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New essays invite a broader view of human progress

no name given · Bahá'í World News Service (BWNS) · 2026-08-26 · Haifa · Source

Knowledge · main message Community · carrying Justice · carrying

Human progress requires expanding the concept of innovation to social and cultural systems as well as promoting moral and spiritual foundations in order to realize world peace.

Four decades later, it remains an urgent challenge to go beyond institutional arrangements to promote the moral and spiritual foundations necessary for the realization of peace.

The text presents four new essays from the online publication 'The Bahá’í World', which address various aspects of human progress and social development. One article deals with the role of wisdom in recognizing truths that go beyond human reason. Another essay examines the contributions of the Bahá’í Community to reform and renewal in Iran, particularly in the context of the Iranian reform movement of the 19th century. It discusses the practical implementation of principles such as consultative decision-making and the advancement of women in the social organization of the community. The third essay expands the understanding of innovation beyond technological change to social, institutional, and cultural systems. The fourth article revisits a historical statement from 1985 on world peace and emphasizes the necessity of promoting moral and spiritual foundations beyond institutional arrangements. The publication aims to contribute new insights from the Bahá’í teachings and the experience of the worldwide community to the most important issues of our time.

Worldview

what this means

What, according to this text, is the root of the evil?: Ignorance, illusion, a false view of reality
Where does the evil reside?: in the economy, politics, or social structures
What helps against it?: insight, learning, enlightenment, right understanding; just social or political conditions
What is human being according to this text?: above all a part of a community or of creation
Where is history heading?: it is getting better, development towards the good
What does the text base its claim on?: on personal experience, testimony, encounter; on the founder or prophet of the tradition
To whom does the text's call for devotion apply?: to every human being, regardless of faith
Where is the text's criticism directed?: the text does not criticise

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by similarity of the analysis, one text per tradition

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What the text calls for

Über institutionelle Arrangements hinauszugehen (social)
Moralische und spirituelle Grundlagen fördern (social)

Measured

Basic stance: 1 from -2 to 2
Insistence: 1 of 3
Reach: 5 of 5
Concreteness: 2 of 3
Boundary: 0 of 3
Time: past 2, present 3, future 2

Analysed with qwen/qwen3.8-27b, version v3. The same standards apply to every tradition, see Values.

Show the full text

BAHÁ’Í WORLD CENTRE — The online publication The Bahá’í World has released four new articles. “ Strange and Astonishing Things ,” considers the role of wisdom and sense-making in recognizing truths that may appear beyond the reach of human reason and existing conceptual frameworks. The two-part essay, “The Bahá’ís and Reform and Renewal in Iran,” examines the contributions of the Bahá’í community to the development of Iran. Part I traces that community’s ideas and initiatives alongside those of the country’s nineteenth-century reform movement. Part II describes how the community put its principles into practice in its own social organization—consultative decision-making, elected leadership free of partisanship, the advancement of women—and what this experience might offer wider Iranian society. The essay “ Rethinking Innovation ,” explores how our understanding of innovation can be expanded beyond technological change, to encompass the social, institutional, and cultural systems through which society evolves. “ The Promise of World Peace, Forty Years On ,” revisits the historic 1985 statement of the Universal House of Justice that established the recognition of human oneness as a prerequisite for world peace. Four decades later, moving beyond institutional arrangements to cultivate the moral and spiritual foundations necessary for the realization of peace remains a pressing challenge. The Bahá’í World website features a collection of essays that examine the most vital issues of our time and seek to contribute new insights from the Bahá’í teachings and from the experience of the worldwide Bahá’í community.