One Common Faith by Baha’i International Community Edition 1, (September 2006) BAHA’I TERMS OF USE You have permission to freely make and use copies of the text and any other information ("Content") available on this Site including printing, emailing, posting, distributing, copying, downloading, uploading, transmitting, displaying the Content in whole or in part subject to the following: 1. Our copyright notice and the source reference must be attached to the Content; 2. The Content may not be modified or altered in any way except to change the font or appearance; 3. The Content must be used solely for a non-commercial purpose. Although this blanket permission to reproduce the Content is given freely such that no special permission is required, the Bahá’í International Community retains full copyright protection for all Content included at this Site under all applicable national and international laws. For permission to publish, transmit, display or otherwise use the Content for any commercial purpose, please contact us (http://reference.bahai.org/en/contact.html). CONTENTS Baha’i Terms of Use FOREWORD ONE COMMON FAITH “There is every reason for confidence that the period of history now...” “The reawakened interest in religion is clearly far from having reached...” “In addition to disillusionment with the promises of materialism, a...” “Throughout history, the primary agents of spiritual development have...” “The dilemma is both artificial and self-inflicted. The world order, if...” “The objection most commonly raised against the foregoing conception...” “Freed from the thickets with which theology has hedged religious...” “Confusion about the role of religion in cultivating moral...” “The exigencies of the new age of human experience to which...” “The power through which these goals will be progressively realized is...” “A corollary of the abandonment of faith in God has been a paralysis of...” “Everything in its history has equipped the Bahá’í...” “One of the distinguishing features of modernity has been the universal...” FOREWORD At Riḍván 2002, we addressed an open letter to the world’s religious leaders. Our action arose out of awareness that the disease of sectarian hatreds, if not decisively checked, threatens harrowing consequences that will leave few areas of the world unaffected. The letter acknowledged with appreciation the achievements of the interfaith movement, to which Bahá’ís have sought to contribute since an early point in the movement’s emergence. Nevertheless, we felt we must be forthright in saying that, if the religious crisis is to be addressed as seriously as is occurring with respect to other prejudices afflicting humankind, organized religion must find within itself a comparable courage to rise above fixed conceptions inherited from a distant past.