Origins / Beliefs

The Bahá’í Faith is the youngest of the world’s independent religions. Its founder, Bahá’u’lláh (1817-1892), is regarded by Bahá’ís as the most recent in the line of Messengers of God that stretches back beyond recorded time and that includes Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Krishna, Zoroaster, Christ and Muhammad.

The central theme of Bahá’u’lláh’s message is that humanity is one single race and that the day has come for its unification in one global society. God, Bahá’u’lláh said, has set in motion historical forces that are breaking down traditional barriers of race, class, creed, and nation and that will, in time, give birth to a universal civilization.

The principal challenge facing the peoples of the earth is to accept the fact of their oneness and to assist the processes of unification. One of the purposes of the Bahá’í Faith is to help make this possible. A worldwide community of some five million Bahá’ís, representative of most of the nations, races and cultures on earth, is working to give Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings practical effect. Their experience will be a source of encouragement to all who share their vision of humanity as one global family and the earth as one homeland.

Basic Teachings of Bahá'u'lláh

Bahá’u’lláh taught that there is one God whose successive revelations of His will to humanity have been the chief civilizing force in history. The agents of this process have been the Divine Messengers whom people have seen chiefly as the founders of separate religious systems but whose common purpose has been to bring the human race to spiritual and moral maturity.
Humanity is now coming of age. It is this that makes possible the unification of the human family and the building of a peaceful, global society. Among the principles which the Bahá’í Faith promotes as vital to the achievement of this goal are:

• the abandonment of all forms of prejudice
• assurance to women of full equality of opportunity with men
• recognition of the unity and relativity of religious truth
• the elimination of extremes of poverty and wealth
• the realization of universal education
• the responsibility of each person to independently search for truth
• the establishment of a global commonwealth of nations
• recognition that true religion is in harmony with reason and the pursuit of scientific knowledge.

The Bahá’í teachings emphasize that all of us, as creations of one God, are part of one human family.

Bahá’u’lláh, founder of the Bahá’í Faith said, “The tabernacle of unity hath been raised; regard ye not one another as strangers. Ye are the fruits of one tree, and the leaves of one branch.”

People of nearly every background, in every nation, have become Bahá’ís, and there are Bahá’í temples on every continent. The European one is at Langenhain, Germany.

History of Bahá’í in Preston

There has been a Bahá’í community in Preston since the 1970’s.
In 1986 the first Spiritual Assembly was elected. It is a registered charity and company limited by guarantee. There are no clergy or leaders in the Bahá’í Faith, they meet in each others homes for worship.

Authority rests with the authenticated scriptures. Responsibility for their spiritual life rests with each individual and responsibility of the organization of community affairs rests with elected bodies at the local, national and international level.

Further information can be found at http://www.bahai.org.uk/  or at  http://www.bahai.org/