Monday, November 2, 2009

Forbearance and humility

"In past Dispensations, the believers have tended to divide into two mutually antagonistic groups: those who held blindly to the letter of the Revelations, and those who questioned and doubted everything. Like all extremes, both of these can lead into error... Baha'is are called upon to follow the Faith with intelligence and understanding. Inevitably believers will commit errors as they strive to rise to this degree of maturity, and this calls for forbearance and humility on the part of all concerned, so that such matters do not cause disunity and discord among the friends."

-- From a letter written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice, 1980

2 comments:

Bright Butterfly said...

Very interesting that forbearance and humility are the qualities we need to be faithful and yet neither dogmatic nor fundamentalist. Forbearance is an interesting word -- using patience, lenience, refraining from a harsh imposition of either end of the spectrum? I suppose with humility we are able to hold to faith and yet also hold a willingness to be proven wrong.

Nikhil said...

ya, and in addition to not judge other people too harshly for what they might believe/do, but deal patiently with them and together strive to attain at a better understanding of truth.