U.S. Actor Rainn Wilson talks about persecution of Bahá’í Students in Iran
The following is a link to a beautiful and moving video in which U.S. actor Rainn Wilson, himself a member of the Baha’i Faith, talks about the persecution of Baha’i students in Iran and the recent attack there upon the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education. His point is that an attack on the Baha’i's right [...]
Abstraction and Fragmentation: Thinking Towards a New World Order 2:
My purpose in this post is to describe the fragmentary pattern of thought, yet before I can do so I must examine what I call abstractive thinking, as fragmentary thinking is one of many kinds of abstractive thinking. Abstractive thinking can be defined as the tendency to reduce the full complexity of a situation to only one or some of its aspects. When one uses the term “abstract” today, it more often than not carries the negative connotation of denying important concrete aspects of a situation. We must recognize, though, that every mode of thought utilizes reductive thinking in a certain manner. The question is simply the way in which we treat the resulting abstractions.
Thinking Towards a New World Order
It is impossible to separate any aspect of our lives from out habits of thought. For, as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explains, “all these highly varied phenomena, these concepts, this knowledge, these technical procedures and philosophical systems, these sciences, arts, industries and inventions,” the very elements of human civilization, “all are emanations of the human mind.” The great social transformations marking history’s path are thus the expressions of shifts within the depth of our habits of thought.
A Voice of Protest: “I am a realist…”
“Because of such an attitude…Bahá’ís are often accused of holding aloof from the ‘real problems’ of their fellowmen. But when we hear this accusation let us not forget that those who make it are usually idealistic materialists to whom material good is the only ‘real’ good, whereas we know that the working of the material world is merely a reflection of spiritual conditions and until the spiritual conditions can be changed there can be no lasting change for the better in material affairs.” – The Universal House of Justice
A Time of Emergence: Riḍván 1863 and 2011
I hope the above post to serve as an introduction to the contemporary life of the Bahá’í community; an evolving, learning, and growing community; a world embracing community; a community with clear mission, goals, strategies, and instruments; a community striving to serve humanity, welcoming with open arms all willing to walk this path of service together; a community emerging from obscurity into the widespread recognition of its status as a world religion.
Ben Schewel
Ben Schewel, 24, is a Bahá'í and doctoral student in philosophy at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, studying process philosophy, focusing in particular on questions of history, science, and religion. Ben is very involved in the Bahá’í community’s projects of social and economic development (http://www.ruhi.org/).
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Contributing Scholars
Michael VanZandt CollinsCurrently, an A.M. candidate at Harvard's Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations where I study Islamic theology and philosophy, I had worked several years in education. Prior to that, I studied theology at Boston College with a concentration in social ethics.
Guruamrit KhalsaGuruamrit Khalsa is an MA candidate at American University's School of International Service studying U.S. foreign policy and South Asia. She has studied the Arabic and Urdu languages, and was a former intern with the Middle East Institute in Washington.