One Common Faith:
A Summary of Its Contents
by Robert H. Stockman


I. A List of the Sections

1. Rationalism and Materialism Have Failed to Replace Religious Belief
2. The Consequences of Divorcing Materialism from Spirituality and Morality
3. The Positive and Negative Consequences of Global Integration
4. The Great Religious Systems Face the Challenge of Modernity
5. The World's Fundamental Misconceptions and Baha'u'llah's Response
6. Progressive Revelation and the Consequences of Failing to Understand It
7. The Unity of Revelation, Scripture, and Religion
8. Scripture Seeks to Civilize Humanity in Ways Fitting for the Day and Age
9. Baha'u'llah's Principles Will Work When They Have the Weight of Moral Conviction and Faith Behind Them.
10. Unity, Its Power and Implications
11. Evil is a Spiritual Disease; Covenant-breaking As Example
12. The Response of the Baha'i Community to Humanity's Crisis
13. History As the Drama of Salvation Leading to One Common Faith


II. Summary By Paragraph

Section 1: Rationalism and Materialism Have Failed to Replace Religious Belief

1. This period of history will be more receptive to the spread of the Faith.
2. The twentieth century saw rationalism and a materialist conception of reality become the "dominant world faith" leading to individualism and a belief humanity could takes its fate into its own hands.
3. It was assumed that values, ideals, and disciplines were now fixed and could be implemented by legislation and that human well being was attainable by scientific and secular means.
4. In the undeveloped world religious worldviews continued to function but were marginalized, plunging their populations into a helpless condition and rendering faith apparently impotent.
5. But there is no credible replacement for religious belief, so religion has resurged
6. There is also a widespread revival of the spiritual search; all major religions see a growth of sects promoting it, the New Age movements is another response, and movements like environmentalism and feminism are also causing a reexamination of the sense of self.

Section 2: The Consequences of Divorcing Materialism from Spirituality and Morality

7. Religion and spirituality will continue to gather momentum and will erode the old certainty that material existence represents ultimate reality.
8. The most obvious cause of the reevaluations of materialism was the bankruptcy of the materialist enterprise, which led to totalitarian regimes dedicated to a "new kind of society." After eight decades, the movement [Communism] collapsed.
9. Materialism also led to the false conceptions that people are essentially self-interested actors and that "modernization" could create just and prosperous societies.
10. After World War 2, "development" became the most ambitious collective undertaking in human history, but fifty years later we see it is a disheartening failure and the gap between rich and poor is widening.
11. Consumer culture is another inheritor of materialism, benefiting a small minority but releasing the animal impulse from supernatural sanctions. It has distorted language, exalted selfishness and falsehood and raised various perversions to the status of human rights.
12. While the Baha'i Faith sees material prosperity and scientific advancement as necessary, materialism divorced them from spiritual and moral development, producing a calamity.


Section 3: The Positive and Negative Consequences of Global Integration

13. A counter-force has been global integration, which has opened broad avenues of interaction, made the cumulative learning of the ages widely available, and stimulated reflection about reality, leading to a questioning of religion, morality, government, media, commerce, and science.
14. Unification of the planet has also resulted in mass travel and enormous migrations, exposing peoples to cultures and norms of others in an unprecedented way and exciting a search for meaning that cannot be evaded.
15. Even though Baha'u'llah's message to the leading arbiters of world affairs was ignored by them, the transformations He announced are resistlessly accomplishing themselves and the sense that the earth's inhabitants are "leaves of one tree" is slowly becoming standard.
16. Loss of faith in materialism and the progressive globalizing of human experience have stimulated a universal upheaval, the Qur'anic "Day of Resurrection," but the process is essentially spiritual.

Section 4: The Great Religious Systems Face the Challenge of Modernity

17. Throughout history, the primary agents of spiritual development and the primary driving forces of the civilizing process have been the world's great religions.
18. This immensely rich heritage has not served as the central stage for the reawakening of the spiritual quest because the search for meaning has been diffused, individualistic, and incoherent.
19. The received truths have not changed and remain valid, but the world has changed: democracy, the rights of women, scientific revolutions, universal education, and other factors have brought into being a new world of choices and moral decisions, and traditional religion has not provided the guidance.
20. Global integration is a second barrier to the re-emergence of inherited systems of belief because people are thrown into close association with others who live moral lives but have fundamentally different beliefs, which raises new questions about religion.
21. The established religious systems of the past cannot assume the role of ultimate guide for humankind because none can refashion its system of belief in a way to remain legitimately based on the founder's words and answer the multitude of questions posed by modernity.

Section 5: The World's Fundamental Misconceptions and Baha'u'llah's Responses

22. The world order in which Baha'is share Baha'u'llah's message has fundamental misconceptions about human nature and social evolution, which inhibit most efforts at human betterment. Baha'is need to ponder deeply to respond to the spiritual needs of their neighbors and gain an in-depth understanding of the issues.
23. The conceptions of religion-that it is a particular sect, a historic great religion as a whole, an attitude toward life that cannot be organized, or a severe regimen of ritual and self-denial-all have imprisoned religion within conceptual limits of human invention.
24. Baha'u'llah's teachings cut through the tangle and reformulate many truths. He makes it clear that attempts to capture or suggest the Reality of God are exercises in self-deception and that the Creator interacts with creation through prophetic Figures.
25. To judge among the Messengers of God would be to give in to the vagaries of human preference. The Manifestations reveal God's will and attributes and provide believers with intimate association with the Creator.
26. Religion awakens the soul to unimaginable potentialities. The influence of the revelation of this age imbues the individual with the attributes of the divine world. It inspires personal sacrifice for future generations. In the next world, such souls provide the supreme moving impulse in the world of being.
27. Belief is a necessary and inextinguishable urge of human beings that will not be denied; if efforts to block it are made, it will invent objects of worship.
28. Revelation is ongoing and progressive, it demonstrates its freedom from sectarian ambitions, and every Manifestation has an autonomy and authority transcending appraisal.
29. Baha'is have grasped only a minute portion of the truths inherent in their revelation. Baha'u'llah has not brought into existence a new religion as much as a new conception of religion as the principal force impelling the development of consciousness. The Baha'i community is the inheritor of humanity's entire spiritual legacy.
30. The recurring proof of God's existence is His Covenant to manifest Himself repeatedly and thereby provide the race with essential guidance for its development.

Section 6: Progressive Revelation and the Consequences of Failing to Understand It

31. It is often asserted that the revealed faiths are so fundamentally different that they can't be presented as stages or aspects of one unified system. This presents Baha'is with an opportunity to present them in the evolutionary context of Baha'u'llah's writings.
32. Differences of practice and doctrine are presented as the intent of the relevant scriptures, rather than being recognized as expressions based on the stage of cultural evolution at the time. This mistake is no longer made with comparable features of material life.
33. Religious norms were prescribed in revelation and scrupulously maintained over the centuries. The codes of conduct would lose none of their authority even if certain features fulfilled their purpose.
34. The differences of regulation, observances, and practices are transitory features of religion, not eternal ones. Religion's two roles-opening the way for the soul to enter an ever-more mature relationship with its Creator and enhancing the process of civilization building-are not irreconcilable.
35. Progressive revelation emphasizes recognition of a new revelation when it first appears; otherwise entire populations are condemned to a ritualistic repetition of old ordinances and practices. When they reject the new revelation, the old one becomes a subject of mockery and is widely ignored, as happened in the nineteenth century.
36. Theological presumption-the claim of clerical elites to have authority to interpret religion-has impeded inspiration, discouraged intellectual activity, focused attention on rituals and engendered hatred toward other sects.
37. Over time theology has constructed an authority parallel with and inimical to the spirit of the revealed teachings, mixing the wheat and the tares.
38. As a result, each new revelation became frozen in time and expressed in an array of interpretations that were morally exhausted, such as physical resurrection, reincarnation, and pantheism, raising walls of separation and conflict.

Section 7: The Unity of Revelation, Scripture, and Religion

39. Freed from these misconceptions, one sees the unity of purpose running through the Hebrew scriptures, Gospel, and Qur'an. One sees the progressive articulation of the oneness of God.
40. The scriptures show that humanity exists to know its Creator and to serve His purpose.
41. The texts agree that the soul's ability to understand the Creator's purpose depends on its own efforts and on divine interventions.
42. The scriptures also recognize a succession of revelations.
43. One can see the oneness of religion in these passages. Religion is one, articulates the values progressively unfolding through Divine revelation, and defines the goals of human evolution; science is the instrument through which the human mind explores and exerts its influence over the phenomenal world, thereby assisting the attainment of the goals.
44. Therefore it is inadequate to see the Manifestations as founders of religions; they are the spiritual Educators of history and the animating forces in the rise of civilizations. In loving them, humanity has learned how to love God.

Section 8: Scripture Seeks to Civilize Humanity in Ways Fitting for the Day and Age

1. Scriptural guidance has always sought primarily to civilize, but did so based on the stage of social development. An obvious example: the texts almost always subordinated women. But today this is prejudiced and unjust, causes confusion about the role of religion, and defeats religion's purpose to cultivate a moral sense.
2. The Hebrew peoples had to resist the inducements offered by idolatrous cultures around them in order to achieve their mission, and those violated the principle were punished. The Qur'an had to be severe about idolatry in order to unite the Arab tribes and launch a new civilization.
3. The harsh penalties prescribed by scriptures for crimes are a contentious issue today, but make sense in the context of the times
4. Mendicancy, slavery, autocracy, ethnic prejudices, etc., had to go unchallenged because religion had to focus on other reforms that were more immediately essential. We cannot condemn religion for failing to address the whole range of social wrongs.
5. Problems arise today when followers of one faith try to impose on society rules of behavior that have long-since accomplished their purpose. Each age has its own needs.

Section 9: Baha'u'llah's Principles Will Work When They Have the Weight of Moral Conviction and Faith Behind Them

6. The exigencies to which Baha'u'llah summoned humanity, once patronized as hopelessly unrealistic, have now been largely adopted, at least as ideals, and they are being implemented by many agencies.
7. But since these principles lack the power of moral conviction, they are widely flouted. The Bible provided the moral convictions behind the abolition of slavery, but in the twentieth century religious motivation was unable to help Gandhi extinguish sectarian violence. The traditional religions have lost their authority.
8. For Baha'is, Baha'u'llah's principles-like equality of men and women, racial unity, universal education, human rights, promotion of science and of an auxiliary language-are revealed truths with compelling authority, not just a mere code of laws. These principles are facets of a single, all-embracing vision of humanity's future.
9. Integral to these teachings are principles for governing human affairs, such as constitutional and democratic government, but there is also the principle of global responsibility, which requires a world federal system able to use force, if necessary, to maintain order.

Section 10: Unity, Its Power and Implications

10. Unity will be the power to realize these goals. Its implications for the current crisis of civilization largely escape most contemporary discourse. Disunity saps the health of humankind, cripples political will, debilitates the collective urge to change, and poisons national and religious relationships. Unity is believed beyond the capacity of society.
11. Unity is a condition of the human spirit and can be supported by education and legislation once it emerges as a compelling force in social life. The media does not appreciate unity's force, which will be restored when the influence of religion in society is restored.
12. Central to Baha'u'llah's mission has been the creation of a global community that would reflect the oneness of mankind. The Baha'i community is a phenomenon unlike anything the world has seen; it is already the most diverse and geographically widespread organized body of people on the planet.
13. This achievement occurred without great wealth, patronage, aggressive proselytism. It reflects the operation of spiritual forces capable of eliciting extraordinary feats of sacrifice and understanding from ordinary people.
14. The Baha'i Cause has maintained its unity, unbroken and unimpaired, through the most vulnerable early stages of its existence. Several individuals, driven by ambition, did their utmost to create separate followings. These efforts succeeded in earlier religions, but not in the Baha'i Faith; rather, they have strengthened the Faith.

Section 11: Evil is a Spiritual Disease; Covenant-breaking As Example

15. A corollary to the abandonment of faith has been a paralysis in the ability to address the problem of evil, or even acknowledge it. Even though it has no positive existence, it is severely crippling in its effect. The world is filled with articles and books about evil, but rarely do they see it as a spiritual disease.
16. Neither history nor Heaven will forgive those who choose deliberately to oppose unity. People must trust others to work together; thus violations of unity are violations of basic trust. Systemic disunity throw open a door to demonic behavior more bestial than anything the mind had dreamed possible.
17. If evil has a name, it is the deliberate violation of covenants of peace and reconciliation. Unity requires self-sacrifice and forgoing the satisfactions that license affords. Ultimately it lies in the soul's submission to God.
18. Especially devastating have been the failures of submission in the betrayals of the Messengers and their ideals. Baha'u'llah condemns those who violate His Covenant in very strong language because they are seeking to destroy the means that will create unity. This is not a question of intellectual dissent or moral weakness.
19. Covenant-breaking is a fundamentally different phenomenon. It arises in the impulse to impose one's personal will on the community by any means. The self becomes the overriding authority. Today, commitment to the requirements of unity becomes the touchstone of all professions of devotion to the will of God and the well-being of humankind.

Section 12: The Response of the Baha'i Community to Humanity's Crisis

20. The Baha'i Cause is equipped to address the challenges facing it. The community's nature and achievements on their own justify the attention of anyone seriously concerned about the crisis of civilization. They are evidence that the world's peoples can learn to live and work as a single race in a single global homeland.
21. This fact underlines the urgency of the successive Plans of expansion and consolidation. Humanity has a right to expect that a body of people committed to unity will increasingly contribute to programs of social betterment that depend on unity. The Baha'i community must grow faster and partner with more and more like-minded organizations.
22. The culture of systematic growth taking root in the community seems to be the most effective response to the aforementioned challenges. Intense and ongoing immersion in the Word frees one from materialistic assumptions and develops a capacity to assist the yearnings for unity. The activities are creating a community of interest and will amplify the community's contribution to public discourse.
23. Fulfilling Baha'u'llah's mandate means carrying out two vital and reciprocal activities: teaching and promoting the betterment of society. A person exploring Baha'u'llah's teachings must gain perspective on both the processes of change worldwide and the implications for his own life.
24. The ideal of the oneness of religion is central, but sharing Baha'u'llah's message is not an interfaith project. The soul seeks certitude; the experience of conversion is not extraneous or incidental, but a pivotal issue that must be addressed.

Section 13: History As the Drama of Salvation Leading to One Common Faith

25. A distinguishing feature of modernity has been the awakening of historical consciousness, which means people can recognize the whole body of humanity's sacred texts place the drama of salvation in the context of history.
26. The texts all speak of one goal, the ingathering of humanity in a great age, a promised Day when the sealed scriptures will be opened; the time of a new Creation.
27. The declared purpose of history's series of prophetic revelations has not just been personal salvation, but to prepare the human family for the great eschatological event, the revelation of Baha'u'llah. It has set in motion the laying of the foundations of the Kingdom of God.
28. There is a fundamental difference between the mission of Baha'u'llah and political and ideological projects of human design. Religion's appeal is to a reality in the rational soul, a potentiality in the human species that has been trained by God since the dawn of time and which Baha'is now must cultivate.
29. The process bears the assurance of its fulfillment. The new creation is emerging, successive dispensation have brought humanity to the threshold of maturity as a single people, to the healing of the world in one universal cause, one common faith.