Q: My daughter told us on her last visit that she converted to Baha'i. Her father was upset with her conversion to a Muslim religion, but she said Baha'i is not Muslim. Can you tell us about Baha'i, please?
— Bette, Oklahoma City
A: As far as religions go, Baha'i (pronounced buh-HI) is new to the world stage, emerging as a separate faith in 1866 while its founder, Bahaullah, was exiled in Turkey from his homeland of Iran.
The Baha'i faith developed out of Babism, which emerged from Shia Islam during the 1840s. Coming from a certain religious tradition does not mean a sect retains the older faith's practices and beliefs. Christianity developed from Judaism, but the two faith families are distinct. Baha'i is even more distinct from Islam.
Followers of the Baha'i faith divide their teachings into two main groups: religious and social. On the religious side, the tradition teaches God is too complex for people to know fully, but He reveals parts of Himself through various manifestations of God that have appeared on Earth throughout history. Among these manifestations was Adam, who in Baha'i understanding was not the first person. Instead, he was the first revelation given to the world's people of God's characteristics and His desires for humanity.
God progressively has revealed more and more about Himself and human purpose through later manifestations, including Abraham, Moses, Krishna, Jesus, Muhammad and Bahaullah. Each manifestation adds to humanity's understanding about God and the universe, according to the Baha'i faith. Each manifestation also deals with issues unique to the time and culture where he appears.
A consistent message from each manifestation has been to say humanity's purpose is to know, love and worship God.
The faith rejects belief in a devil, saying evil is solely the choice of people who attempt to remove themselves from God's presence. Without a separate evil being, each person is responsible for his or her actions.
While the Baha'i believe in an afterlife, they say no living person has enough information to speak definitively about what that existence entails. They also reject the ideas of separate heavens and hells, saying heaven is spiritual nearness to God and hell is separation from God.
On the social side, the tradition looks to Bahaullah's writings for direction. In "Tablets,” he said the world's people are "the leaves of one tree and the drops of one ocean” but prevented from treating each other as brothers and sisters by social and political divisions.
"The well-being of mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established,” Bahaullah wrote. This unity requires equality in treatment of all people, and the group's social agenda works toward equality with an ultimate aim of unity.
Following this teaching, the faith says men and women are equal in God's eyes; therefore, the sexes must have the same legal, political and educational rights. Education also is considered vital to the Baha'i goal of all the world's peoples sharing equally in God's provision of resources and opportunities. The poor must receive schooling that at least teaches reading, writing and the skills necessary to hold a productive job, according to Baha'i doctrine.
Toward this same goal of sharing Earth's bounty, the Baha'i contend extreme wealth and extreme poverty should be abolished by requiring businesses to share profits with their employees and by establishing tax laws to take excess funds from the wealthy and give them to the poor.
All of this looks forward to God's desire for the unification of all humanity, the Baha'i faith teaches. As people have grown from clans to tribes to city-states to nations, so they will eventually unite into one world. To realize God's goal for humanity, the world must develop a single governmental structure and a universal language. The Baha'i work for world unification and urge learning a "supplemental language” to facilitate communication around the globe but not to replace all other tongues.
While the faith emerged in the Middle East and had some success in establishing itself in the United States during the 19th century, today most of its 1.5 million adherents are found in Africa, South Asia and Latin America — commonly referred to as the Third World. The religion's headquarters is in Acre, Israel, where the Universal House of Justice, its ruling body, sits.
Andrew Tevington, a graduate of Tulsa's Phillips Theological Seminary, is an assistant pastor at United Methodist Church of the Servant in Oklahoma City. Send e-mail to him at revtev@cox.net or write him at 3102 Classen Blvd., PMB 125, Oklahoma City, OK 73118. Please include your name and town.
