The Promise of World Peace

This letter dated October 1985 has had some minor reformatting changes only to update its appearance but its content is more timely than ever as was emphasised in a more recent letter from the Universal House of Justice to the Bahá’ís of the World dated 18 January 2019, This is an excerpt from that letter:

For Bahá’ís, the attainment of peace is not simply an aspiration to which they are sympathetic or a goal complementary to their other aims—it has always been a central concern. In a second Tablet ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá addressed to the Central Organization for a Durable Peace in the Hague, He asserted that “our desire for peace is not derived merely from the intellect: It is a matter of religious belief and one of the eternal foundations of the Faith of God.” He observed that for peace to be realized in the world, it was not adequate that people should be informed about the horrors of war:

Today the benefits of universal peace are recognized amongst the people, and likewise the harmful effects of war are clear and manifest to all. But in this matter, knowledge alone is far from sufficient: A power of implementation is needed to establish it throughout the world.

“It is our firm belief”, He continued, “that the power of implementation in this great endeavour is the penetrating influence of the Word of God and the confirmations of the Holy Spirit.”

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