Century of Light

Century of Light by Baha'i
International

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Title: Century of Light
Author: Baha'i International Community
Release Date: September 2006 [Ebook #19267]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO 8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CENTURY
OF LIGHT***

Century of Light
by Baha'i International Community

Edition 1, (September 2006)

BAHA'I TERMS OF USE
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CONTENTS

Baha'i Terms of Use FOREWORD CENTURY OF LIGHT I II III IV
V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII

FOREWORD
The conclusion of the twentieth century provides Bahá'ís with a unique
vantage point. During the past hundred years our world underwent
changes far more profound than any in its preceding history, changes
that are, for the most part, little understood by the present generation.
These same hundred years saw the Bahá'í Cause emerge from obscurity,
demonstrating on a global scale the unifying power with which its
Divine origin has endowed it. As the century drew to its close, the
convergence of these two historical developments became increasingly
apparent.
Century of Light, prepared under our supervision, reviews these two
processes and the relationship between them, in the context of the
Bahá'í Teachings. We commend it to the thoughtful study of the friends,
in the confidence that the perspectives it opens up will prove both
spiritually enriching and of practical help in sharing with others the
challenging implications of the Revelation brought by Bahá'u'lláh.
The Universal House of Justice
Naw-Rúz, 158 b.e.

CENTURY OF LIGHT
The twentieth century, the most turbulent in the history of the human
race, has reached its end. Dismayed by the deepening moral and social
chaos that marked its course, the generality of the world's peoples are
eager to leave behind them the memories of the suffering that these
decades brought with them. No matter how frail the foundations of
confidence in the future may seem, no matter how great the dangers
looming on the horizon, humanity appears desperate to believe that,

through some fortuitous conjunction of circumstances, it will
nevertheless be possible to bend the conditions of human life into
conformity with prevailing human desires.
In the light of the teachings of Bahá'u'lláh such hopes are not merely
illusory, but miss entirely the nature and meaning of the great turning
point through which our world has passed in these crucial hundred
years. Only as humanity comes to understand the implications of what
occurred during this period of history will it be able to meet the
challenges that lie ahead. The value of the contribution we as Bahá'ís
can make to the process demands that we ourselves grasp the
significance of the historic transformation wrought by the twentieth
century.
What makes this insight possible for us is the light shed by the rising
Sun of Bahá'u'lláh's Revelation and the influence it has come to
exercise in human affairs. It is this opportunity that the following pages
address.

I
Let us acknowledge at the outset the magnitude of the ruin that the
human race has brought upon itself during the period of history under
review. The loss of life alone has been beyond counting. The
disintegration of basic institutions of social order, the violation--indeed,
the abandonment--of standards of decency, the betrayal of the life of
the mind through surrender to ideologies as squalid as they have been
empty, the invention and deployment of monstrous weapons of mass
annihilation, the bankrupting of entire nations and the reduction of
masses of human beings to hopeless poverty, the reckless destruction of
the environment of the