Many would be hard pressed to fill a book drawing parallels between two Founders of world religions, let alone seven. Harold Rosen of Abbotsford, British Columbia, however, has compiled research for seven distinct world faiths that identifies their similarities, history and their unity and shared purpose.
Mr. Rosen’s latest book, Founders of Faith: The Parallel Lives of God’s Messengers, counters the frequent portrayal of world religions as incompatible. On the contrary, Mr. Rosen shows that the Founders of diverse faiths have collaborated to fulfill a common purpose: addressing the needs of humanity and collectively enlightening the world.
The idea of writing such a book may seem daunting. No need to detail the conflicts that plague the world in religion’s name, all of which could make anyone who proclaims fundamental religious harmony uncomfortable, if not appear to be naive. Nevertheless, Founders of Faith explores no less than 25 parallels or patterns consistent with the Founders’ lives and messages, including their overcoming powerful opposition, initial rejection by the people, transformative teaching, and sacrificial suffering, to name a few. The work of finding the common threads that weave together the rich tapestries of religious culture and history has been a passion of Mr. Rosen since his youth.
“Unity in diversity had been a sacred formula for me since my mid-twenties,” said Mr. Rosen on the fundamental theme of Founders of Faith.
To illustrate the unity between diverse faiths, Mr. Rosen chose the religions of Moses, Zoroaster, Krishna, Buddha, Christ, Muhammad and Bahá’u’lláh. When asked why he chose these particular seven out of the many influential leaders who have started spiritual movements, Mr. Rosen explained the reason as both a pragmatic matter of having available facts of their lives and teachings, as well as the influence they had on the societies transformed by their teachings.
“They renewed declining religions and civilizations, and they generated new religions and civilizations,” said Mr. Rosen.
“They were primary revealers offering humanity direct Divine guidance. They directly reflected Divine light and so they made much larger contributions than sages, reformers, seers, mystics and gurus.”
Despite the 25 parallels, Mr. Rosen is realistic when acknowledging the apparent rifts between different religions’ adherents. His book cites the cause of religious conflicts, not to the Founders’ teachings, but a result of a religion’s natural decline and need for renewal, helped along by leaders who fear loss of influence and who struggle to keep their relevance and authority.
“Religious civilizations, in their latter stages, become implicated in corruption, divisiveness and injustices, and they can actually promote vices more than virtues. Therefore God, in His compassion for humanity, offers new revelations with the power to generate new and more united and advanced civilizations,” said Mr. Rosen.
“I tried to show that religious and civic leaders have caused disunity, while the Founders offered greater unity under a wider and more progressive message.”
Mr. Rosen’s life experiences leading up to authoring Founders of Faith gave him plenty of practice in discerning common elements of religion. Born to a Jewish father from New York and a Catholic mother of Spanish background, Mr. Rosen was raised bridging the beliefs and cultures of two faiths, and his experiences with religions and spiritual exploration grew over time. In university, Mr. Rosen obtained master’s degrees in Philosophy, Divinity, and Education. The summer of 1974 saw him serving in a kibbutz alongside Jewish, Christian, and Muslim believers. Soon after, he was ordained a minister in the Unitarian Universalist church, a position in which he served for 25 years for congregations in California, Idaho, and West Vancouver.
In the year 2000, Mr. Rosen made what he calls a “transition” from being a Unitarian to a Baha’i – a transition that took him 10 years, playfully described by him as more gradual than a dramatic Paul-on-the-road-to-Damascus experience.
“After about 5 years I started to do more appreciating than questioning. I was ever more deeply impressed with the Baha’i Faith’s global relevance, its spiritual depths, its poetic heights, its ethical application, its institutional sophistication, its intellectual power to connect the dots of religious and philosophical quandaries, as well as its virtuous and diverse membership,” said Mr. Rosen.
“Through the Baha’i Writings I re-discovered Divine Revelation.”
In Mr. Rosen’s case, the decision to be a part of the Baha’i community resulted in a significant change: a career shift. No longer being a minister meant turning to existing skills and experience to establish a new vocation as an interfaith educator, writer, and diplomat.
On the interfaith scene, believers of different faiths come together in a spirit of education and concord, collaborating at conferences and humanitarian projects. By becoming an interfaith educator, Mr. Rosen’s work has been focused on designing, researching, and teaching world religion and history courses. Through the years, he has seen the number of interfaith participants growing. The growth in numbers has also reflected a growth in the diversity of religions being represented, though not necessarily in unity. Founders of Faith attempts to advance the bond of unity by pointing out the fundamental principals and foundations shared by the world religions covered.
“My own strategy through Founders of Faith and its related courses has been educational,” said Mr. Rosen.
Writing about seven world religions while affirming religion’s relevance in a society that increasingly questions the value of faith is a bold step, but Mr. Rosen says that a key to understanding the nature of how society responds to religion lies in understanding two man-made barriers.
“To me it seems like there are two major obstacles to accepting religion in the West: the evil done in the name of religion, and the prevailing worldview of secular materialism. These seem to be intimately related because the decline and corruption of religions was a strong contributing factor to the growing preference for mechanistic and atheistic views in Euro-North-American societies,” said Mr. Rosen.
“But Baha’is can help explain that religion in its pure beginnings is a unifying, moralizing and civilizing force and a new revelation is now bringing light and unity into our world… I hope to do my part in elevating the discourse on these matters.”
Harold Rosen’s Founders of Faith: The Parallel Lives of God’s Messengers can be found at amazon.ca, Barnes & Noble, and the Canadian Baha’i Distribution Service. Mr. Rosen is currently researching and writing his next book concerning the interdependence of faith and civilization.