This is what the members of the Bahá’í Faith community of Bloomington believe. They look around and see war, discrimination and ineffective politics, and they think it’s all wrong. They also believe they have a solution.
“One of the things that needs to go away is hatred, which is fairly obvious,” Bruce Bundy, a member of the community, said. “We believe in the unity and harmony of all religion. We want to work with everyone for the benefit of humankind.”
Baha’ism, which has more than 6 million followers around the world, revolves around the belief that there is one God and he has been handing humans messages throughout history. Jesus, Moses, Krishna, Buddha, Mohammad and all of the other prophets were really speaking for the same God.
Essentially, they think all of the major world religions are, at their core, about the same ideals, beliefs and ?values.
“This idea of progressive revelation, that God has handed mankind messages from age to age and the teachings of each prophet are valid, it seemed to be reality. Well, it’s reality to me. It explained so many things,” Sara Hatch, one of the group’s members, said.
Every Sunday, members of the Bahá’í Faith community of Bloomington meet for an interfaith devotional time. They read prayers and writings from the Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist faiths as well as passages written by Baha’ism’s founder, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.
“We have much more in common than we have differences if we study the writings with an open and unbiased mind and look for the points of agreements,” Hatch said in an email. “All of the teachings stress love, kindness, compassion, trustworthiness, putting others before ourselves and ask us to promote peace.”
People who subscribe to the Bahá’í faith believe there is one God, men and women are equal, education should be available to everyone, science and religion should exist in harmony and all forms of prejudice are destructive.
“Most of the differences between religions are man-made,” Hatch said. “The teachings of Jesus were very simple, and then someone came in and added that you have to get sprinkled with water or do all of these things to be a true believer, when it was really more simple than that.”
Baha’is don’t drink alcohol or do drugs. They believe that an international justice tribunal should be created so countries can go to court instead of going to war.
“I used to get upset about a bunch of little stuff that didn’t really matter,” Bundy, who joined the faith shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, said. “That created anger and resentment. Now I live in a much happier world.”
Though the plan of the Baha’i faith is to work with all people for a better world, members of the Bloomington congregation are aware that many people don’t know what Bahá’ísm is.
“We’re not sensational, we don’t get involved in controversies, we’re not trying to make waves,” Hatch said. “But we understand that we all belong to the same human family. It’s so important, now more than ever, that we work on world issues together and accept each other as fellow human beings.”
