Baha'u'llah's severest condemnation is reserved for the barriers which,
throughout history, organized religion has erected between humanity and
the Revelations of God. Dogmas, inspired by popular superstition and
perfected by misspent intelligence, have repeatedly been imposed on a
Divine process whose purpose has at all times been spiritual and moral.
Laws of social interaction, revealed for the purpose of consolidating
community life, have been made the basis for structures of arcane doctrine
and practice which have burdened the masses whose benefit they were
supposed to serve. Even the exercise of intellect, the chief tool
possessed by the human race, has been deliberately hampered, producing an
eventual breakdown in the dialogue between faith and science upon which
civilized life depends.
The consequence of this sorry record is the worldwide disrepute into which
religion has fallen. Worse, organized religion has become itself a most
virulent cause of hatred and warfare among the peoples of the world.
"Religious fanaticism and hatred," Baha'u'llah warned over a century ago,
"are a world-devouring fire, whose violence none can quench. The Hand of
Divine power can, alone, deliver mankind from this desolating
affliction."(85)
Those whom God will hold responsible for this tragedy, Baha'u'llah says,
are humanity's religious leaders, who have presumed to speak for Him
throughout history. Their attempts to make the Word of God a private
preserve, and its exposition a means for personal aggrandizement, have
been the greatest single handicap against which the advancement of
civilization has struggled. In the pursuit of their ends, many of them
have not hesitated to raise their hands against the Messengers of God
themselves, at their advent:
Leaders of religion, in every age, have hindered their people from
attaining the shores of eternal salvation, inasmuch as they held the reins
of authority in their mighty grasp. Some for the lust of leadership,
others through want of knowledge and understanding, have been the cause of
the deprivation of the people. By their sanction and authority, every
Prophet of God hath drunk from the chalice of sacrifice...(86)
In an address to the clergy of all faiths, Baha'u'llah warns of the
responsibility which they have so carelessly assumed in history:
Ye are even as a spring. If it be changed, so will the streams that branch
out from it be changed. Fear God, and be numbered with the godly. In like
manner, if the heart of man be corrupted, his limbs will also be
corrupted. And similarly, if the root of a tree be corrupted, its
branches, and its offshoots, and its leaves, and its fruits, will be
corrupted.(87)
These same statements, revealed at a time when religious orthodoxy was one
of the major powers throughout the world, declared that this power had
effectively ended, and that the ecclesiastical caste has no further social
role in world history: "O concourse of divines! Ye shall not henceforward
behold yourselves possessed of any power..."(88) To a particularly
vindictive opponent among the Muslim clergy, Baha'u'llah said: "Thou art
even as the last trace of sunlight upon the mountaintop. Soon will it fade
away as decreed by God, the All-Possessing, the Most High. Thy glory and
the glory of such as are like thee have been taken away..."(89)
It is not the organization of religious activity which these statements
address, but the misuse of such resources. Baha'u'llah's writings are
generous in their appreciation not only of the great contribution which
organized religion has brought to civilization, but also of the benefits
which the world has derived from the self-sacrifice and love of humanity
that have characterized clergymen and religious orders of all faiths:
Those divines ... who are truly adorned with the ornament of knowledge and
of a goodly character are, verily, as a head to the body of the world, and
as eyes to the nations....(90)
Rather, the challenge to all people, believers and unbelievers, clergy and
laymen alike, is to recognize the consequences now being visited upon the
world as the result of the universal corruption of the religious impulse.
In the prevailing alienation of humanity from God over the past century, a
relationship on which the fabric of moral life itself depends has broken
down. Natural faculties of the rational soul, vital to the development and
maintenance of human values, have become universally discounted:
The vitality of men's belief in God is dying out in every land; nothing
short of His wholesome medicine can ever restore it. The corrosion of
ungodliness is eating into the vitals of human society; what else but the
Elixir of His potent Revelation can cleanse and revive it?... The Word of
God, alone, can claim the distinction of being endowed with the capacity
required for so great and far-reaching a change.(91)