CHILDREN'S CLASSES

The Baha'i Faith is an independent world religion with followers in every part of the
world and from every walk of life. The first members of the Baha'i Faith came to
southeastern Wisconsin in the early 1900's. We believe in the divine origin and validity
of all of history's great religions, the elimination of racial prejudice, the equality of
women and men, and the importance of spiritual, moral, and practical education. The
Baha'i Faith supports every person's right to freely investigate religious truth. We have
no clergy and do not accept contributions from non-members.

The Bahá'í communities of Southeastern Wisconsin invite you to investigate the
teachings and principles of the Bahá'í Faith. Click on the text in the blue boxes above
to read more about Baha'i activities and contacts in your area, or call the Baha'i
information number, 1-800-22UNITE (1-800-228-6483)

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, 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.

Copyright ©1998, Bahá'í International Community.
All rights reserved.

In just over 100 years, the Bahá'í Faith has grown from an obscure movement in the
Middle East to the second-most widespread of the independent world religions.
Embracing people from more than 2,100 ethnic, racial and tribal groups, it is quite
likely the most diverse organized body of people on the planet. Its unity challenges
prevailing theories about human nature and the prospects for our common future.

. . . the crucial need facing the human race is to find a unifying vision of the nature
of man and society. Such a vision unfolds in the writings of Bahá'u'lláh (1817-1892).

The driving force behind the civilizing of human nature, Bahá'u'lláh asserts, has been
successive interventions of the Divine in history. It has been through this influence
that the innate moral and spiritual faculties of humanity have been gradually
developed and the advancement of civilization made possible. Associated with the
missions of such transcendent figures as Krishna, Moses, Buddha, Jesus, and
Muhammad, the phenomenon is an ever-recurring one; it is without beginning
or end because it is fundamental to the evolutionary order itself.

Although nurtured by the process, humanity has never understood it. Instead,
people have constructed around each episode in their spiritual experience a separate
religious system. Throughout history the religious impulse has been hobbled by
the resulting contradictions and bitter conflicts.

Bahá'u'lláh compares the maturation of the human race as a whole to the experience
of its individual members who struggle, successively, through the stages of infancy,
childhood, and adolescence. Today, humanity has entered on its collective
coming-of-age, endowed with the capacity to see the entire panorama of its
development as a single process. The challenge of maturity is to accept that we are
one people, to free ourselves from the limited identities and creeds of the past,
and to build together the foundations of global civilization.

The power that is awakening this consciousness throughout the world is the
universal Revelation of God promised in all the scriptures of mankind's past.
Its spokesman is Bahá'u'lláh whose teachings provide a blueprint for the social
organization of the planet and whose growing influence is the great untold story
of our time.

Excerpted from "The Bahá'ís", a publication of the Bahá'í International Community.