And I think if you talk to the casual observer of the world scene he or she will say “there are two things happening at the same time, decline and growth.”
Obviously we have our Bahá’í teachings on this subject but that’s not the point at the moment. The conventional reaction to this process of decline becoming increasingly apparent in the world today takes a number of forms. Most people anticipate and hope that it will only be temporary: “Things are not so good at the moment, financially with the crisis, political volatility, in Africa or Asia, or Central or South America, or in other countries, but with a bit of luck it’ll get better and we’ll go back to the way it was before, with a calm settled society.”
So there is a general anticipation of the temporary nature of
that decline. Almost universally its extent is underestimated and its ultimate
severity is not accepted. There is a universal ignorance about its fundamental
cause; rather people are inclined to ascribe its cause to what we would
describe as symptoms: political changes, the rise of education, the
intemperance of certain minorities, the emancipation of women and so on. And
most people expect, and indeed hope, that some panacea will arise which will
solve it, which will remove all the clouds, and humanity will proceed in a
peaceful and harmonious manner toward its future.
It is necessary for us to look at these perceptions in the light of the authoritative
statements in the Bahá’í Writings. I do this because I think the challenge we
face as Bahá’ís is a challenge to avoid unconsciously absorbing the attitudes
of the larger society, but rather to form our attitudes from the authoritative
texts of the Faith. These authoritative writings are in many ways dramatically
different from the prevailing view in our society. ...read
the entire talk