At Georgetown/OnFaith, Katherine Marshall explores similarities between the “robust yet complex” faith communities of Sant’Egidio and Baha’i:
In both instances, the sense of membership is strong but there’s no signing on the dotted line. Both communities are grounded in faith but see themselves as profoundly part of the larger world, with responsibilities that call them to act on their beliefs, at both local and global levels.
The Community of Sant’Egidio has grown from a small group of high school students to something akin to a federation of locally grounded groups, in some 70 countries. Friendship is a word they use constantly. What they mean by it is a robust type of friendship that is deeply welcoming but not cloying. It encompasses humor, joy in life, and profound caring. Friendship is what draws the community to people who are lonely and excluded, down to living on the street or fleeing from war. They care, and show their caring by the time they spend and the true bond of knowing and appreciating each individual. The community is clearly religious – daily prayer is a central feature – and proudly Catholic. But they are grounded in the earth’s problems and skilled in its very secular politics. One senior cleric said to me: “They are what we would like the Church to be.”
The Baha’i community that Homa describes is a diverse group (with only about 5 million members worldwide) that, in whatever far flung corner, welcomes and supports those who are born into or adopt the faith. Baha’is have no clergy and no formal rituals, so much of this welcome takes place in homes. Once again, this personal quality of caring is something that conveys the sense of a community that transcends boundaries. The Baha’i belief in the oneness of mankind, in the common values among faiths, of true equality of men and women, lends the community a palpable sense of belonging and of mission, one that encompasses both the spiritual and the secular. The Baha’i are among the faith traditions who are most active in international settings, bringing always their belief that human rights are an integral part of their faith. At a time when understandings of what gender equality really means for daily life are rather convoluted in various faith traditions, the Baha’i conviction that equality means equality is striking.
Read the full post here.