Dr. A. K. Merchant*
Recent reports of the setting of the hypothetical “Doomsday Clock” to 85 seconds to midnight, have triggered a variety of responses from journalists and geopolitical commentators. A perceptive academic wrote: “Even the Arctic—once imagined as a distant expanse of ice and scientific cooperation—is becoming militarized. The Middle East negotiates under threat. The Taiwan Strait simmers. East Asia hardens its posture. South Asia remains brittle. This how volatility accumulates—not through one dramatic event, but through layered tensions that narrow diplomatic space…We are living in a moment when confrontation increasingly feels normal.” There are prophetic statements in the Scriptures of the major religious systems of the “latter days”, “end of time”, “catastrophe”, Armageddon, and the like. The Writings of the Bahá’i Faith offer profound insights and view the march of civilization, as we know it, in the context of crises and victories involving the three protagonists—individuals, communities, and institutions–that constitute society. Bahá’í interpretation treats apocalyptic imagery (tribulation, the Day of Judgment, cosmic signs) as symbolic of spiritual and social processes rather than a single terminal catastrophe. Warnings of calamity are understood as part of the Major Plan’s purifying and motivating role: they can precipitate change, but they are not the final aim—the ultimate aim is the establishment of justice and unity.
“O ye peoples of the world!”, Founder of the Bahá’i Faith, warned humanity, more than one-and-half century ago: “Know, verily, that an unforeseen calamity followeth you, and grievous retribution awaiteth you… All your doings hath My pen graven with open characters upon tablets of chrysolite.” “The world is in travail, and its agitation waxeth day by day. Its face is turned towards waywardness and unbelief. Such shall be its plight, that to disclose it now would not be meet and seemly. Its perversity will long continue. And when the appointed hour is come, there shall suddenly appear that which shall cause the limbs of mankind to quake. Then, and only then, will the Divine Standard be unfurled, and the Nightingale of Paradise warble its melody….” Interpreting these and other texts, Shoghi Effendi, authorized interpreter of Bahá’i Sacred Texts, further elucidated the above theme vide his book length letters titled The Unfoldment of World Civilization and The Promised Day is Come wherein he makes the following two prophetic statements: “Adversities unimaginably appalling, undreamed of crises and upheavals, war, famine, and pestilence, might well combine to engrave in the soul of an unheeding generation those truths and principles which it disdained to recognize and follow. A paralysis more painful than any it has yet experienced must creep over further afflict the fabric of a broken society ere it can be rebuilt and regenerated.” Five years later he once more reiterated: “Adversity, prolonged, world-wide, afflictive, allied to chaos and universal destruction, must needs convulse the nations, stir the conscience of the world, disillusion the masses, precipitate a radical change in the very conception of society, and coalesce ultimately the disjointed, the bleeding limbs of mankind into one body, single, organically united, and indivisible.”
Bahá’ís are mindful of the framework of the two complementary movements that are shaping the future of humankind. The Major Plan of God, as stated refers to the large‑scale, providential forces by which God’s purpose is advanced—these can include upheavals, the collapse of old orders, and events that “disintegrate” existing structures to make way for the establishment of a new global order. Bahá’ís understand these as alternating cycles of integration and disintegration that would ultimately lead toward a world commonwealth and spiritual unity. The Universal House of Justice and Bahá’í authors who have shared their personal insights have written that God’s Major Plan may use “both the mighty and the lowly as pawns” in bringing about world‑shaping changes. This parallels with the Minor Plan which has to do with the spiritual regeneration of humanity to be largely carried out through the collective services of believers: teaching, institution‑building, social action, and moral transformation that concretely implements the vision of unity in diversity. Bahá’ís are urged to concentrate on constructive service—forming communities, schools, and consultative institutions—because these efforts are the practical expression of the Minor Plan and the means by which the promises implicit in prophetic language are to be realized.
Therefore, from time to time the Universal House of Justice, supreme governing council of the Bahá’i Faith, reminds the Bahá’ís and urges them to stay focused on actions for the betterment of society rather than speculation namely preparing communities and institutions to instill hope through the core activities over predicting dates or being overly concerned about specific disasters. Because interpreting Major Plan events as license for fatalism or panic undermines the Minor Plan’s call to service. All are urged to channel their energies into community building, education, and service, which the Bahá’í writings present as the response of the faithful to prophetic warnings.
Yet the grave dangers as announced by the Doomsday Clock Statement should not be ignored: “Hard-won global understandings are collapsing, accelerating a winner-takes-all great power competition and undermining the international cooperation critical to reducing the risks of nuclear war, climate change, the misuse of biotechnology, the potential threat of artificial intelligence, and other apocalyptic dangers.”
Humanity is not lacking in creativity, positive initiative. or even resources, millions of people of goodwill are contributing to halting and reversing the destructive tendencies, remaining ever hopeful galvanized by a vision of prosperity in the fullest sense of the term—an awakening to the possibilities of the spiritual and material well-being of all the planet’s inhabitants. As the world we know passes away and a new one struggles to be born Bahá’ís, some eight-million-strong, stand together in shaping humankind’s collective destiny, greatly energized by the most recent guidance from the Universal House of Justice, by words such as these: “Looking back over one’s life, there can be no greater joy and comfort than to know that it was spent in acute awareness of the divine remedy, that no effort was spared to proffer that remedy to receptive souls, and that during those fleeting years when opportunity was at hand, even in the midst of difficulties, every chance was seized to respond to humanity’s intense need…”
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*The writer is a social worker, independent researcher, & member of the Bahá’i community of India. Views expressed are personal.
