Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Many minds, one God
Bahai faith celebrates equality, diversity of religions
This weekend, members of the Bahai faith in Arkansas will join in a worldwide celebration commemorating the 200th anniversary of the birth of the religion’s founder, Baha’u’llah.
The anniversary is part of the religion’s Light of Unity Festival, a series of events that celebrates the effects of Baha’u’llah’s teachings on the lives of others — even those who aren’t followers of the Bahai faith — because unity of mankind and with all religions is a cornerstone of the Bahai faith.
The Bahai religion, established in 1844, grew from the revelation of Siyyid Ali-Muhammad of Persia (now Iran). Known as the Bab (Arabic for “Gate”), his beliefs included the idea that he was meant to prepare the way for another messenger. As word of his belief and teachings spread and were met with opposition, the Bab was eventually executed for his beliefs, after which one of his followers — Mizra Husain Ali Nuri, who would come to be known by his followers as Baha’u’llah — claimed that he received a revelation from God that he was the messenger the Bab had been referring to.
Bahais first came to the United States late in the 19th century, participating in the first World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893 and holding its first national convention in 1909. With five million followers worldwide and 250,000 in the United States, Bahai is one of the fastest-growing and one of the most widespread religions in the world.
According to Annette Myrick of Maumelle, some of the earliest Bahai followers came to Arkansas from Ohio, including a man named Homer Holmes.
Bahais do not proselytize but are obligated to let others know about Bahais and what they believe, and as a result Holmes wrote letters to the editor of the Arkansas Gazette. One of Holmes’ letters, published June 7, 1958, outlined a vision for a “world without war,” but a goal sought in the letter also serves to reflect the steadiness of a belief in unity, calling for “the establishment of a world commonwealth in which all nations, races, creeds and classes are closely and permanently united.”
The Little Rock Bahai community was established in 1943 and considers its population not to be the number of followers of the Bahai faith, said Erica Roy of Little Rock, but the number of people who benefit from community services and projects carried out in the community.
‘UNIFIED REALITY’ AND EQUALITY
Racial equality, the elimination
of prejudice and equality between the sexes are central to the Bahai faith.
So is the idea of a “unified reality,” which includes the belief that sacred texts across religions, including the Torah, the Bible, the Koran and the Bhagavad Gita, are part of the same revelation of the same God — just at different intervals throughout history.
Namvar Zohoori, a member of the area’s spiritual assembly — one level of the faith’s governing board — said another of the faith’s central beliefs is there is only one God, and that this belief flows directly into the belief in the equality of man.
“If there is only one God, he can’t be in competition with himself,” Zohoori said. “The different religions are not in competition …
even though they’re called different names and they came out at different times, they’re all in harmony if you look at their essential teachings.
“And then if you believe that — that there is only one God and [that] man has been created by God — then all [human beings] are the same as well.”
Baha’u’llah and the Bab are
believed to be the twin manifestations that led to the formation of the Bahai faith, and two of a series of messengers that includes Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Zoroaster and Muhammad — all of whom represent the same God.
Science and religion are believed to be in harmony in the Bahai faith, Zohoori said.
“Religion without science becomes superstition,” Zohoori said. “Science without religion can lead to catastrophic things like the atomic bomb and unbelievable cruelty that one man can inflict on another.”
“If [science and religion] appear to be in conflict, it’s just because we haven’t investigated far enough to figure out where the harmony really is,” said Dan Reimer, a retired public health worker.
One of the main tenets also involves the investigation of truth, said Roy, who is involved with the Little Rock area spiritual assembly.
“We’re meant to investigate reality, we’re meant to investigate our spiritual lives — we can’t be told what we believe by someone else,” he said. “The belief is that we have to investigate [for] ourselves.”
For Bahais, that means making an active decision at the age of 15 — thought by Bahais to be the age of spiritual maturity — to declare themselves as adherents of the faith, because being born to a Bahai family doesn’t automatically mean a person is identified as belonging to the Bahai religion.
There also aren’t clergy to discuss the decision with, because the Bahai faith does not have professional clergy. At the area level there are spiritual assemblies, over which is a national assembly. The faith’s top governing council is the Universal House of Justice, a group of nine men elected by members of the faith who have headquarters at the Bahai World Center in Haifa, Israel.
At the area level, Roy said, places where residents worship are developed as community centers. Little Rock’s Bahai Center is one of those places, and Bahais consider it a community center as well as a center for Bahais.
“One of the hallmarks of our communities is what
you call an outward-looking focus,” Reimer said. “We’re not so concerned just with the needs of our members. We’re concerned about the world at large and the community we live in and what we can do to improve [those conditions].”
BEAUTY IN DIVERSITY
Ameria Jones of Little Rock, who is black, was well traveled by the age of 6 when her family settled in Little Rock in the 1960s during the civil rights movement.
“[Living in the U.S.] was quite a shock because we had been blessed to live very protectively on Army bases, and things [in Little Rock] were very different,” said Jones, whose father served in the Army. “We grew up [meeting] people from all over the world who worshipped everywhere, and they would make their worship home wherever they felt loved.”
There had been “uncomfortable moments” in the church the family attended while she was growing up
— such as when she brought to church a friend who was white to join the black congregation where her family worshipped — and it wouldn’t be until one of her sisters brought the family to worship together at Little Rock’s Bahai Center on Pine Street when she was 17 that Jones learned about the Bahai faith.
“I didn’t understand why we had all these differences, and the Bahai faith just answered all those questions,” Jones said. “The Bahai faith [expressed] that in diversity there is so much beauty.”
Myrick, a specialist in the data analysis field, said the diversity among Bahais challenges followers as individuals to “face our own prejudices and overcome them” and to grow spiritually.
“If I sit in a room [where] everybody that believes the same thing I do, then I’m not going to grow very much because I’m not going to learn very much,” Myrick said. “But if I sit with 10 people [and] every one of us has a different perspective and a different view, I’m
going to think about what they said … and so we would never seek to be a homogeneous group.
“We constantly want that diversity so that we’re growing as a community, because one of the things as Bahais we’re trying to — as God has asked us to do — is to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization.”
200-YEAR LANDMARK
In recognition of the bicentenary occasion, former President Jimmy Carter sent a letter of congratulations to the Bahais’ National Spiritual Assembly, citing its central tenets as having the “same aspirations” of the work of The Carter Center, which he and his wife, former first lady Rosalynn Carter, founded in 1982.
“We are heartened by your global community’s rededication to peace, racial justice, the equality of women and men, and the essential unity of all religions,” Carter said in the letter. “As many of our people struggle with persistent systemic justice against African Americans
and the Indigenous Nations, chronic violence against women, religious conflict, and endless war, the centrality of peace, human equality and religious unity found in the Bahai writings and activities can serve as an inspiration to those of all faiths and creeds.”
Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola has signed a proclamation designating this weekend the celebration for the birth of Baha’u’llah, and it will be present at a closed event today commemorating the occasion.
David O’Neill of Rogers said, although Baha’u’llah’s birth is celebrated each year, the bicentenary carries extra meaning to Bahais.
“We believe that Baha’u’llah is the return of the spirit of God … and that this is a watershed moment in the history of mankind, just as it was when Christ came, or Muhammad, or any of the other great messengers,” O’Neill said. … “It’s very similar to the celebration of, say, the birth of Christ that Christians celebrate.”