..According to Biblical expectation of the Last Days.. (as interpreted by some Theologians) world history will end in a catastrophe, and this catastrophe is the destiny of the human race, which is moving not towards its self-perfection but to rebellion against God and the Law.. (64:1)

On one point Baha'is are in complete agreement.. the human race will never be able to bring about this highest good of our temporal existence, world peace. All human efforts, all the good will, all the appeals and resolutions, all the exertions of the politicians, will ultimately come to nothing. The total transformation of the world will finally come not from man but from God. Theologians have not recognized that the Lord of history has manifested Himself in Baha'u'llah and has spoken again to mankind, to bring about man's perfection; they cannot bring themselves to believe that behind the phenomenon they criticize so harshly, the transforming and re-creating power of the Word of God is at work, which can succeed where man relying only on himself and presuming his own independence, is bound to fail: this is why they find the Baha'i hope of peace a Utopian illusion, a millennialist dream. But the Baha'is do confidently believe that through Baha'u'llah the Lord has spoken and that He will redeem His promise of the "Most Great Peace, " (much as He did in gathering the Jews -ed) that their religion is more than a sum of teachings, counsels and admonitions, that it is a living force, the same force which already in history has transformed men, established new orders and founded brotherly communities. Their expectations of the future are based on this confident belief. (64:2)

The expected kingdom of peace will not come upon men like a cosmic event, as the millennialists envisaged, but will be the fruit of a universal process of change taking place with history, whose driving impulse is the new revelation: "God's purpose is none other than to usher in , in ways He alone can bring about, and the full significance of which He alone can fathom, the great, the Golden Age of a long-divided, a long-afflicted humanity. Its present state, indeed its immediate future, is dark, distressingly dark. Its distant future, however, is radiant, gloriously radiant-- so radiant that no eye can visualize it." (Pdc- Shoghi Effendi) (65:1)

That man is in rebellion against God cannot be denied. Baha'u'llah repeatedly gave warning of the impending judgment of God, which is "at once a visitation from God and a cleansing process for all mankind, " and for which "the world's supreme leaders, both secular and religious, are to be regarded as primarily answerable." (Pdc) The catastrophe, however, will not be the end of our temporal world, but the total break-up and overthrow of the existing order and the beginning of a new age, in which "the folly and tumult of strife that has, since the dawn of history, muted into the wisdom and the tranquillity of an undisturbed, a universal, and lasting peace, in which the discord and separation of the children of men will have given way to the world-wide reconciliation, and the complete unification of the divers elements that constitute human society." (Shoghi Effendi) (65:2)

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The Light Shineth in Darkness
Udo Schaefer