Baha'i and Globalisation

In this volume of the RENNER series on new religion, the issue of religion and globalisation is treated with a single religion as the recurring example. The Baha'i religion has been carefully chosen for this context. Few other religions express so clearly in their doctrines the view that the world should be unified, politically and religiously. These globalist views can clearly be traced historically all the way back to the origin of the religion in Iran in the mid-nineteenth century. The Baha'i religion developed with the emerging globalisation in the second half of the nineteenth century, and the Baha'i interaction with the globalised world suggests a general pattern for many religions. Likewise, globalisation presents the Baha'i organisation with new challenges. The book contains a selection of fifteen contributions from an international group of scholars studying the Baha'i religion. In preparing for the symposium that preceded this book, they were all challenged with the task of writing on Baha'i and globalisation, using their different academic backgrounds and their particular expertise in the history and sociology of the Baha'i religion. The outcome of this exercise is the first comprehensive treatment of the Baha'i religion viewed in the light of globalisation.