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Chapter 8: Religious Unity |
O ye that dwell on earth! The distinguishing feature that marketh
the preeminent character of this Supreme Revelation consisteth
in that We have, on the one hand, blotted out from the
pages of God’s book whatsoever hath been the cause of strife, of
malice and mischief amongst the children of men, and have, on
the other, laid down the essential prerequisites of concord, of understanding,
of complete and enduring unity. Well is it with
them that keep My statutes.—BAHÁ’U’LLÁH, Tablet of the World.
Sectarianism in the Nineteenth Century |
Never, perhaps, did the world seem farther away from religious
unity than in the nineteenth century. For many centuries had
the great religious communities—the Zoroastrian, Mosaic,
Buddhist, Christian, Muḥammadan and others—been existing
side by side, but instead of blending together into a harmonious
whole they had been at constant enmity and strife,
each against the others. Not only so, but each had become split
up, by division after division, into an increasing number of
sects which were often bitterly opposed to each other. Yet
Christ had said: “By this shall all men know that ye are my
disciples, if ye have love one to another, “ and Muḥammad had
said: “This your religion is the one religion. … To you hath
God prescribed the faith which He commanded unto Noah,
and which We have revealed unto thee, and which We commanded
unto Abraham and Moses and Jesus saying: ‘Observe
this faith, and be not divided into sects therein!’” The Founder
of every one of the great religions had called His followers to
love and unity, but in every case the aim of the Founder was
to a large extent lost sight of in a welter of intolerance and
bigotry, formalism and hypocrisy, corruption and misrepresentation,
schism and contention. The aggregate number of
more or less hostile sects in the world was probably greater at
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the commencement of the Bahá’í era than at any previous period
in human history. It seemed as if humanity at that time
were experimenting with every possible kind of religious belief,
with every possible sort of ritual and ceremonial observance,
with every possible variety of moral code.
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At the same time an increasing number of men were
devoting their energies to fearless investigation and critical examination
of the laws of nature and the foundations of belief.
New scientific knowledge was being rapidly acquired and new
solutions were being found for many of the problems of life.
The development of inventions such as steamship and railway,
postal system and press, greatly aided the diffusion of ideas
and the fertilizing contact of widely different types of thought
and life.
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The so-called “conflict between religion and science” became
a fierce battle. In the Christian world Biblical criticism
combined with physical science to dispute, and to some extent
to refute, the authority of the Bible, an authority that for centuries
had been the generally accepted basis of belief. A rapidly
increasing proportion of the population became skeptical
about the teachings of the churches. A large number even of
religious priests secretly or openly entertained doubts or reservations
regarding the creeds adhered to by their respective
denominations.
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This ferment and flux of opinion, with increasing recognition
of the inadequacy of the old orthodoxies and dogmas, and
groping and striving after fuller knowledge and understanding,
were not confined to Christian countries, but were manifest,
more or less, and in different forms, among the people of all
countries and religions.
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