Dr. Ervin Laszlo, founder and president of the Club of Budapest, which is, in his own words, “dedicated to the proposition that only by changing ourselves we can change the world—and that to change ourselves we need the kind of insight and perception that art, literature, and the domains of the spirit can best provide,” has stated that “The Bahá’í call for peace comes at a crucial moment in the history of humanity. Peace in the contemporary world is no longer an option but a necessity. All leaders and peoples of the world must come to realize this fact, and achieve the maturity which the Bahá’í Faith foresees for the coming of age of humanity.”

From a Bahá’í perspective, peace is considered an inevitability not just a possibility in the coming of age of humanity. The Universal House of Justice, the international governing council of the Bahá’í Faith and its adherents, issued a statement in commemoration of the United Nations International Year of Peace in 1985 entitled “The Promise of World Peace” addressed to the peoples of the world. As explained by Dr. Peter Kahn, a member of the Universal House of Justice, the statement covers timely topics such as

• The paralyzing contradiction between the desire to bring about world peace and the concept of human nature as being intrinsically sinful, prone to aggression and conflict.
• The stages through which mankind has passed in its evolution towards world unity.
• The true role of religion as a civilizing force through the fostering of both spiritual and material development.
• The failure of materialistic ideologies and the associated decline of religion into fanaticism and a spirit of exclusivity.
• The changes in attitude which religion must today effect as its contribution to peace: the eradication of racism, unbridled nationalism, and religious strife; the promotion of the emancipation of women, universal education, and a universal auxiliary language.
• An outline of the practical steps to be taken to hasten the crowning human achievement of the unification of all the peoples of the world into one great universal family.