Feelings Within the UK Bahá’í Faith About the Potential Contribution of Their Faith to the Unity of Humankind

This paper is an investigation conducted with members of the Bahá’í Faith (BF) community in the UK. The contributor is not a Bahá’í but has researched Bahá’í literature and practice over the past 8 years and has close links with regional and national Bahá’ís. This conference presents an opportunity to ask specific questions about faith, feeling and identity as seen through Bahá’í eyes. The Bahá’í Faith is small but worldwide and internationalist in theology, with central beliefs of the unity of human kind and the importance of developmental agendas which nurture global peace and prosperity through unity. The Bahá’í community locally nationally and internationally is typically multi-ethnic and lives out the theology of unity in diversity. The theology of the unity of spiritual revelation gives multi-faith dialogue a high profile in Bahá’í activities. Faith, feeling and identity will be used as three analytical themes to interrogate the responses using grounded theory as the analytical technique. This will interrogate Bahá’í practical theology from the standpoint of the individual worshippers’ feelings about the potential contribution of their faith. The views in this paper are based on the responses of Bahá’ís to a structured questionnaire.