Expert: Dr Duane K. Troxel - 12/29/2010

Question
I am the Chaplain's Assistant in an immigration detention center.  A detainee has requested that he wants us to schedule a Jewish service for him and said that the Baha'i Faith is a syncretistic religion.  Could you give us any information on the subject, and let us know if this a legitimate request.  Thank you for your time.

Answer
First I am at a loss of how the detainee made the ontological leap from requesting a “Jewish service” and then mentioning the Baha’i Faith in the next breath, as though it were one and the same thing.

First, to the term “syncretistic”. Both “syncretism” and “eclectiscism” suggest a conscious compilation of heterogeneous elements to bring about a new whole (gestalt). On the contrary, while the Baha’i Faith asserts that all the worlds revealed religions come from the same Source (same One God) and therefore teach the same “Faith” (e.g., ‘This is the changeless faith of God, eternal in the past, eternal in the future.” –Baha’u’llah) it recognizes that, historically speaking, man-made accretions and the “fact that social teachings vary from Revelation to Revelation (e.g., ‘an eye for an eye’ and ‘turn the other cheek’) have resulted in faith traditions that look and function very differently one from another.

Baha’is recognize Baha’u’llah (1817-1892) as God’s Messenger for today. Baha’u’llah wrote over 100 volumes in His own Hand. These Revelations will guide humanity for many centuries to come. Baha’is have a divine polity which is part and parcel of the Revelation (and promised in all the world’s Holy Books).

Here is a brief statement from the Baha’i writings:

The Bahá’í Faith upholds the unity of God, recognizes the unity of His Prophets, and inculcates the principle of the oneness and wholeness of the entire human race. It proclaims the necessity and the inevitability of the unification of mankind, asserts that it is gradually approaching, and claims that nothing short of the transmuting spirit of God, working through His chosen Mouthpiece in this day, can ultimately succeed in vi bringing it about. It, moreover, enjoins upon its followers the primary duty of an unfettered search after truth, condemns all manner of prejudice and superstition, declares the purpose of religion to be the promotion of amity and concord, proclaims its essential harmony with science, and recognizes it as the foremost agency for the pacification and the orderly progress of human society….”

Books about the Faith may be obtained free here:
http://reference.bahai.org/en/
Our International website is here:
http://www.bahai.org/
USA Baha’I website:
http://www.bahai.us/

Baha’is have their own calendar replete with Holy Days, a fasting period, etc. We have pilgrimage to our Holy Places in Israel where the world headquarters of the Baha’i Faith exists on Mt. Carmel (‘the Vineyard of the Lord’).

Thank you.