Month 6, Day 1: Why Baha’i?

I thought about trying to come up with an April Fool’s joke for today’s post, but frankly, I don’t have the energy these days to be clever. So instead of trying to be funny, I’ll just be Baha’i.

You’re probably wondering why I chose to spend a month exploring the Baha’i faith when there are plenty of better-known religions that I won’t have time to cover this year. So I’ll tell you.

For one thing, I had pretty much never even heard of Baha’i before I started the research for this project, yet there are currently around 5 million practicing Baha’is in the world today.

Okay, so 5 million may not seem like a huge number when you compare it to, say, the world’s billion Hindus, but Hinduism has had thousands of years to attract followers, whereas Baha’i has only been in existence for around 150 years. Plus, it originated in a country (Iran) that actively persecutes its believers, so I’d say it’s been showing some fairly impressive growth.

And then there’s the fact that the Baha’i faith envisions the development of a “new world order.” When I first read that, it sounded so deliciously Orwellian, I just couldn’t resist looking further. I’m quickly learning that this “new world order” stuff is nowhere near as dark and scary as I had feared (and maybe even hoped), but still, it’s weird and interesting. So Baha’i, here I come!