One Common Faith

One Common Faith by Baha'i
International

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International Community

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Title: One Common Faith
Author: Baha'i International Community
Release Date: September 2006 [Ebook #19281]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO 8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ONE
COMMON FAITH***

One Common Faith
by Baha'i International Community

Edition 1, (September 2006)

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CONTENTS

Baha'i Terms of Use FOREWORD ONE COMMON FAITH "There is
every reason for confidence that the period of history now..." "The
reawakened interest in religion is clearly far from having reached..." "In
addition to disillusionment with the promises of materialism, a..."
"Throughout history, the primary agents of spiritual development
have..." "The dilemma is both artificial and self-inflicted. The world
order, if..." "The objection most commonly raised against the foregoing
conception..." "Freed from the thickets with which theology has hedged
religious..." "Confusion about the role of religion in cultivating
moral..." "The exigencies of the new age of human experience to
which..." "The power through which these goals will be progressively
realized is..." "A corollary of the abandonment of faith in God has been
a paralysis of..." "Everything in its history has equipped the Bahá'í..."
"One of the distinguishing features of modernity has been the
universal..."

FOREWORD
At Ridván 2002, we addressed an open letter to the world's religious
leaders. Our action arose out of awareness that the disease of sectarian
hatreds, if not decisively checked, threatens harrowing consequences
that will leave few areas of the world unaffected. The letter
acknowledged with appreciation the achievements of the interfaith
movement, to which Bahá'ís have sought to contribute since an early
point in the movement's emergence. Nevertheless, we felt we must be
forthright in saying that, if the religious crisis is to be addressed as
seriously as is occurring with respect to other prejudices afflicting
humankind, organized religion must find within itself a comparable
courage to rise above fixed conceptions inherited from a distant past.
Above all, we expressed our conviction that the time has come when
religious leadership must face honestly and without further evasion the
implications of the truth that God is one and that, beyond all diversity
of cultural expression and human interpretation, religion is likewise one.
It was intimations of this truth that originally inspired the interfaith
movement and that have sustained it through the vicissitudes of the past

one hundred years. Far from challenging the validity of any of the great
revealed faiths, the principle has the capacity to ensure their continuing
relevance. In order to exert its influence, however, recognition of this
reality must operate at the heart of religious discourse, and it was with
this in mind that we felt that our letter should be explicit in articulating
it.
Response has been encouraging. Bahá'í institutions throughout the
world ensured that thousands of copies of the document were delivered
to influential figures in the major faith communities. While it was
perhaps not surprising that the message it contained was dismissed out
of hand in a few circles, Bahá'ís report that, in general, they were
warmly welcomed. Particularly affecting has been the obvious sincerity
of many recipients' distress over the failure of religious institutions to
assist humanity in dealing with challenges whose essential nature is
spiritual and moral. Discussions have turned readily to the need for
fundamental change in the way the believing masses of humankind
relate to one another, and in a significant number of instances, those
receiving the letter have been moved to reproduce and distribute it to
other clerics in their respective