Saeed Foroughi performs ‘The Chosen Highway’ at Charlottetown Bahá’i Center

The dramatic production, “The Chosen Highway” was presented Saturday, July 16 at the Charlottetown Bahá’i Center.

The production featured musician Saeed Foroughi playing traditional Persian instruments including the santur, flute, harp and oud to accompany a dramatic reading of stories about Bahá’u’lláh, the founder of the Bahá’i faith.

The production was based on passages from the book “The Chosen Highway” by Lady Sarah Louisa Blomfield.

The audience filled the space, contributing to an atmosphere of intimacy for a very spiritual and moving experience, said Patrick O’Neill, a member of the Charlottetown Bahá’i community.

The stories related incidents from the life of Bahá’u’lláh, which illustrated some of his teachings calling for the abolition of war, the basic unity of all humankind and the equality of women and men, he said.

Musician Saeed Foroughi, founder of the production company Arts 4 Unity of Halifax, created the show.

“As a Bahá’i I believe in all religions. I believe in Christ, Moses and Muhammad. I have learned these religions are all chapters of the same book. Being a Bahá’i makes it easier to live peacefully in this world,” states Foroughi in the release from the Charlottetown Bahá’i community.

Many verses in the Bible like this one are routinely used to justify a position that the verse was never meant to address. The logic goes like this, “Because God is a god of love then he is then bound to accept us while giving no regard to the moral choices we make.”

John is defining what God love looks likes, how it’s supremely revealed and what that should look like in our lives. He shows that at the heart of God’s dealing with us as sinners is the death of his Son. Ironically, God is loving and wrathful. His wrath is due to the violation of his laws in our lives. Yet, his love provides a sacrifice in that he sent his son to endure the wrath that was rightly ours.

That is the meaning of the word “propitiation” in this verse. Much like a led vest turns away the harmful effects of x-rays. God doesn’t leave people in sin, and misery, but does something to rescue them. Would any parent desire any less?

So to say “God is love” while rejecting the how and why that love was expressed, is to reject the love we claim to hold. Indeed, it is to mock the love of God, which John expressly says is revealed to do away with sin. It is doing violence to the character of God in trying to sever his love from his holiness, just as one might sever a man’s head from his body! At that point I have a different religion from that revealed in the Bible.

Any person or church calling itself Christian and seeking to communicate the Love of God without any reference to Jesus