day of Prayer because it “‘is Vital that religions take sides with peace. Today religious wars are undoubtedly an anachronism and a counter—testimony.’” The meeting in Assisi, he went on to say, was intended to mobilize “consciences through religious leaders.”22 Luigi Accattoli, the Vatican correspondent for Corriere della sem, the most important Italian daily newspaper, observed that the Pope said, in his audience on the eve of the meeting: “‘1 am confident

. . that such an initiative, besides exerting spiritual influences which elude human measuring, may contribute to guiding souls and their decisions about sincere and courageous resolutions of issues of justice and forgiveness.’”23

A number of representatives of noanhristian religions recognized the need for reconciliation among religious communities. Rabbi Singer, an authority in the World Jewish Congress, is reported by Pettosillo as having said: “‘We meet today to queStion one another and thus we learn how to reconcile.”’24 Dr. Mansour Tantush, who represented the World Islamic Call Society in Italy, wished for the missionary rivalries among religions to stop: (‘Rather than a competition between da’wa [Islamic Call] and [Christian] mission, we must . . . practice cooperation in the service

of humankind.”25

The Accomplishments Of the Day of Prayer THE Day of Prayer in Assisi purported to do

EXCLUSIVISM AND PLURALISM 37

four things. First, the event was a response to the blasphemy of war in the name of God and “the testimony that in all religions, in different forms and expressions, peace and not war is a gift of God.”26 Second, the Day of Prayer was a challenge to the West in thatit underscored the reality that peace cannot be achieved without justice, including religious tolerance. In this perspective, the Moroccan journalist and writer Tahai' ben Jelloun pointed out that “the role of religions has changed. Although religion refuses to enter into the political arena, it has to interfere whenever either its message is betrayed, or its values are ignored or distorted.”27 Third, the Day of Prayer was “a response to the idea that once more appeared on the stage of cultural debate after September ll—that is, the idea that religious faiths, with their radicality, are in themselves unavoidably factors of conflict.” Finally, the Day of Prayer was “a challenge to all believers: Religious faith cannot become an identity card from Which one may draw a sense of superiority and privilege.”23

Some journalists saw in the Day of Prayer an attempt by the Vatican to reach beyond the traditional Catholic “exclusivist” positions—that is, the belief that only Catholicism is a “true” religion from God. While many observers have noted that the Declaration Dominus [c:m, signed on 5 September 2000 by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and ratified and confirmed by John Paul II, seemed to endorse again the exclusivist position, a number of journalists saw the Day of Prayer as a softening of the exclusivist interpretation.29 Valli wrote that “Assisi’s religious rendezvous, as the two previous ones in ’86 and ’93, is the fruit of the Council declaration Nostra Aetate [Our Age] . . . . After that declaration Catholicism does not pretend to be the one and only way of universal salvation. This revolution (which was considered as a “relativist” and, therefore, unworthy change, by integralists within the Church of Rome) now

[Page 38]i "

38 WORLD ORDER: SPRING 2002

Woodworking

She gets into the shower before

her radio alarm goes off; she’s bothered by the argument they had last night. It’s an old piece, with jagged lines, abrasive detail. As she’s lathering

she halts, alarmed by angry shouting. There’s gunfiIe—she slumps

in relief. Just the radio.

The commentator’s gravel-voice grinds her; she drips across the room to silence it.

She’s promised herself time this morning at her workbench to finish something. She pulls on gloves to work on

the piece she’s restoring for the living room, a fine endtable with good lines, well articulated detail.

She keeps trying not to think

about particulars, but about

how to restore the peace.

As the two of them get older, they’ve dried out, gone brittle, fiber and character.

She pours on a refinisher

which is slower, not so caustic

as the solution she often uses.

She must wait half an hour

before darkened varnish ribbons up against her scraper like wet sand.

She knows how to put things in. good repair between them: she must go With the grain, gently peel up a crazed shell,

uncover an intricate inlay,

smooth on tung oil with a soft cloth.

She knows what always happens:

with slight of tongue,

she sloshes on words that blister,

or with sleight of hand

she gouges the power

sander across the grain.

It would be useful to know more

of this craft of restoration,

how to dovetail two sides even,

miter two ends fair and square.

She’s lightened stains, lifted scars. Now she gives the endtable

the finishing touch:

pumice and oil, more pumice and oil, she polishes to a luminous patina.

Perhaps in time she’ll learn from her hands

what they’ve learned:

the ageless elasticity

of patiently oiled wood. T hen she’ll know to bend, and, yielding, be of beautiful use.

—Cynthia Sheperd Jaskwhich

[Page 39]A POETRY ANTHOLOGY

Out of My Element Like a beached fish, I flail, like a grounded bird,

a spiritual being confounded in a body.

I falter, seeking my source, preoccupied with

the macro of space, micro of mass, ipso facto of time.

Cocooned in senses, so often I miss the celestial whisper coursing through me.

Careless of these true notes, I whistle them into the wind. Their Vibrating messages swim streams

of consciousness; now and then, like a godsend, they surface somewhere in a vibrato, a brush stroke.

They ride high tides of dreams, then, miraculously appear in a shutter click, a soliloquy, and thus

elucidate the oldest voyage, from here to forever,

light the longest journey, heart to head and home again. —Cynthia Sheperd Jaskwhich

39

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40 WORLD ORDER: SUMMER 2002

witch doctors and various idolaters creates confusion among Catholic believers.“6

The Relationship of the Day of Prayer

to the Process OfInte1faith Dialogue ELIO Bromuri, a professor at the Theological Institute of Assisi, wrote that

“ [i] n Assisi . . . the realization of the meeting has come before the theoretical elaboration; prayer has been preeminent over theology. But theology cannot escape an unavoidable rendezvous. Theologians must make an effort to understand and explain what happened in Assisi, because one cannot be satisfied with the event itself and its realization.”47

In the opinion of most scholars, the Catholic Church’s participation in the process of interfaith dialogue started when the Second Vatican Council of 1963—65 (widely referred to as Vatican II) published a declaration whereby “[w]hatever good or truth is found amongst them [the non-Christians] is looked upon by the Church as a preparation for the Gospel.”48 This Declaration marked, for the Catholic Church, the passage from its ancient exclusivist positions to a new one, defined as inclusivist, whereby, in the words of William L. Rowe, professor of philosophy at Purdue University, “while denying the ultimate validity of other religions, the inclusivistic Christian may still allow that the adherents of . . . other religions may attain salvation by following the paths to salvation laid down by those religions.”49 In other words, an inclusivist position recognizes that other religions may lead to God (albeit not by the “right” path), while an exclusivist position maintains that no other religion may lead to God.

The new inclusivist position enabled the three popes who succeeded John XXIII (19581963) to continue interfaith dialogue to the point of giving the impression that they had come closer to positions that John H. Hick, a leading philosopher of religion and inter faith dialogue, would define as pluralistthat is, to the idea “that the great religious traditions of the world represent different human perceptions of and response to the same infinite divine Reality.”50 The pluralist conception has been recently reformulated by Hick, who stresses the dangers of the inclusivist and exclusivist theories whereby “there can only be one true—or at least fully truereligion” and recommends, on the contrary, that all religions make an effort to realize “that objectively no religion is the one and only true religion, and that we must all become able to interact with people of other faiths on that basis.”51

The first Day of Prayer in Assisi in 1986, the second Day of Prayer in 1993, and the Interreligious Assembly “On the Eve of the Third Millennium: Collaboration of the Different Religions,” held in the Vatican on 24—28 October 1999,52 may be considered as significant events in the process of interfaith dialogue, characterized by the Catholic postVatican II inclusivist Vision. However, in 2000 the Declaration Dominm [ems seemed to confirm exclusivist theories by describing the Catholic Church as the unique repository of absolute truth on earth, a truth the diffusion of which to all the world was indicated as the primary purpose of the Catholic Church. Therefore, the Declaration Dominux [ems has been widely considered to be a brake on, if not a regression in, interfaith dialogue.

Obviously the Pope who called and celebrated the 2002 Day of Prayer in Assisi cannot be totally different from the one who at the end of 2000 ratified and confirmed Dominus Iesm. Therefore, his (and, accordingly, the Church’s) present position cannot be considered as pluralist but at most as inclusivist. This nonpluralist, inclusivist position, tending toward exclusivism, was quite evident in the organization of the Day of Prayer in Assisi, most specifically in the division of the delegations for prayer; in the implicit idea of a unity among religions in

[Page 41]the name of human reason and not in the name of one God; in the ovet—control by the Vatican; and in the central position occupied by the Pope during the entire day.

During the Day of Payer in Assisi, the two fundamental factors that prevented religions from going a step further in the process of interfaith dialogue were the fear of syncretism (the attempted reconciliation or union of different or opposing principles or practices),53 and the fear of losing one’s identity of faith, expressed by specific dogmas and rituals.

As to the fears of syncretism, the Vatican made it quite Clear that the Day of Peace should not be interpreted as a step toward syncretisrn. Although the Vatican convened the meeting to pray for peace, the delegations were not asked to pray together, because, in Cardinal Arinze’s words, “‘each one has his own belief.”54 Cardinal Etchegaray explained the concept of separatism by observing that: “‘Being together in order to pray does not mean praying together. Let us avoid syncretism.”SS Politi relates that the Cardinal was

quite clear on this point. The Vatican

decided on its conduct without waiting for traditionalist attacks against the spiritual summit promoted by the Pope. At the beginning of January, Cardinal Walter

Kasper declared that the faithful of Christ

and the followers of the other religions

could not “pray together.” However, Christians and non—Christians could share their sense of, and longing for, God and the

Divine.56 Monsignor Sergio Goretti, Bishop of Assisi, said about the separate places for prayer: “‘“The spirit of Assisi” consists of renouncing intimidation and violence in mutual respect and acceptance. It is a spirit of love and brotherhood. This spirit has been sometimes misinterpreted in a syncretistic way, as a mixture of beliefs wherein differences are lost and people come to be united on nothingness.”57

EXCLUSIVISM AND PLURALISM 41

As to the fear of losing one’s identity of faith, Bausani noted two major “apples of discord” in interfaith conflicts: “dogmas in theory and rites/sdcmments in practice.”58 These two aspects—theoretical and ptactical—are interwoven in the philosophy behind the separation of prayers in Assisi: the theoretical, dogmatic aspect that seeks to define a separate God for each religion and that does not define the others’ religious systems as “religions” but as “religious traditions,” and the practical aspect that mandated that the various rituals of prayer supersede any other considerations to the point of exclusion. In fact, most representatives did not object to the separation of the delegates for prayers (one journalist noted that the arrangement enabled the participants to preserve “untouched and unimpaired their faith” without being “flattened on one another”59) or to the term “religious traditions” used to describe all the convened religions. The fears of syncretism and of losing one’s identity of faith were, for many, stronger than any other consideration. This subtle exclusivist tendency became even more manifest in the refusal to create “‘a “united front of religions,’”” and in the expressed satisfaction with the fact that in Assisi “‘[t]he aspect of a ‘parliament of religions,’ so dear to nineteenth century America, in the times of Vivekananda, has been carefully avoided.”60

The inclusivist approach to the Day of Prayer does not diminish the value of the words spoken at the event disavowing violence perpetrated in the name of religion. Nor does it diminish the hope that religions may finally cease to contend for primacy in the world and begin to accept their common origins from the same God.

However, one may wonder what the masses of believers and nonbelievers, who are often unable to distinguish between inclusivist and exclusivist attitudes, will think of the practicing believers and religious leaders gathered in Assisi. On the one hand, such believers

[Page 42]

42 WORLD ORDER: SUMMER 2002

and religious leaders preach peace among religions. On the other, the same practicing believers and religious leaders want to pray in separate places; they accept the shadow of the disunifying idea that people do not worship the same God and that they do not follow paths that may be compared with one another, and thus they do not look at each other’s religions as being equal; and, finally they do not like to call each other’s belief systems “religions” but prefer the neutral locution of “religious traditions.” They assume these attitudes because of their attachment to their own ideas on theological dogmas and on the exclusivist value of ritual, an attachment that in the eyes of the masses of believers and nonbelievers may well smell of bigotry. Bigotry is certainly a factor in the estrangement that exists between people of various religions and, in its most extreme aspects, in episodes of Violence. Moreover, if naive believers do not receive clear and straightforward messages from their own religious leaders, on whose example they are inclined to rely, such uninformed believers, who do not look positively on interfaith meetings such as the ones held in Assisi, will never forsake their exclusivist positions and turn to more inclusivist or pluralist attitudes in a globalized world that requires them to live side by side with followers of other religions. It will be difficult to draw practical results from interfaith dialogue without making a wholehearted effort to create the required conditions whereby sooner or later all religions may meet on a level playing field—one of equal freedom of choice. In the light of these considerations, the impact of the 2002 Day of Prayer is perhaps not as far-reaching as the organizers and the participants might have hoped. All these reflections confirm the idea that the inclusivist approach does not really enable religions to move from the present stage of intentions of peace and unity, as clearly and forcefully expressed as they may be, to the state of practical realization.

Many share the idea that interfaith dialogue is still at the beginning of its development and thus susceptible to further advancement. For example, Jane Lampman, staffwriter of the Christian Science Monitor, reported an observation made by David Rosen, Chief Rabbi of the International Council of Christians and Jews, Who attended the Assisi meeting: “‘Most of our traditions are beginning to come out of their childish, exclusive cocoons and are learning that we have to work together for a better world.”61 Mrs. Talwalkar, the Hindu representative, wished that the world might “move to a coalition of world’s religions to safeguard a shared future

blessed by God.”62

Were Can Interfaith Dialogue

Go fiom Here?

THE inclusivist approach has led interfaith dialogue to an impasse where it has dwelt for far too long. The question that faces the interfaith movement today is how might the world’s religions transcend inclusivism and reach a higher state of unity and understanding. The question is not new; it has been addressed by various religious scholars and writers, in addition to those offering public statements at Assisi, and their answers cover the gamut from exclusivist apologetics to what might be called “inclusivism, but” to a more universal, if somewhat undefined, approach. There was a certain awareness in Assisi of the implicit dangers of exclusivist attitudes. The Archbishop of Canterbury pointed out in a message presented on his behalf that “our traditions can be misused to set people apart, rather than bringing them together” and went so far as to add that “we have sometimes defined ourselves by what divides us, rather than what we share.”63 Mrs. Talwalkar clearly said during the meeting: “The true message of religion is not and cannot be bigotry.”64 Moreover, the same representatives Who did not object to the exclusivist attitudes stated that “religions must

[Page 43]not clash”; that “religionists, when they pray, achieve a better understanding of the need and the wealth of peace”; that, therefore, “religion can and ought to help men and women to meet, to live side by side, to assist one another in building a just world”; and that “all religions are called to look to the future and to forsake diatribes of theological and exegetical character and ought rather to keep in mind the real needs of the world, of the people and of individual human beings.”65 There were a few, such as Father Lacunza, who saw beyond the inclusivism to a deeper unity that the separation of the delegates for prayer seemed to belie. He stated that

[a] reawakened human spiritual dimen sion enables us today to go beyond doc trinal disputes, cultural differences and barriers of language. In the Assisi Day of

Prayer there is a common space, because

in the human spirit there are no political

areas, no cultural zones, no geographical regions. We pray together because what unites us is stronger than what divides us.66 However, this emerging awareness does not seem sufficient to draw religions away from their old inclusivist approach. While the position has certainly been commendable as a first step in leaving behind an unacceptable and dangerous exclusivism, it has, nonetheless, been wholly inadequate for solving the problem of continuing religious conflicts and for promoting the idea that religions may be beneficial factors in the development of human civilization.

In the Bahá’í perspective, no theoretical or practical considerations seem sufficient in our day to justify the remnants of exclusivist attitudes evinced during the Day of Prayer. The secular, materialistic world that seeks to prevent the interference of any religious institution in the lives of individuals and communities can be persuaded to view religions and their leaders with renewed trust and hope only if those leaders are willing to

EXCLUSIVISM AND PLURALISM 43

unite around a theoretical solution and then prove capable of guiding their followers effectively toward a practical resolution of their many differences—differences that have been and still are important provocateurs of past and present violence. The unyielding and as yet unscalable wall that shores up such religious differences is, according to Bahá’í scripture, the exclusivist teaching that only one religion has a divine origin and is, therefore, absolutely true and that the others are, at best, only relatively true. In 1985 the Universal House of Justice, the supreme governing and legislative body of the Bahá’í Faith, addressed this issue: Followers of all religions must be willing to face the basic questions which this strife [among religions] raises, and to arrive at clear answers. How are the differences between them to be resolved, both in theory and in practice? The challenge facing the religious leaders of mankind is to contemplate, with hearts filled with the spirit of compassion and a desire for truth, the plight of humanity, and to ask themselves whether they cannot, in humility before their Almighty Creator, submerge their theological differences in a great spirit of mutual forbearance that will enable them to work together for the advancement of human understanding and peace.“ Such an approach calls for followers of all religions to renounce “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.”68 The fears expressed during the Day of Prayer in Assisi about moving away from the exclusivist and inclusivist approaches have been essentially two: the fear of syncretism and the fear of losing one’s identity of faith. Abandoning all “claims to exclusivity or finality” is not necessarily tantamount to falling into syncretism, because, for Bahá’ís, religion

3:4;

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44 WORLD ORDER: SUMMER 2002

“is not a series of beliefs, a set of customs; religion is the teachings of the Lord God.” It “is the revelation of the will of God, the divine fundamental of which is love.” Therefore, “[t]hose who would have men believe that religion is their own private property once more bring their efforts to bear against the Sun of Truth: they resist the Command of God.”69

In spite of the Bahá’í teachings about the nature of religion, certain scholars have written that the Bahá’í Faith is syncretistic.70 But their judgment reflects their superficial understanding of the Bahá’í Faith and, perhaps, their religious or atheistic exclusivist bias, which does not allow them to accept the possibility that God may have sent a new revelation to humankind in the nineteenth century. Hence they ascribe the elaboration of the entire structure of the Bahá’í Faith to Baha’u’llah as a human being rather than taking into consideration His claim to be the latest in a long succession of Messengers of God. Thus, when Bahá’ís recommend a pluralist approach to the leaders and the followers of all religions, suggesting that they abandon all “claims to exclusivity or finality, ” this is not an invitation to come together and found a new religion that Will bring all others within its purview. Rather, it is an invitation to make an effort to understand an important concept, the foundations of which may be discovered in all scriptures of the world: “The religion of God is one religion,” and all religions “derive their inspiration from one heavenly Source, and are the subjects of one God.”71 The differences among the present—day religions do not depend on their essential teachings, the “basic foundation” of which is “the principle of love, unity and the fellowship of humanity.”72 The differences either concern their social teachings, related to geographical and historical circumstances, or are purely historical and cultural and, therefore, of secondary importance. A Bahá’í invitation to a pluralist approach is an invi tation to rise above theological disputes and conflicts and to consider all peoples, with their various religions, as the children of the same “unknowable Essence, the Divine Being . . . immensely exalted beyond every human attribute,” Whom we call God and Whom we conceive in different ways according to our specific religious background but Who is always the same.73

Religious leaders may want to reflect on their fears about losing their identities. They may want to consider that, above and beyond specific dogmas and rituals, religious identities may be traced in the scriptures as well as in the history of each religion. Thus, for example, Jews may well pride themselves on the faithfulness that moved Abraham to surrender to a demanding God Who asked him to sacrifice his beloved son, or on the rapture of love that moved their King David to compose and sing his psalms. Muslims may well praise the forceful words of the Qur’án, or the deep spirituality of Imam ‘Ali, who, when absorbed in prayer, was totally insensitive to pain, or the beauty and spiritual depths of such mystic poets as Rumi or Hafiz. Christians may well glory in the beatitudes uttered by Jesus Christ in His Sermon on the Mount, or in the courage of Mary Magdalene, who spurred the Apostles to overcome their fear and to leave their houses and spread the word of Christ, or in the ecstatic rapture of the Canticle OfBrot/767 Sun by St. Francis. These identifying factors seem to have a much higher, and nobler, value than any dogma or ritual. Moreover, they are deeply rooted in each specific tradition and are evocative of its spiritual power; they are not as divisive as certain dogmas that pretend to give an exclusive and absolute definition of an unknowable God. No prayer shared by members of various religions, as theologically and ritualistically different as those religions may be from one another, no abandonment of any claim “to exclusivity or finality” Will ever deprive any believer of a

[Page 45]strong religious identity when it is based on the scriptures and history of which each religion may feel justly proud.

Human civilization is at a crossroads. It may take a momentous step forward in its age—long evolution, or it may prolong its travail and descend into chaos and havoc. It is a moment in history in which the world’s religions may play a unique part, renouncing all “claims to exclusivity or finality” that have suffocated unity and promoted hatred and violence]4 In a letter addressed in 1906 to Jane Elizabeth Whyte, wife of the former Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explained the need for humanity to unite on many levels, describing “unity in religion” as the “corner—stone" of the process of unifying humankind.7S Increasingly, others have seen this same need. Unity in religion requires all believers to make a number of sacrifices. Bausani has written that such sacrifices “should be made in equal measure by the adherents of all religious traditions.”6 Rabbi Singer noted, in his comments at the Day of Prayer, that only “through sacrifices for peace” can religions begin to change humanity.77 Those sacrifices may imply not only the abandonment of any fear of syncretism or of losing one’s identity of faith but also the acceptance of a possible

conversion of numbers of people from

one religion to another. Whether or not

this is true, it is surely of peripheral im portance 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 im poses.78

Individual religious leaders or communities that have really understood the vital importance of unity for the supreme good of the whole world should find it relatively easy to abandon the exclusivist and inclusivist positions “that there can only be one trueor at least fully true—religion.”79 They will

EXCLUSIVISM AND PLURALISM 45

accept the ideas of religious pluralism, including the ideas “that God is one and that, beyond all diversity of cultural expression and human interpretation, religion is likewise one”; “that the truth underlying all religions is in its essence one”; that “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”; and that “the seminal force in the civilizing of human nature has been the influence of the succession of these Manifestations of the Divine [the founders of the universal reli’ gions] that extends back to the dawn of recorded history”—ideas that will finally help all believers and nonbelievers to live peacefully together in the world.“0 The present moment is propitious for such a renewal in the minds and hearts of all the world’s religious leaders, because, as the Universal House of Justice writes, 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.81 For Bahá’ís, this is the next step to take in interfaith dialogue: to move toward the es «sf [Page 46]

46 WORLD ORDER: SUMMER 2002

tablishment of a “world community . . . in which the clamor of religious fanaticism and strife will have been forever stilled” because the “causes of religious strife will . . . [have been] permanently removed.”82 When all conflicts among religions and their leaders have disappeared, when religions and their leaders have established their credibility among human beings, they can play their part in the Spiritualization of a world that has mostly become indifferent. If we want to avoid other pains and ills of a grievously tested humankind, this enterprise is vital. The dangers, should the world’s religions fail to perceive and exercise their responsibility, are well—nigh unimaginable, even in a world inured to carnage. In its letter to the world’s religious leaders, the Universal House of Justice puts the case succinctly: 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.83

1. The first Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi was held on 27 October 1986 during the war in Lebanon and near the end of the Cold War. The second Day of Prayer was held on 9 and 10 January 1993 during the Balkan conflict, when the Pope brought together Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religious leaders to pray for an end to the Bosnian war.

2. The twelve religions attending the Day of Prayer

were African Traditional Religions, Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Jainism, Shinto, Sikhism, Tenrikyo, and Zoroastrianism. 3. Bernardo Valli, “La preghiera di Wojtyla immersa nella storia [“Wojtyla’s prayer is immersed in history”],” La Repubblz'm (Rome) 27.20 (25 Jan. 2002): 1. All translations from Italian and French newspapers were made by the author.

4. Marco Politi, “Pace, la scommessa diAssisi [“Assisi: a bet on peace”],” La Repubblz'az (Rome) 27.18 (23 Jan. 2002); 14.

5. Day of Prayer for Peace in the World, Words of Introduction by Cardinal Frangois Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan. The English texts of all the statements may be found on the website <http://www.vatican.va/special/ assisi720020124_en.html>. In October 2002, on the occasion of the twenty—fifth anniversary of his Pontificate, John Paul II changed the presidents of a number of Pontifical Councils, including Cardinal Frangois Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and Cardinal Francis Arinze, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. See “Wojtyla sta preparando la ‘rivoluzione’ del Terzo Millennio [“Wojtyla is preparing the ‘revolution’ of the Third Millennium”],” La Stampa (Turin) 136.278 (11 Oct. 2002); 8.

6. Day of Prayer for Peace in the World, Testimonies for Peace, Representatives of Difl’erent Churches and Ecclesial Communities and of Other Religions (hereafter referred to as Testimonies for Peace), Ecumenical Patriarch His Holiness Bartholomew I of Constantinople.

7. Testimonies for Peace, George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury. The Archbishop was represented by Richard Garrard, Assistant Bishop for the Diocese of Europe of the Church of England and Director of the Anglican Centre in Rome.

8. Testimonies for Peace, Rabbi Israel Singer (Judaism).

9. Testimonies for Peace, Dr. Ishmael Noko (World Lutheran Federation).

10. Testimonies for Peace, Arnadou Gasseto (African Traditional Religion). Vodun Avélékéte' is one of the vodou (0r vodum, voodoo, voudon) religions that can be traced to the West African Yoruba people Who lived in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the territories occupied today by Dahomey, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria. Slaves brought their religion with them to Haiti and other islands in the West Indies. In 1996 Vodun was formally recognized as Benin’s official religion.

11. Testimonies for Peace, Mrs. Didi Talwalkar (Hinduism). The Swadhyaya pariwzr (family) or “self—study” movement, founded in the 19505 by Pandurang Shastri Athawale of Bombay, is a self—help movement for poor Villagers in India. It teaches that inner divinity can enable people to overcome self—hatred, prejudice, and the misery of poverty.

12. Testimonies for Peace, Chiara Lubich (Catholicism). The Work of Mary (Focolare Movement) was approved in 1962 by Pope John XXIII as an association of the faithful. Focolare is comprised of people of various races, cultures, languages, professional, and social backgrounds, Christians, members of other religions, and people of no religious conviction, all of

[Page 47]whom are committed to bringing about a world in which there is more solidarity and unity.

13. Day of Prayer for Peace in the World, Address of His Holiness Pope John Paul II to the representatives of the world religions.

14. Orazio Petrosillo, “Assisi, i1 Papa prega per la pace nel mondo [“Assisi, the Pope prays for peace in the world”],” I! Mexmggero (Rome) 124.22 (24 Jan. 2002): 6.

15. Luigi Geninazzi, “Tte ‘mai pil‘l’ pet tifate la storia [“Three ‘never again’ to change history”],”A1/vmz're (Rome) 35.20 (25 Jan. 2002): 3.

16. 1521‘ 2:4; Day of Prayer for Peace in the World, Impegno per la pace 6 congedo [Commitment to Peace and Envoy] (hereafter referred to as Impegno per la pace), 24 Jan. 2002. Monizione d’introduzione [Words of Introduction], Cardinal Francis Arinze.

17. “Assisi Prayer Meeting Concludes,” Catholic erd News.com, 24 Jan. 2002.

18. Impegno per la pace, Impegno comune per la pace. The Mennonites are the successors of “the followers of the sixteenth—century radical reformer Menno Simons (1496—1561), a Dutch Roman Catholic priest who joined the Anabaptists in 1536” (“Mennonites,” The Oxfam’Dictiamzry of erdRe/z‘giam, ed. John Bowker [Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997]). '

19. Impegno per la pace, Impegno comune per la pace.

20. Father Vincenzo Coli, quoted in Marco Politi, “Pace, 1a pteghiera dj Assisi sotto gli ocehi del mondo [“Peace, Assisi’s prayer under the eyes of the world”],” [.4 Repubblim (Rome) (27.19 (24 Jan. 2002): 10. For other journalists who expressed the same enthusiasm for a Day of Prayer as a tradition, see also Alessandro Zaccuri, “Lo Spirito di Assisi? Non e sincretista [“The spirit of Assisi? It is not syncretist"],” Avvmz're (Rome) 35.19 (2412111. 2002): 6; Pietro Scoppola, “La grande sfida delle religioni [“The great challenge of religions”] ,” La Repubblz‘m (Rome) 27.19 (24 Jan. 2002): 1, 17; Orazio Petrosillo, “L’incontro ecumenico: oltre 200 rappresentanti (11' 12 confessioni uniti nella sfida comm la violenza [“The ecumenical meeting: more than 200 representatives of 12 confessions united in a challenge against violence”],” [I Mmaggero (Rome) 124.22 (24 Jan. 2002): 1; Orazio Petrosillo, “11 Papa: 1e tenebre non si dissipano con le armi [“The Pope: darkness cannot be dissipated through weapons”],” [1 Mexmggero (Rome) 124.33 (25 Jan. 2002): 2; Vittorio Peri, “Quello spirito Che soffia sui cantieri della stotia [“That spirit blowing over the builder’s yards of history”],” Avvenire (Rome) 35.19 (24 Jan. 2002): 9.

21. Letter of John Paul H to All the Heads of State and Government[s] of the World and Decalogue of Assisi for Peace, 24 Feb. 2002. See <http:// www.vatican.va/holy_fathet/Johnipauliii/letters/2002/

EXCLUSIVISM AND PLURALISM 47

documents/hf_jp—ii_let_200203047capistato_en.htm1>.

22. Cardinal Roger Etchegatay, quoted in Marco Politi, “‘Ciascuno di noi crede nel suo Dio, Ina abbiamo un sogno in comune’ [“‘Each of us believes in his own God, but we have a common dream”’],” La Repubblz’m (Rome) 27.19 (24 Jan. 2002); 11. 23. Pope John Paul II, quoted in Luigi Accattoli, Vado ad Assisi per pregare per la vera pace’ [“‘I go to Assisi in order to pray for true peace’”],” Carrier: della smz (Rome) 127.20 (24 Jan. 2002): 5.

24. Rabbi Singer, quoted in Orazio Petrosillo, “Un evento Che ha superato il successo di sedici anni fa [“An event whose success is even greater than sixteen years ago”],” [I Mmaggem (Rome) 124.23 (25 Jan. 2002): 2.

25. Mansour Tantush, quoted in Camille Eid, “‘Insieme contro ogni ingiustizia’, [“‘Together against every injuStiee”’]” Avvmire (Rome) 35.18 (23]311. 2002): 5.

«r

26. Scoppola, “La grande sfida delle religioni,” La Repubblz'w (Rome) 27.19 (24]2111. 2002): 17.

27. Tahar ben Jelloun, “La prossima volta a Gerusalemme [“Next time in Jerusalem”],” La Repubblz'm (Rome) 27.20 (25 Jan. 2002): 16.

28. Scoppola, “La grande sfida delle religioni,” La Rcyubblz‘m (Rome) 27.19 (24 Jan. 2002): 17.

29. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. For a commentary on the Declaration Dominus [mat on the unicity and the salvific universality of Jesus Christ and the Church, see Julio Savi, “The Declaration Dominus Iexu5.-A Brake on Ecumenism and Interfaith Dialogue?” (1%er Om’er 32.2 (Winter 2000—01): 7—24.

30. Valli, “La preghiera di Wojtyla immersa nella storia,” La Repuéblim (Rome) 27.20 (25 Jan. 2002): 17. Nostm Aetate [Our Age] is a short declaration, in five chapters and twenty—three paragraphs, on “The relations of the Church with non—Christian religions” published by Second Vatican Council 011 28 October 1965. 111 the context of Valli’s quotation, the term relativixt refers to “theories or doctrines that truth . . . [is] relative to situations and . . . not absolute” (“Relativism,” OxfirdEnglz'X/a Dictionary, 2nd ed.); the term integrdlists refers to “the more strictly confessional and Clerical sector of the Catholic world” (Salvatore Battaglia, “Integralismo,” Grands Diziomzria delkz Lingua Italiana 8 [Turinz UTET, 19771) 31. Gad Eitan Lerner, “Con religioni in arretrato, il modemo in tilt [“With backward religions the modem in trouble”],” Avvenin’ (Rome) 35.20 (25 Jan. 2002): 20.

32. Luigi Accattoli, “Critiche dagli ebrei sulla ‘regia.’ E 1e donne erano troppo poche [“Blames from the Jews on the ‘regié.’ And women were too few”] ,” Corriere

della 52m (Rome) 127.22 (26 Jan/ 2002): 16.

[Page 48]

48 WORLD ORDER: SUMMER 2002

33. Cardinal Etchegaray, quoted in Politi, mCiascuno di noi crede nel suo Dio, ma abbiamo un sogno in comune,’” La Repubblim (Rome) 27.19 (24 Jan. 2002): 11.

34. Rabbi Israel Singer, quoted in Geninazzi, “Tre ‘mai pil‘l’ per rifare 1a storia,” Awem're 35.20 (25 Jan. 2002): 3.

35. John Phillips, “World Religions leaders join Pope in prayer for an end to terrorism,” Time: (London) 67357 (25 Jan. 2002): 1.

36. Accattoli, “Critiche dagli ebrei sulla ‘regia.’ E le donne erano troppo poche,” Carriere de/lzz 56m (Rome) 127.22 (26 Jan. 2002): 16.

37. Alain Barluet, “Journe’e de priére pour la paix a Assisi [“Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi”],” Le Figaro (Paris) 17 872 (24 Jan. 2002): 4; Bruno Bartoloni and Paolo Brogi, “Un treno blindato porterz‘t il Papa ad Assisi [“An armored train will carry the Pope to Assisi”] ,” Carrier: delltz mm (Rome) 127.18/ 19 (23 Jan. 2002): 19.

38. Henri Tincq, “L"esprit d’Assise’ invoqué contre le fanatisms [“The ‘spirit of Assisi’ invoked against fanaticism”],” LeMonde(Paris) 58.17729 (25 Jan. 2002): 3.

39. Luigi Accattoli, “La giornata della pace [“The Day of Peace”],” Corriere dellzz sem (Rome) 127.18/ 19 (23 Jan. 2002): 18. The Shinto sect Tenrikyo was founded in Japan in 1838 by Nakayama Miki (1798—1887).

40. “Pope lights beacon of hope,” BBC News 24 Jan. 2002, 23:08 GMT.

41. Gaspare BarbielliniAmidei, “Insieme, non confusi ["Togethet, Without creating confusion”] ," Corriere della 53m (Rome) 127.20 (24 Jan. 2002): 17.

42. Alessandro Bausanj, Saggi .m/la FedeBa/ad ’1’ (Rome: Casa Editrice Bahá’í, 1991) 18.

43. Cardinal Etchegaray, quoted in Politi, mCiascuno di noi crede nel suo Dio, ma abbiamo un sogno in comune,’” La Repubblz'az (Rome) 27.19 (24 Jan. 2002): 11.

44. Justo Lacunza, “I ctedenti oggi non possono restate muti e indiHerenti [“Today believers cannot keep silent and remain indifferent”],” [I Messaggem (Rome) 124.23 (25 Jan. 2002): 2.

45. Barluet, “Journe’e de priére pour la paix aAssisi,” Le Figaro (Paris) 17 872 (24 Jan. 2002): 4.

46. Federico Bricolo and Massimo Polledri, quoted in “Pope leads world prayer day,” BBC News 24 Jan. 2002, 12:18 GMT. The two deputies belong to “Lega,” the party founded by the Italian right—wing politician, Umberto Bossi. The Italian press have commented on their statements as well; see Danilo Paolini, “Due Ieghisti contto l’Ulivo: (Che offesa’ [“Two representatives of the ‘Lega’ party against the ‘Olive {both the symbol of peace and the logo of the Italian left wing coalition}: (What a shame’”],” Avvmire (Rome) 35.19 (24 Jan. 2002): 7; Danilo Paolini, “La Lega: passo falso della

Chiesa [“The ‘Lega’ party: a false step by the Church”] ,” [[Menggera (Rome) 124.22 (24 Jan. 2002): 6; Roberto Zuccolini, “Ma 1a Lega contesta i1 meeting: ‘Un passo falso della Chiesa’ [“But the ‘Lega’ party contests the meeting: ‘A bad move by the Churc ”’],” Corriere delld sem (Rome) 127.20 (24 Jan. 2002): 5.

47. Elio Bromuri, quoted in Peri, “Quello spirito ChC soffia sui cantieri della storia,” Avvenire (Rome) 35.19 (24 Jan. 2002); 9.

48. Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, 21 Nov. 1964, chap. 1, no. 16. The English text of Lumen Gentium may be found on the website <http://Www.vatican.Va/archive/hist_councils/ iiivaticanicouncil/documents/vatii#const719641121Jumen—gentiumienhtmb.

49. William L. Rowe, Philosophy ofRelz'gim/t: An Introduttz'on, 2nd ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1993) 177, 178.

50. John H. Hick, P/Jz’lowpby ofRe/igion (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice, 1990) 119.

51. John Hick, “Only one true teligion?,” 777631652? Studies Review 10 (2001/2002) 1, 6.

52. The Interreligious Assembly was convened 0n the eve of the third millennium by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue to explore the possibilities of collaboration among the various religions. It was attended by two hundred participants from almost fifty countries and twenty different “religious traditions,” personally invited by the Pontifical Council itself.

53. Syncretism has been defined as the “amalgamation of religious beliefs and practices in such a way that the original features of the religious in question become obscured” (“Syncretism,” Oxfbm’ Dictionary of 1%er Relzgz'om).

54. Cardinal Arinze, quoted in Politi, “Pace, la preghiera di Assisi sotto gli occhi del mondo,” La Repubbliaz (Rome) 27.19 (24 Jan. 2002): 10.

55. Cardinal Etchegaray, quoted in Politi, “‘Ciascuno di noi crede nel suo Dio, ma abbiamo un sogno in comune,” La Repubblz'ca (Rome) 27.19 (24 Jan. 2002): 11.

56. Politi, mCiascuno di noi crede nel suo D10, Ina abbiamo un sogno in comune,m La Repubblim (Rome) 27.19 (24 Jan. 2002): 11. Cardinal Walter Kasper is the President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

57. Monsignor Sergio Goretti, quoted in Zaccuri, “Lo spirito di Assisi? Non e sincretista,” Awem're (Rome) 35.19 (24 Jan. 2002):6.

58. Bausani, Saggi 82.

59. E110 Toaff, “Tanti incontri e gesti: le arcate del nuovo [“A lot of meetings and gestures: the arcades of innovation”],” Avvenire (Rome) 35.19 (24 Jan. 2002): 16.

[Page 49]60. Cardinal Etchegaray, quoted in Politi, “‘Ciascuno di noi crede nel suo Dio, ma abbiamo un sogno in comune,” La Repuhhlim (Rome) 27.19 (24 Jan. 2002): 11; Clement, “Conta la scoperta dell’altro,” Avvenire (Rome) 35.19 (24 Jan. 2002): 16. Vivekananda (18631902) was the “founder of the Ramakrishna Mission, which now has more than a hundred centers throughout the world” (“Vivekinanda," Oxford Dictionary of 1%er Religions).

61. Chief Rabbi David Rosen, quoted in Jane Lampman, “Faith groups gather in Assisi to seek peace,” Chrixtz'an Science Monitor 24 Jan. 2002

62. Testimonies for Peace, Mrs. Didi Talwalkar (Hinduism).

63. Testimonies for Peace, The Archbishop of Canterbury.

64. Testimonies for Peace, Mrs. Didi Talwalkar (Hinduism).

65. T0211) “Tami incontti e gesti: 1e arcate del nuovo,” Avvenire (Rome) 35.19 (24 Jan. 2002): 16.

66. Lacunza, “I credenti oggi non possono restate muti e indifferenti,” IZ Messaggflo (Rome) 124.23 (25 Jan. 2002); 2.

67. The Universal House of Justice, The Promise of World Peace: To the Peoples of the World, Oct. 1985, in Message: from the Universal Home Ofju5tz'ee 19631986: The Third Epoch of the Formative Age, comp. Geoffry W Marks (Bahá’í Publishing Trust, Wilmette, IL, 1996) no. 438.32.

68. The Universal House of Justice, To the World’s Religious Leaders, Apr. 2002, “A Challenge to the World’s Religious Leaders,” WJrld Om’er 33.4 (Summer 2002): 13.

69. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Selection: from the Wiring: Of ?lhdu’l—Baha’, comp. Research Department of the Universal House of Justice, trans. Committee at the Bahá’í’ World Centre and Marzieh Gail (Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre, 1997) 52; ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Promulgation of Universal Peace: Talley Delivered hy thu’l—Baha’ during Hi5 Visit to the United 5mm and Canada in 1912, comp. Howard MacNutt, 2d ed. (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1982) 315; ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Paris Elks: Addresses Given by Hha’u ’Z—Bzzha’ 1'72 Pari: in 1911, 12th ed. (London: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1995) 33.8. In the

EXCLUSIVISM AND PLURALISM 49

Bahá’x’ scriptures the locution “Sun of Truth” denotes the Logos, the Word of God.

70. See, for example, J. B. Noss, ManiRelz’giam, 6th ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1980) 543—54; Cyril Glassé. “Bahá’ís,” The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam (Harper, 1989); S. A. Nigosian, 1%er Faiths (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990) 440; Michael Fischer, “Sociai Change and the Mirrors of Tradition: The Bahá’ís of Yazd,” in Heshmat Moayyad, ed., The Baha’YFaz'th am! Islam: Proceeding: of 4 Symposium, McGill University, 23—25 March 1984 (Ottawa, Cart: Bahá’í’ Studies Publications, 1990) 26.

71. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Selection: 52; Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanz'ng: fiom the Wiring; of Bahá’u’lláh, trans. Shoghi Effendi, lst ps ed. (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1983) 217.

72. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Promu/gazian 443.

73. Bahá’u’lláh, Kim’h—i—fqdn: The Boole of Certitude, trans. Shoghi Effendi, lst ps ed. (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1983) 98.

74. The Universal House of Justice, “Challenge to the World’s Religious Leaders,” 1%er Order 33.4 (Summer 2002): 13.

75. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Selection: 32.

76. Bausani, Saggz' 203.

77. Testimonies for Peace, Rabbi Israel Singer [emphasis added].

78. The Universal House of Justice, “Challenge to the World’s Religious Leaders,” LVor/d Order 33.4 (Summer 2002): 14.

79. Hick, “Only one true religion?,” The Bahá’í Studiex Review 10 (2001/2002) 1.

80. The Universal House of Justice, “Challenge to the World’s Religious Leaders,” 1170er Order 33.4 (Summer 2002): 16, 13, 14, 12.

81. The Universal House of Justice, “Challenge to the World's Religious Leaders,” Worldorder 33.4 (Summer 2002): 13.

82. Shoghi Effendi, The 11707451 Order of Bahti’u’lhz’h: SelectedLetters, new ed. (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1991) 41, 204.

83. The Universal House of Justice, “Challenge to the World’s Religious Leaders,” 1W0rldom'er334 (Summer 2002): 16.

[Page 50]WORLD ORDER: SUMMER 2002

50

[Page 51]

51

AfterWord

A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF GENERAL INTRODUCTIONS TO RELIGION, SPECIFIC RELIGIONS, THE SCRIPTURES OF WORLD RELIGIONS, BAHA’I’ PERSPECTIVES ON VARIOUS RELIGIONS, AND INTERFAITH DIALOGUE

A short list of books about thefiela’ of inteiy‘aitk dialogue and about various world religions seems a naturalfor an issue devoted to interfiu't/a dialogue. Readers wishing

to learn more about the topic may want to obtain some of the following works. —THE EDITORS

GENERAL INTRODUCTIONS TO RELIGION A number of general introductions to religion are widely available in bookstores. One of the most popular in comparative religion courses is Mary Pat Fisher’s LivingRelzgz'om, 4th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1999). An impressive volume about seven major world religions, written by renowned members of each, is Arvind Sharma, ed., OurRelz'gz'om (San Francisco: Harper, 1993). An excellent introduction to religions by 21 13211151 is Moojan Momen’s T/M Phenomenon ofRelz'gz‘on: A Thematic Approach (Oxford, Eng: George Ronald,

1999).

INTRODUCTIONS TO VARIOUS RELIGIONS Among the thousands of books focusing on specific religions, the following are a few salient examples:

Hinduism: Klaus K. Klosterrnaier, A Survey of Hinduism (Albany: State U of New York P, 1994).

Buddhism: Walpola Sri Rahula, What the Buddha Yuugbt, ed. (New York: Grove P, 1986) [a classic written by a Buddhist monk]; and Edward Conze, Buddhism: [ts Essence and Development (New York: Harper, 2002).

Chinese Religious: Daniel Overmyer, Religion: of China: The World as a Living System (San Francisco: Harper, 1986).

judaism: H. H. Ben-Sasson, ed., A History of the lewis/J People, rpt. ed. (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1985) [a very long—some 1,200 pages but rev warding book]; Michael Fishbane, fudaism.' Revelation ana’ Paditiom (New

[Page 52]

52

WORLD ORDER: SUMMER 2002

York: Harper, 1987) [a shorter book— 149 pages—written in a popular style]; and Nathan Glazer, American fudaism (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1972).

Christianity: Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity (New York: Atheneum, 1976); and Sandra Sizer Frankiel, Christianity: A W}; of Salvation (San Francisco: Harper, 1985) [a readable 133 pages].

Islam'John L. Esposito, Islam: The StrazghtPath (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998) [frequently used in university courses]; and Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shi‘z' Islam: The History and Doctrine: of Twelver Shi‘ixm (Oxford, Eng: George Ronald, 1985) [one of the most Widely read introductions to the Shia branch of Islam].

Bahzi’z’ Faith: William S. Hatchet and Douglas Martin, The Bahá’í Faith: The Emerging GlohalReh'gion (San Francisco: Harper, 1985; rev. paperback ed., Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1998).

In addition, Oneworld has published an excellent series of introductory books on Buddhism (Klaus K. Klostermaier, 1999); Christianity (Keith Ward, 2000); Confim'am'sm (John and Evelyn Berthrong, 2000) ; Hinduism (Klaus K. Klosterrnaier, 2000), Islam (Abdulkader Tayob, 1999); Sufism (William C. Chittock, 2000); judaism (Lavinia and Dan Cohn-Sherbok, 1999) and The Bahá’í Faith (Moojan Momen, 1999). Each book has the subtitle ‘A Short

Introduction. ”

INTRODUCTIONS TO THE SCRIPTURES

OF WORLD RELIGIONS

For those interested in studying the sacred texts of the world’s major faiths, James Fieser and John Powers have compiled an excellent anthology titled Scrzptures Of the Wbrld’s Religion: (Boston: McGraW—Hill, 1998). For books on the scriptures of the various world religions, Penguin has an extensive series of translations in inexpensive paperback editions. In addition, the following are quite useful: R. C. Zaehner, trans. and ed., Hindu Scrzptures (New York: Dutton, 1966); Edward Conze, trans. and ed., With I. B. Homer, David Snellgrove, and Arthur Waley, Buddhist Pacts: Through theAges (Oxford: Oneworld, 1995); Guru Rinproche, The Tihetzm Boole Of the Dead: The Great Liberation through Hearing in the Bardo, trans. Francesca Fremantle and Chégyam Trungpa (Boston: Shambala, 1975; reprinted 1988) [contains Tibetan Buddhist texts]; an—Tsit Chan, trans. and comp, A SourceBooh in Chineseth'losophy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1963); The Layman} Parallel Bihle (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Bible Publishers, 1973) [four translations are published side by side for comparison]; Abdullah Yusuf Ali, trans., The Holy Qur’án (Brentwood, MD: Amana, 2001); and Witings of Baha’ ’u’l/a’h (New Delhi: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1986).

[Page 53]

AFTERWORD

53

BAHAHI PERSPECTIVES ON VARIOUS RELIGIONS

For Bahá’í’ perspectives on various religions, the literature is becoming quite extensive. Moojan Momen has been particularly prolific, writing Hinduism and the Babi’z’Fait/y (Oxford, Eng: George Ronald, 1990), Buddhism and the Ba/m’ ’2’ Faith: An Introduction to t/ae Ba/yd’z’ Faitbfor Theravada Buddhists (Oxford, Eng: George Ronald, 1995), and Islam and the Babé’z’Fait/y (Oxford, Eng.: George Ronald, 2000).

Phyllis Ghim Lian Chew has contributed 77% Chinese Religion and the Ba/m’ ’2’ Faith (Oxford, Eng; George Ronald, 1993).

The Balad’z’ Faith and Islam: Proceedings of 4 Symposium, McGill University, March 23-25, 1984, edited by Heshmat Moayyad (Ottawa: Bahá’í Studies Publications, 1990), contains the papers delivered at an academic conference on the relationship between the Bahá’í Faith and Islam.

While Bahá’ís have produced many works on the relationship of their religion (or aspects of it) to Christianity, especially biblical prophecy, none has yet attained rigorous academic standards. There are no books yet published examining the relationship of the Bahá’í Faith to Judaism.

INTERFAITH DIALOGUE

Finally, the field of interfaith dialogue is steadily growing in importance and in the quantity of publications. Among the most important scholars are John Hick, Hans Kiing, Raimundo Panikkat, Diana Eek, and Paul F. Knitter. Excellent examples are Knitter’s No Other Name? A Critical Survey of Christian Attitudes waard the \Vorld’s Religions (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1985) and Hick’s An [ntequetatz’on of Religion (London: Macmillan and Cambridge, MA: Yale

UP, 1989).

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WORLD ORDER: SUMMER 2002

Give Up Praying

When you pray may you stumble for words, haltingly mouth them and then finally give up. —Robert P. Altork

Brass Band of Mine

If you want to dance

to stops and starts

to be in time

with burps and farts

listen to this brass band of mine.

If misdirection

and imperfection

is all you need

then watch me lead

this brass band of mine.

But if it’s peace you want and serenity true with all the blessings of sincerity too

best you fear

lest you hear

this brass band of mine.

—-Robert P. Altork

[Page 55]

Authors 8c Artists

ROBERT P. ALTORK, the owner of Dolphin Home Inspections, has published an album of original songs called Can You I magma. His interests include writing songs, singing, snorkeling, and shell collecting.

S. K. DAPOZ is a contributing author to Nineteen Oceans, a chapbook published by Purple Rose Press in February 2002. She owns Convergence Information Design and has recently launched Billet Doux Paper Arts, an artistic rubber stamp and paper arts company.

JULIO SAVI, Who received his M.D. from the University of Bologna in 1964, is a practicing gynecologist and a lecturer in the Department of Ethics and the Department of Religious Studies in the Faculty of Graduate Studies at Landegg Academy. He is the author of numerous articles on Bahá’í’ scripture and spirituality as well as The Eternal Questfor God (Oxford: George Ronald, 1989); Remotmm: Selected Poems (Rome: Casa Editrice Bahá’í, 2002); and the forthcoming 131047515 #73 Summit of Reality: A72 [rztroductz'on t0 the Study of t/ae Seven

Valleys and #73 Four Valley; by Babd’u’lla’b. His interests include religious scriptures, poetry, spirituality, and the spiritual development of individuals and society.

ROBERT H. STOCKMAN is an instructor of religious studies at DePaul University in Chicago and a member of the Editorial Board of the Bahá’í Encyclopedia Project. He has published many articles and reviews and

three books about the history of the Bahá’í Faith in North America: 7776 Balm’ ’z’Faz't/a in America: Origins, 18921900, Volume 1 (Wilmette, IL, USA: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1985); The Bahá’í Faith in America: Early Expansion, 1900—1912, Vblume-Z (Oxford: George Ronald, 1995); and Thornton Chase: First American Bzz/m’ ’z’ (Oxford: George Ronald, 2002).

ART CREDITS: Cover design by Richard Doering, cover photograph, courtesy, oli@fo-to.net; pp. 1, Steve Garrigues; p. 6, Stan Phillips; pp. 8, 16, 18, Steve Garrigues; p. 33, Darius Himes; p. 50, Stan Phillips.

55

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56 WORLD ORDER: SUMMER 2002

CALLS FOR PAPERS

A Special Iddue on Global Cinema

December 2002 April 2003

ABSTRACT DEADLIN : SUBMISSION DEM

For publication in .3003

1%er Order is seeking articles and reviews that explore global cinema from artistic, social, cultural, political, and spiritual points of View. Submissions may consider mainstream and nonmainstream film, documentaries, museum installations, and so on, analyzing aspects of their narrative, content, production, and/or dissemination.

All articles or reviews are welcome, but the

editors especially solicit the following:

' Critical studies or reviews of a single film, a movement, a director, or a series of films

0 Studies of national cinema (Iranian cinema, French cinema, and so on)

0 Analyses of the impact of increasingly globalized financing, including film’s potential for building worldwide solidarity and/or reproducing global inequalities

o Aspects of film production

0 Film in sociopolitical and/or historical contexts

0 Film as a product of and creator of culture, including the impact of film from one culture on a different culture

0 Film as art: its nature, possibilities, and responsibilities

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[Page 57]Religion . Society . Poll’ry a ARTs

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[Page 58]Forthcoming...

The lnTernaTionol Criminal CourT

Lloyd Axworthy 0nd RoberT Adamson discuss pursuing world order Through inTernoTionol jusTice and The InTemoTionol Criminal CourT

Arash Abizadeh inTroduces The ICC and provides an overview of The Rome STOTuTe

John L. Washburn summarizes how The Rome STOTuTe for The InTernoTionol Criminal CourT was negoTioTed

Sovaida Ma’ani surveys Typical reservoTions obouT The lnTernoTionol Criminal CourT in American Policy Circles

and. ..

Geoffry W. Marks reflecTs on The compleTion of The Terraces, gardens, and buildings on MT. Carmel

Tom Kubala cnolyzes The impoCT of uniTy on orchiTecTure and planning

Jim Stokes ponders a common conscience in The modern world

Julio Savi explores Alessandro Bousoni, on lTaIion scholar of Islam

June Manning Thomas discusses racism and The planning of urban spaces

DARTMOUTH COLLE E

IIHLTTITLTI ll IWIWTITHTTTIH

311 024481212

ISSN 0043—8804