Baha’is believe that previous efforts to reduce or eliminate the great disparities of wealth and poverty failed because they did not include a strong spiritual component.

Human society requires two major ingredients to enact solutions to its economic problems—not only new laws that regulate and alter gross economic disparities, but also a spiritually-based change in the human consciousness—and conscience—brought about by altruism and love. The Baha’i teachings say that we cannot create an egalitarian, divine civilization by legislation alone—the human heart must change to make it fully possible. We need a truly spiritual solution to our economic problems.

We all know that past attempts to legislate absolute economic equality among all people haven’t worked. Most systems that have used solely legal means to do so are now defunct. The Baha’i teachings say a strictly law-based approach will never serve as a workable solution to the age-old problem of wealth and poverty:

We see amongst us men who are overburdened with riches on the one hand, and on the other those unfortunate ones who starve with nothing; those who possess several stately palaces, and those who have not where to lay their head. Some we find with numerous courses of costly and dainty food; whilst others can scarce find sufficient crusts to keep them alive. Whilst some are clothed in velvets, furs and fine linen, others have insufficient, poor and thin garments with which to protect them from the cold.

This condition of affairs is wrong, and must be remedied. Now the remedy must be carefully undertaken. It cannot be done by bringing to pass absolute equality between men. – Abdu’l-Baha, Paris Talks, p. 152.

Instead, Baha’is believe, some differences in the economic prosperity of people will always exist. Because people have different capacities, talents and abilities, the concept of pure economic equality can never become a reality. Instead, the Baha’i teachings say that the great extremes of wealth and poverty should be both legally regulated and voluntarily remediated—a combined law-based and soul-based “adjustment in the means of livelihood” that will eliminate the extremes of wealth and poverty:

Each one of you must have great consideration for the poor and render them assistance. Organize in an effort to help them and prevent increase of poverty. The greatest means for prevention is that whereby the laws of the community will be so framed and enacted that it will not be possible for a few to be millionaires and many destitute. One of Baha’u’llah’s teachings is the adjustment of means of livelihood in human society. Under this adjustment there can be no extremes in human conditions as regards wealth and sustenance. For the community needs financier, farmer, merchant and laborer just as an army must be composed of commander, officers and privates. All cannot be commanders; all cannot be officers or privates. Each in his station in the social fabric must be competent—each in his function according to ability but with justness of opportunity for all. – Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 216.

The Baha’i teachings do not recommend attempting to artificially equalize all resources or all people—but they do recommend an organized, altruistic effort to eliminate the great extremes on both ends of the economic scale:

Some are too rich, some are too poor, some have millions and some have nothing. An organization is necessary to control this state of affairs. It is necessary to limit riches or it is necessary to limit poverty. Either extreme is wrong. There should be a medium state. If it is right for a capitalist to possess a great fortune, then it is also just that a workman should have means of existence. If poverty is allowed to reach a condition of starvation, it proves that there is a tyranny. Men must see that this does not happen in any case. There must be special laws. The rich must give of their plenty. If they have more than they need they must think of those who are in want.

The government of a country should make laws which conform to the Divine Law. The Law of God exacts that there should be neither excessive wealth nor excessive poverty. – Abdu’l-Baha, Star of the West, Volume 2, p. 6.

In some enlightened nations around the world, these kinds of adjustment efforts have already begun. Taxation policies in many developed countries often prevent the gross accumulation of obscene wealth among the very rich, for example, and government assistance programs often prevent homelessness and starvation for the very poor.

Increasingly in many societies, the extremely wealthy also consciously and voluntarily contribute a significant portion of their wealth toward the efforts of governments and non-profit organizations to alleviate and address poverty:

The essence of the Baha’i spirit is that, in order to establish a better social order and economic condition, there must be allegiance to the laws and principles of government. Under the laws which are to govern the world, the socialists may justly demand human rights but without resort to force and violence. The governments will enact these laws, establishing just legislation and economics in order that all humanity may enjoy a full measure of welfare and privilege; but this will always be according to legal protection and procedure. Without legislative administration, rights and demands fail, and the welfare of the commonwealth cannot be realized … Rightful privilege and demand must be set forth in laws and regulations.

While thousands are considering these questions, we have more essential purposes. The fundamentals of the whole economic condition are divine in nature and are associated with the world of the heart and spirit. This is fully explained in the Baha’i teaching, and without knowledge of its principles no improvement in the economic state can be realized. The Baha’is will bring about this improvement and betterment but not through sedition and appeal to physical force—not through warfare, but welfare. Hearts must be so cemented together, love must become so dominant that the rich shall most willingly extend assistance to the poor and take steps to establish these economic adjustments permanently. If it is accomplished in this way, it will be most praiseworthy because then it will be for the sake of God and in the pathway of His service. For example, it will be as if the rich inhabitants of a city should say, “It is neither just nor lawful that we should possess great wealth while there is abject poverty in this community,” and then willingly give their wealth to the poor, retaining only as much as will enable them to live comfortably. – Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, pp. 238-239.

When was your last broken heart?  Was it over a love lost or concern for a family member’s well-being?  Did you suffer a reversal of fortune?

Consider what happened and how you felt. Most anguish over the setbacks and sufferings of their loved ones.  All may understand and commiserate over another’s pain and suffering.  However, could you be similarly concerned for a person in the perverse position of fearing the loss of something unwholesome or worse – evil?   Robert E. Lee’s December 27, 1856 letter to his wife illustrates such sympathy.  He admits slavery is a “moral and political evil” that enlists his feelings for its victims, but his heart allied with slavery’s perpetrators who feared losing their precious – however improper – prerogatives and property.

…There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil.  …I think it is a greater evil to the white than to the colored race. While my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more deeply engaged for the former. – Robert E. Lee

Robert Lee’s concerns for slave owners illustrates the peculiar predicament of a heart wedded to an admitted evil.   It can’t see.  Perverse desires prevent Salvation.  Christ illuminates the perils of the dynamic beautifully here.

For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes.  Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would convert them. – Matthew 13:15

Lee’s generation of southern slave owners treasured the inequitable advantages of free labor and would not willingly forsake their possessions for anything divine.  Christ calls us to detach our hearts from the things of the earth how much more its evils.  In the excerpt below regarding abolitionists Lee asserts that he would rather fight than eschew the precious advantages procured through slavery and racism.

…this institution, for which they are irresponsible and non-accountable, can only be changed by them through the agency of a civil… war. – Robert E. Lee

Many in America shared Lee’s unholy all-consuming determination to preserve an acknowledged abomination.  This was the heart of the matter and the cause of the war.  The Almighty had for a time allowed the institution, but the Day of Judgement was at hand.  The time had come to remove the veils and sweep away the impediments to justice.

Observe equity in your judgment, ye men of understanding heart! He that is unjust in his judgment is destitute of the characteristics that distinguish man’s station. He Who is the Eternal Truth knoweth well what the breasts of men conceal. His long forbearance hath emboldened His creatures, for not until the appointed time is come will He rend any veil asunder. – Baha’u’llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, p. 204.

Christ had returned in the Glory of the Father.  Baha’u’llah inseminated the earth with the embryonic conscientiousness of the oneness of humanity.  Humanity is insensibly drawn to fulfill God’s will.  The Kingdom of God emerges in fits and starts through crisis and victory inexorably sweeping away inequitable institutions as it reveals a divine order derived from institutions based on justice.

This is the Day in which God’s most excellent favors have been poured out upon men, the Day in which His most mighty grace hath been infused into all created things. …Soon will the present-day order be rolled up, and a new one spread out in its stead. Verily, thy Lord speaketh the truth, and is the Knower of things unseen.. – Baha’u’llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, p. 6-7.

Being diametrically opposed to the Spirit of the Age, Baha’u’llah abolished slavery.  God Almighty condemns all outlooks and every institution that veils the Holy Spirit from taking its rightful home – the human heart.

ALAS! ALAS! O LOVERS OF WORLDLY DESIRE!  …Ye bow the knee before your vain imagining and call it truth.  Ye have cast to the winds the loving counsels of the Beloved and have effaced them utterly from the tablet of your hearts, and even as the beasts of the field, ye move and have your being within the pastures of desire and passion. – Baha’u’llah, The Hidden Words of Baha’u’llah, p. 38.

This contest for the hearts of men was the battle for the soul of a nation.  On the one hand were the entrenched interests of slaveholding elite and their beneficiaries on the other the detached hearts illumined by the resuscitating influence of Christ Returned in the Glory of God.

Many expected the Advent would instantly remake the world.  However, from time immemorial God’s Manifestations transform earth by changing hearts.  Manifestations convert “satanic energy into heavenly power” through their speech and writings.  The Word of God inspires everyone even those who have no direct intercourse with the Manifestation of God on earth.  Baha’u’llah explains the process here:

Say: If it be Our pleasure We shall render the Cause victorious through the power of a single word from Our presence. He is in truth the Omnipotent, the All-Compelling.  However, since Our loving providence surpasseth all things, We have ordained that complete victory should be achieved through speech and utterance, that Our servants throughout the earth may thereby become the recipients of divine good. – Baha’u’llah, Tablets of Baha’u’llah, pp. 197-198.

Abraham Lincoln exemplifies the Spirit of the Age enabling a soul to effectively confront and ultimate overcome slavery.  Consider this first-hand account of the conversion of one of Mr. Lincoln’s hard-hearted critics who attended Lincoln’s Cooper Union Address on February 27, 1860.  .

He was tall… so angular and awkward that I had for an instant, a feeling of pity for so ungainly a man.  His clothes were ill fitting, badly wrinkled… …I said to myself” ‘Old fellow, you won’t do; it’s all very well for the Wild West, but this will never go down in New York.’  But pretty soon he began to get into his subject; he straightened up, made regular and graceful gestures; his face lighted as with an inward fire; the whole man was transfigured.  I forgot his clothes, his personal appearance, and his individual peculiarities.  Presently on my feet with the rest, yelling… cheering this wonderful man.  When I came out of the hall my face glowing with excitement and my frame all a-quiver, a friend, with his eye aglow asked me what I thought of Abe Lincoln, the rail spliter.  I said, He’s the greatest man since St. Paul. – Noah Brooks, Abraham Lincoln the Downfall of American Slavery, pp. 186-187

The Cooper Union address struck a chord that propelled Lincoln to prominence.  See below the sum and substance of the 7000-word address which spoke to both sides according to their heart’s understanding and attachment to the issue of slavery.

Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it. – Abraham Lincoln, Cooper Union Address, New York, New York
February 27, 1860

In the next article we assess the impact of Lincoln’s assent and the American response to the Day of Judgment.