One for all

Alex Coolman

For a long time, Jim Vinzant was unsure which religion was right for him.

He tried being a Presbyterian, a Mormon, a Baptist, restlessly shifting

from one faith to the next.

None of these options felt like a good fit to him.

But every time he gave up on one group and joined another, he noticed

something: The members of each new religion were convinced that Vinzant,

by coming into their fold, had finally found the true path.”They all just

said, ‘Thank God, you’re here, because if you’d have stayed over there

you’d have been lost forever,”’ Vinzant recalled.

The experience left an impression on the Costa Mesa resident that

eventually led to his joining the Bahai faith, a religion with about 5

million members worldwide. Their core ideas are the unity of God, the

unity of all prophets and the unity of humanity. To Vinzant, the Bahai

approach seemed to recognize the crucial links between the various creeds

he had considered, joining them together in a single, humane vision.

“It was exactly the way I’ve been living my whole life,” Vinzant said.

“The Bahai faith includes all religious groups and all people who believe

in God, and even the ones who don’t.”

He was introduced to the experience of the Bahais through a Friday

evening “fireside” meeting at the home of Masoud and Fariba Roshan, a

Corona del Mar couple who have held the meetings in their living room for

almost 20 years.The Roshans have never failed to open their home to the

community in all that time. Every Friday evening, even if they are out of

town, their home is open, dinner is available for those who attend the

meeting, and a speaker gives talks informally to the group.”Fireside”

meetings -- which may or may not involve an actual fireplace blaze -- are

a traditional form of meeting for the Bahais. The faith was developed in

Iran in the 19th century by a prophet Bahais call Baha’u’llah, which

means “the glory of God,” who was imprisoned and exiled for much of his

life. He died in 1892.

Baha’u’llah, also known as Baha Allah, taught that all historical

prophets -- from Jesus to Buddha and Muhammad -- were messengers of an

essentially unified divinity. Moreover, he said, all peoples of the world

were spiritually united, despite the divisions of language and

nationality that seemed to separate them.

The warmth and informality of the Bahai fireside sessions seek to enact,

through hospitality and community, a microcosm of the world the Bahais

believe should be created -- a world of greater unity and cooperation,

with less emphasis given to the sources of strife.

About 20 people gathered on a recent Friday

at the Roshans’ home to eat dinner, socialize and hear Howard Tangler, a

semiretired San Clemente resident and Bahai organizer, describe his

feelings about the faith.

Tangler, in a comparison that many Bahais make, likened the Earth to a

sort of space ship traveling through the universe. He emphasized the

importance of understanding “the insignificance of humans in the bigger

scheme.”

Given that humans constitute such a small piece of the universe, Tangler

contended, it is ridiculous for them to exert so much energy in

quarreling with each other.

In articulating the Bahai’s alternative vision of society, Tangler told

an anecdote about electing the spiritual advisory council for the San

Clemente Bahai group. The nine-member board consists of members who were

raised Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Hindu and Jewish -- and other faiths

-- but who have all decided to embrace the broad vision articulated by

Baha’u’llah.

“In most parts of the world,” Tangler said, “you couldn’t get all those

people to go into a room and get them to come out alive again.”

Not everyone listening to Tangler’s comments was in perfect agreement

with the sentiments he expressed.

Costa Mesa resident Bill Johnson, who described himself as “basically an

Ayn Rand-based atheist,” had come to the Bahai meeting at the suggestion

of his co-worker, Jon Flavor of Tustin.

Johnson said he wasn’t thrilled about the idea of God, but he was

interested in the Bahai approach to science, which views the worlds of

faith and reason as fundamentally compatible and complementary.

For Johnson, who believes that “if there was such a thing as God, it

would be truth and freedom,” this take on rationality seemed like a

remarkably reasonable position.

The tenet is one that attracted Vinzant as well.

“When science and religion do not mesh and support each other, the

religion becomes superstition and the science becomes magic,” Vinzant

said.

But Vinzant does not fundamentally doubt the existence of a divinity, as

Johnson does.

During his presentation on the Bahai faith, Tangler asked the group

assembled if it was OK to take for granted the notion that some kind of

being “that, for convenience, we call God,” existed.

Johnson, alone among those assembled, raised his hand to object to the

supposition.

But Tangler’s response was very Bahai in its moderation.

“Well,” he said. “That’s OK. That’s fine. But in the Bahai faith, we do

think there’s a God.”

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FYI

Here is more information on Bahai meetings held in our area each month,

coordinated by Jim Vinzant:

* Second and fourth Sunday in Costa Mesa’s TeWinkle park

* Friday nights at Masoud and Fariba Roshan’s Corona del Mar home, (949)

759-0999

* First and third Saturday at Vinzant’s home, (949) 650-3960

* The Rassekh family of Corona del Mar also hosts Bahai firesides, (949)

760-5360