1893 23 Sep
189- |
First public reference in North America to the Bahá'í Faith. [SBBH1p76]
Reference was made to it in a paper entitled The Religious Mission of the English Speaking Nations by Rev. Henry H. Jessup, a retired missionary from north Syria, read by Rev George A. Ford at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago. [AB63–4; BBD2412; BBR57; BFA1:323; BW2:230; GPB256; SBBH1:76, 88, 202]
See AB63–4, BW2:169 for text.
Historians have observed that, before this Parliament, "religion" was classified by many Americans into ethnic religion and universal religion. They considered there being only one universal religion: Christianity. In this view, all previous faiths were ethnic religions, and their purpose was to prepare the people for Christianity. Ethnic religions may have had portions of the truth, but only Christianity had all truth. This 1893 Parliament was a pivotal moment in the abolition of such classification, as representatives of "eastern" religions such as Swami Vivekananda and Anagarika Dharmapala promoted a new religious tolerance. [Paraphrased quote from Robert Stockman]
World Parliament of Religions 1893, a talk by Mr. Rothwell "Bud" Polk.
See Chicago 1893.
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Parliament of the World's Religions; Interfaith dialogue; First mentions; Mentions; Henry Jessup; Christian missionaries; Bahá'í Faith, Early Western Accounts of; Chicago, IL; United States (USA) |
First public reference in North America to Bahá'í Faith |
Canada
