The Temple of Unity
Bahaism as it is held in America to-day is distilled out of the writings and teachings of Baha'u'llah and Abdul-Baha. Naturally enough, in the popularization of it its contradictions have been reconciled and its subtleties disregarded. What is left fits into a variety of forms and is in line with a great range of idealism. The twelve basic principles of Bahaism as announced in its popular literature are:
The Oneness of Mankind.
Independent investigations of truth.
The Foundation of all religions is one.
Religion must be the cause of unity.
Religion must be in accord with science and reason.
Equality between men and women.
Prejudice of all kinds must be forgotten.
Universal Peace.
Universal Education.
Solution of the economic problem.
An international auxiliary language.
An international tribunal.
A program inclusive enough for any generous age. These principles are substantiated by quotations from the writings of Abdul-Baha and the teachings of Baha'u'llah. Many things combine to lend force to its appeal—the courage of its martyrs, its spaciousness and yet at the same time the attractiveness of its appeal and its suggestion of spiritual brotherhood. Since the movement has borne a kind of messianic expectation it adjusts itself easily to inherited Christian hopes. There are real correspondences between its expected millennium and the Christian millennium.
How far its leaders, in their passion for peace and their doctrine of non-resistance and their exaltation of the life of the spirit, are in debt to the suggestions of Christianity itself, or how far it is a new expression of a temper with which the Orient has always been more in sympathy than the West, it would be difficult to say, but in some ways Bahaism does express—or perhaps reproduces—the essential spirit of the Gospels more faithfully than a good deal of Western Christianity as now organized. Those members of Christian communions which are attracted to Bahaism find in it a real hospitality to the inherited faith they take over. It is possible, therefore, to belong to the cult and at the same time to continue one's established religious life without any very great violence and indeed with a possible intensification of that life.
It is difficult, therefore, to distinguish between Bahaism as it is held by devout groups in America, so far as ethics and ideals go, from much that is distinctive in the Christian spirit, though the influence of Bahaism as a whole would be to efface distinctions and especially to take the force out of the Christian creeds.
Chicago, or rather Wilmette, is now the center of the movement in America and an ambitious temple is in the way of being constructed there, the suggestion for whose architecture is taken from a temple in Eskabad, Russia. This is to be a temple of universal religion, symbolizing in its architecture the unities of faith and humanity. "The temple with its nine doors will be set in the center of a circular garden symbolizing the all-inclusive circle of God's unity; nine pathways will lead to the nine doors and each one coming down the pathway of his own sect or religion or trend of thought will leave at the door the dogmas that separate and, under the dome of God's oneness, all will become one.... At night it will be brilliantly lighted and the light will shine forth through the tracery of the dome, a beacon of peace and unity rising high above Lake Michigan."
This study has led us into many curious regions and shown to what unexpected conclusions the forces of faith or hope, once released, may come, but surely it has revealed nothing more curious than that the old, old controversy as to the true successor of Mohammed the prophet should at last have issued in a universal religion and set the faithful to building a temple of unity on the shores of Lake Michigan.
If this work were to be complete it should include some investigation of the rituals of the cults. They are gradually creating hymns of their own; their public orders of service include responsive readings with meditations on the immanence of God, the supremacy of the spiritual and related themes. In general they dispense with the sacraments; they have no ecclesiastical orders and hardly anything corresponding to the Catholic priesthood or the Protestant ministry, though the Christian Science reader has a recognized official place. They meet in conferences; they depend largely upon addresses by their leaders. Spiritualistic movements organize themselves around séances. They use such halls as may be rented, hotels, their own homes; they have not generally buildings of their own save the Christian Science temples which are distinctive for dignity of architecture and beauty of appointment in almost every large city.
General Conclusions; the Limitations of the Writer's Method