Around the World in 80 Faiths
Baha'i Perspectives January 24th, 2009
The BBC is in the midst of screening a captivating documentary series entitled “Around the World in 80 Faiths“. Anglican vicar, Peter Owen Jones, visits each continent in a quest to examine the religions, beliefs and traditions that characterize and give expression to man’s spiritual nature.
In Episode 4, he travels to the Middle East to explore the roots of religious conflict in the region, but ends the episode on a rather different note: proclaiming the unifying message of the Baha’i Faith! In spite of some factual inaccuracies, this is an interesting clip to watch. Skip through to minute 5:30:
“I hope that this is the future” declares Owen Jones, emotionally, as he brings the episode to a conclusion. It surely will be.
Hearken unto the Voice of the Lord of Names, Who from His Prison hath directed His gaze towards thee and is making mention of thee.
He hath extended assistance to every wayfarer, hath graciously responded to every petitioner and granted admittance to every seeker after truth. In this Day the Straight Path is made manifest, the Balance of divine justice is set and the light of the sun of His bounty is resplendent, yet the oppressive darkness of the people of tyranny hath, even as clouds, intervened and caused a grievous obstruction between the Day-Star of heavenly grace and the people of the world. Blessed is he who hath rent the intervening veils asunder and is illumined by the radiant light of divine Revelation.
(Baha’u'llah, Tablets of Baha’u'llah, p. 255)
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Beautiful!
Thanks so much for sharing this episode!
Thank you for posting this. I googled ‘around the world in 80 faiths baha’i’ and your site came top of the rankings.
Excellent!
Rob Hain
I saw this programme on Saturday 24/01/09,I am still full of Joy and love.At last the Bahai,s are recoginised.
Wonderful.
Thanks for this post!
What a wonderful celebration around the shrine of Baha’u'llah the founder of the Baha’i Faith. Thank you for posting this.
Thanks for posting this. My wife and I had been watching the other episodes in the series and we wondered if they would feature the Baha’is eventually. Actually, we were worried that they would — the host has very unpredictable and strange appraisals of the cults and religious practices he observes and we couldn’t imagine what he would say about the Baha’i Faith. He did alright, after all!
Thank you all for your generous comments. There was some initial hesitancy in posting the clip due to the host’s description of who Baha’u'llah was. Far more than “Persian priest”, Baha’is consider Him to be the Promised One of all ages. Nevertheless, the spirit of Baha’i fellowship was captured quite wonderfully, and along with the positivity of Rev. Owen Jones’ sentiments, these factors were enough to give the clip the thumbs up!