Harmony of religions: the example of Comipaz

The 20th century was the most tumultuous in history, the one that consolidated a materialistic concept of reality. Reality such that it generated the known serious conflicts. But after the great crises came the victories of the spiritualitysaw the collapse of the colonial and imperialist systems of the 19th century, and the new century witnessed the rise and fall of totalitarianisms.

Towards the end of the 20th century, a revival of religion did not seem likely. Yet it happened, out of a deep current of anxiety and discontent, due to the spiritual emptiness that produced so much materialism. Such a rebirth left a positive legacy, which was the planetary awareness of the recognition that God is one, the Only One, call himself Jehovah, Yahweh, Allah. It is the same God that we pray to and love throughout the world.

In Córdoba, in 2001, we found an embryonic interreligious committee, which tried to harmonize religions, with the basic concept of finding what united them, instead of magnifying the differences in the way that they could be found.

In this context, the spiritual assembly of the Bahá’ís of Córdoba appreciated joining the nascent interreligious committee, which in its regulations accepted the entry of all creeds that agreed with the principle of the oneness of God.

The request led to meetings with Imam Mounif el Sukaría and Pastor Daniel Annone, the central principles of the faith were presented, and doubts and queries were evacuated. Thus our participation as adherent creed was approved.

The goal of The Glory of God (Baha’u’llah) invites us to associate ourselves with all the peoples and races of the Earth, clarifying that Divine Revelation is a continuous and progressive process, that all the great religions of the world are of the same divine origin, that their basic principles are in complete harmony and that his teachings are but facets of a single truth.

Also that their functions are complementary, that they only differ in non-essential aspects of their doctrines and that their missions represent, for us, successive stages in the spiritual evolution of human society.

The important thing is to reconcile rather than accentuate the divergences of the conflicting faiths, which disintegrate the present society. The purpose of The Glory of God, far from belittling the position of previous messengers or belittling their teachings, is to reaffirm the basic truths they share.

These truths are revealed according to the needs of the age in which we live. These convulsions that we are experiencing must be associated with the present of a human being in his adolescent stage, which is painfully preparing him to reach maturity and announces the approach of the Age of Ages, in which swords will be forged into plowshares, in that the Kingdom promised by our Lord Jesus Christ will have been established, and the peace of the planet definitively and permanently assured.

* Representative before the Comipaz of the Bahá’ís community of Córdoba