The Bahá'í Faith in the Words of Three Early Unitarian Ministers

The following is adapted from a talk I gave during a virtual service at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Second Life.

The last time I had the pleasure of speaking to this gathering, I was asked to give a brief introduction to the Bahá'í Faith. Today I would like to do that, not in my own words, but in those of three Unitarian Ministers who met ‘Abdu’l-Bahá during his travels to the West.

JOHN ESTLIN CARPENTER (1844–1927)

John Estlin Carpenter was an eminent Unitarian biblical scholar, theologian and Oxford professor. He presided over a meeting on 31 December 1912 for ‘Abdu’l-Bahá at Manchester College, Oxford, where Carpenter was Principal. Of that experience, he later said the following: “From that subtle race (the Persians) issues the most remarkable movement… The new faith declared that there was no finality in revelation, and… claimed to embody a new manifestation of the divine Unity. “It, too, claims to be a universal teaching; it has already its noble army of martyrs and its holy books; has Persia, in the midst of her miseries, given birth to a religion which will go round the world?”

JOHN TYSSUL DAVIS (1872–1944)

The Reverend John Tyssul Davis presided over the Theistic Church in London’s New Bond Street and later became a Unitarian Minister in Bristol. He was also the Principal of a Buddhist College in Ceylon for two years. He wrote the following about the Bahá'í Faith:

“The Bahá’í religion... meets the needs of this day. It fits the larger outlook of our time better than the rigid exclusive older faiths. A characteristic is its unexpected liberality and toleration. It accepts all the great religions as true, and their scriptures as inspired. The Bahá'ís bid the followers of these faiths to disentangle, from the windings of racial, particularist, local prejudices, the vital, immortal thread, the pure gospel of eternal worth, and to apply this essential element of life…

“They do not fear new facts, new truths… They admit the cogency of modern criticism, and allow that God is in His nature incomprehensible, but known through His ‘Manifestations’. Their ethical ideal is very high and is of the type we Westerners have learnt to designate ‘Christlike.’ ’What does he do to his enemies that he makes them his friends?’ was asked concerning their late leader.

“What astonishes the student is… the extraordinary response its ideal has awakened in such numbers of people, the powerful influence this standard actually exerts on conduct. It is due to four things:

(1) It makes a call on the Heroic Element in Man. It offers no bribe. It bids men endure, give up, carry the cross. It calls them to sacrifice…

(2) It offers liberty of thought. Even upon such a vital question as immortality it will not bind opinion. Its atmosphere is one of trust and hope, not of dogmatic chill.

(3) It is a religion of love… love for their brethren, love for their neighbors, love for the alien, love for all humanity, love for all life, love for God… ‘Notwithstanding the interminable catalogue of… sufferings and privations which this heroic band of men and women have endured… there is not a trace of resentment or bitterness to be observed among them.’ (Whelps). 

(4) It is a religion in harmony with science… This new dispensation has been tried in the furnace, and has not been found wanting. It has been proved valid by the lives of those who have endured all things on its behalf. Here is something more appealing than its logic and rational philosophy. ‘To the Western observer’ (writes Prof. Browne), ‘it is the complete sincerity of the [Bahá'ís]… their generally admirable conduct toward mankind… which constitute their strongest claim on his attention. 

By their fruits shall ye know them!” We cannot but address to this youthful religion an All Hail! of welcome.”

ALFRED W. MARTIN (1862–1932)

Alfred W. Martin was a Unitarian minister and writer on religion. He was the leader of the Ethical Culture Society and author of many books about comparative religion. His appreciation of the Bahá'í Faith is as follows:

“Inasmuch as a fellowship of faiths is at once the dearest hope and ultimate goal of the Bahá’í movement, it behooves us to take cognizance of it and its mission… Today this religious movement has a million and more adherents, including people from all parts of the globe and representing a remarkable variety of race, color, class and creed…

“From its inception it has been identified with Bahá’u’lláh, who paid the price of prolonged exile, imprisonment, bodily suffering, and mental anguish for the faith he cherished – a man of imposing personality as revealed in his writings, characterized by intense moral earnestness and profound spirituality, gifted with the selfsame power so conspicuous in the character of Jesus: the power to appreciate people ideally, that is, to see them at the level of their best and to make even the lowest types think well of themselves because of potentialities within them to which he pointed, but of which they were wholly unaware; a prophet whose greatest contribution was not any specific doctrine he proclaimed, but an informing spiritual power breathed into the world through the example of his life and thereby quickening souls into new spiritual activity.

“Surely a movement of which all this can be said deserves – nay, compels – our respectful recognition and sincere appreciation. Taking precedence over all else in its gospel is the message of unity in religion… Its representatives do not attempt to impose any beliefs upon others, whether by argument or bribery; rather do they seek to put beliefs that have illumined their own lives within the reach of those who feel they need illumination.

“No, not a sect, not a part of humanity cut off from all the rest, living for itself and aiming to convert all the rest into material for its own growth; no, not that, but a leaven, causing spiritual fermentation in all religions quickening them with the spirit of catholicity and fraternalism. Who shall say but that just as the little company of the Mayflower, landing on Plymouth Rock, proved to be the small beginning of a mighty nation… so the little company of Baha’is, exiled from their Persian home, may yet prove to be the small beginning of the world-wide movement, the ideal germ of democracy in religion, the Universal Church of Mankind?”