Religion 101

Tomorrow (May 23), members of the Baha’i Faith will celebrate “the Declaration of the Bab,” one of eleven holy days on the Baha’i religious calendar. Of those eleven Baha’i holy days, work is suspended on nine of them; this is one of those nine.

Baha’is, like Jews and Muslims, reckon “days” as beginning and ending not at midnight or at dawn but at sunset. Accordingly, the holiday known as the Declaration of the Bab technically begins at sunset tonight, and will run through sunset tomorrow.

The Baha’i Faith is one of the youngest and smallest of the world’s religions. Founded in Persia (now Iran) in the 19th century, Baha’i has grown into a relatively small but rapidly growing and already widespread global religion, with a worldwide population currently estimated at somewhere between five and seven million members.

Baha’i was founded by a Tehran-born monotheistic prophet known as Baha’u'llah (1817-1892), whose adoptive title is Persian for “Glory of God.” Claiming to be the latest in a series of messengers from God (a line which Baha’i regards as including not only Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad, but also Krishna and Buddha), Baha’u'llah preached both the unity of all religions as well as the unity of all humanity, and called for global peace and justice.

Baha’is believe that prior to the advent of Baha’u'llah, his coming was foretold by a previous religious leader known as the Bab (“the Gate”), who anticipated — almost John the Baptist-like — the arrival of another messianic-like figure, whom Bahai’s subsequently identified as Baha’u'llah.

The Baha’i holy day known as “the Declaration of the Bab” commemorates the May 23, 1844 proclamation by the Bab himself that he was, in fact, the herald or forerunner of an imminent and subsequent new divine messenger — e.g., of Baha’u'llah, the founder of the Baha’i Faith.

In a previous blog entry, I commented upon a recent news story involving the cancellation of an Arkansas school district’s elementary school graduation ceremonies in the wake of a local controversy over prayer, which the district had intended to incorporate as part of the official proceedings.

Rather than simply nix the planned prayers, the district instead cancelled the ceremonies altogether. Subsequently, many parents and other local citizens (most of whom were Christian) complained that one person’s objection to the inclusion of a Christian prayer in a public school graduation ceremony had somehow violated their rights en masse.

However, this was not a matter of a minority unfairly overruling a majority (much less of “political correctness” gone overboard), but a simple and straightforward matter of constitutional legality.

Even if an overwhelming majority of the community was in favor of the school district conducting prayers as part of its graduation ceremonies, the wishes of the majority were not even a factor in this case. Public schools are part of the state, and as such must remain religiously neutral themselves. The principle of “separation of church and state” means that state-run public schools may not conduct prayers, or otherwise favor, support, endorse, or advocate for religion.

This sort of squabble is by no means an isolated instance. Unfortunately, public schools — which, by their very nature, must be secular rather than religious institutions — are all too often the locus of similar violations of church/state separation.

Next case in point: just a few days ago, an Oklahoma high school removed from its classroom walls approximately 100 plaques bearing the Ten Commandments. Those plaques had long adorned the walls of most of the classrooms within the state-run public school, in effect expressing a clearly unconstitutional endorsement or advancement of religion (insofar as the Ten Commandments are clearly religious in nature), until a student at this high school recently objected to their presence.

Rather than risk a lawsuit, the school administration removed the plaques. Of course, while this may have avoided costly legal proceedings, it could not avoid raising the ire of many in the community, who took this entire episode as just another outrageous anti-Christian swipe, rather than what it was: an upholding of constitutional law, and the preservation of the secular nature of state-run public schools.

The fact that two high-profile news stories revolving around such violations of church/state separation in our public schools recently appeared within days of each other merely serves to underscore the fact that these sorts of misunderstandings and skirmishes are still anything but rare.

This Sunday (May 19) is the Christian holiday known as Pentecost, widely regarded by many believers as marking the actual birth or nativity of the church.

Pentecost commemorates the descent of, and the manifestation among Christ’s apostles, of the Holy Spirit (one of the three divine Persons of the holy Trinity, which along with the Father and the Son together comprise the triune God of Christianity).

The term pentecost is Greek for “fiftieth,” and signifies the fact that this particular holy day falls upon the fiftieth day following Easter Sunday, the holiday celebrating Christ’s resurrection (with Easter itself counting as “day one” of the fifty-day countdown). Like Easter, Pentecost is also always on a Sunday.

According to the New Testament book known as Acts of the Apostles, it was while celebrating the Jewish holiday of Shavuot that a number of Christ’s disciples suddenly and vividly experienced the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

One outward manifestation of this “baptism of the Holy Spirit” (as it came to be known) was the phenomenon of glossolalia, or “speaking in tongues.” According to Acts, this particular “gift of the Spirit” resulted in the disciples spontaneously and miraculously preaching the gospel in a variety of diverse foreign languages.

Today, this phenomenon or practice of glossolalia remains linked with the modern Pentecostal movement, current since the early 20th century within contemporary evangelical Christianity.

Different Christian denominations place varying degrees of emphasis upon observing Pentecost. For some, it is celebrated as a major feast day; for others, it receives less attention than other major Christian holidays (and some seem to virtually ignore it).