I was intrigued by this story on the BBC News website. It seems that organizers of a Christian-Muslim dialogue conference in Norway had planned a football match between priests and imams to round the day off.

The team of Christian priests was to include women. The Muslim imams refused to play against a team including women. The Church of Norway decided to drop the women priests from their team so that the match could go ahead. But the women were, naturally, outraged at the decision and the priests’ team captain walked out in protest.

The match didn’t go ahead.

The Christian and Muslim dialoguers had been exploring ways of improving inter-faith dialogue. The event was called “Shoulder to Shoulder” - but this clearly didn’t include contact between the shoulders of Muslim imams and Christian women priests!

Norwegian church representatives read this as a “gender-political” issue, but I wonder if that isn’t to lose the opportunity to address important questions about the purpose and nature of religion.

Baha’u'llah is very clear in His writings about the purpose and nature of religion. For example:

The purpose underlying the revelation of every heavenly Book, nay, of every divinely-revealed verse, is to endue all men with righteousness and understanding, so that peace and tranquillity may be firmly established amongst them.

The fundamental purpose animating the Faith of God and His Religion is to safeguard the interests and promote the unity of the human race, and to foster the spirit of love and fellowship amongst men.

And now concerning thy question regarding the nature of religion. Know thou that they who are truly wise have likened the world unto the human temple. As the body of man needeth a garment to clothe it, so the body of mankind must needs be adorned with the mantle of justice and wisdom. Its robe is the Revelation vouchsafed unto it by God. Whenever this robe hath fulfilled its purpose, the Almighty will assuredly renew it. For every age requireth a fresh measure of the light of God. Every Divine Revelation hath been sent down in a manner that befitted the circumstances of the age in which it hath appeared.

Baha’u'llah emphasizes that these “mighty systems” with their principles and laws “have proceeded from one Source”. And He explains why they differ from each other:

That they differ one from another is to be attributed to the varying requirements of the ages in which they were promulgated.

So, the purpose of religion is not to defend outmoded traditions. As we go further into the 21st century, we can no longer say, “If it was good enough for your father, it’s good enough for you”. In Baha’u'llah’s scheme of things, religion is a progressive and expansive force that awakens ever wider and more inclusive spiritual and moral capacities in humankind. And that kind of religion challenges us to let go of things we may hold dear and believe to be sacred…

Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Baha’i Faith, did not mince his words when he wrote in The Goal of a New World Order as far back as 1931:

If long-cherished ideals and time-honoured institutions, if certain social assumptions and religious formulae have ceased to promote the welfare of the generality of mankind, if they no longer minister to the needs of a continually evolving humanity, let them be swept away and relegated to the limbo of obsolescent and forgotten doctrines. Why should these, in a world subject to the immutable law of change and decay, be exempt from the deterioration that must needs overtake every human institution? For legal standards, political and economic theories are solely designed to safeguard the interests of humanity as a whole, and not humanity to be crucified for the preservation of the integrity of any particular law or doctrine.

The imams have entirely missed the direction in which Baha’u'llah’s spiritual revolution is taking the world.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Baha’u'llah, Christianity, Islam, women, gender, revelation

Maya Leith

She’s cute and she spent the day with Erica and me yesterday. Our youngest grandchild brought her parents, Tom and Vicky, with her as well.

This baby business is really tiring!

Technorati Tags: Leith, family, grandchildren

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