“Refuse to set up once again a sect similar to that of the Shi’ihs.” –Baha’u’llah
(Cited in 2002 by “Giangiacomo” <janji@aruba.it>)
From: “Juan R. Cole” <jrcole@u…>
Date: Wed Apr 9, 2003 1:47 pm
Subject: a Baha’i Vatican II is needed
yeah, yeah, yeah. Ultramontane Catholic priests used to make the same arguments, before Vatican II, that Jesus Christ does not permit any change to what he set forth in his writings.
I am not arguing for a change in Baha’i doctrine or law in the sense of Baha’u’llah’s vision of those things. I am arguing for a change in contemporary Baha’i procedures and fundamentalist mindset, which have nothing to do with Baha’u’llah. The reactionaries in any religion always substitute their hidebound misinterpretation of the religion for the real thing, and then claim it is the real thing, and then claim that no one can change it because it is the real thing. The whole bit is a shell game for suckers.
As for the argument that only the Universal House of Justice can change current procedure, and only by cozying up to them and convincing them nicely could you hope to influence them, the same thing could have been said of the popes. It is a silly argument, because the popes had a dictatorial attitude and most of them couldn’t be influenced by niceness or criticism. They ruthlessly silenced or excommunicated anyone who spoke for a Catholic modernism.
What the example of those brave Catholic thinkers shows is that even a highly authoritarian institution can be changed, and it can be changed by *criticism* and by *new thinking*. The tyrants on the current UHJ won’t be there forever, and their ability to clone themselves forever is never secure. And, if a majority of Baha’is begins to know that they are by their actions contradicting explicit Baha’i law, they will eventually be shamed into backing off their indecency.
For example: `Abdul-Baha was implored by the hardline Baha’is of his day (what Shoghi Effendi later called the dangerous “extreme orthodox”) to declare Mirza Muhammad `Ali and his group infidels, i.e. “not Baha’is.”
`Abdul-Baha replied that he could not do this because in the Baha’i faith, unlike in Islam, there was to be no expulsion of believers for immorality or wrong beliefs. If someone says he or she is a Baha’i, the Baha’is are stuck with them. The most you could do to someone disapproved by Baha’i authorities is to not hang out with them. But you can’t say “so and so isn’t really a Baha’i because he believes X.”
This is the Baha’i Supreme Exemplar speaking, the appointed Interpreter of the Baha’i scriptures. `Abdul-Bahaexplicitly said that *He Himself* could not declare the Mirza Muhammad `Ali people “not Baha’is” because it would be contrary to Baha’i principle (see the Kitab-i Aqdas).
The present so-called Universal House of Justice, in contrast, declared our dear Alison “not a Baha’i.” They issued a fatwa of takfir against her, [BOLD ADDED] declaring her an infidel, i.e., a non-believer. They broke Baha’i law in so doing. When they were challenged on this by Ron House, they wrote back that individual Baha’is couldn’t declare people non-Baha’is, but that the UHJ had that prerogative. They have a prerogative that *`Abdul-Baha* did not? They think they are better than He is? That they have powers *He* did not have? That they can contradict his explicit instructions in an adhoc and arbitrary manner, *at will*? And then it is pretended that they are upholding the *real* Baha’i faith, which no one can change! If you believe that, well, P.T. Barnum said a sucker was born every minute.
This is what Vatican II says:
“The Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. Freedom of this kind means that all men should be immune from coercion on the part of individuals, social groups and every human power so that, within due limits, nobody is forced to act against his conscience in religious matters, nor impeded from acting in accordance with it, in private or in public, alone or in association with others. The Council further declares that the right to religious freedom is based on the very dignity of the human person as known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself.”
This is what one commentator wrote about the situation before Vatican II:
“Both Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos (1832)2 and Pius IX in Quanta Cura (1864)3
condemned the demand for “liberty of conscience” as “insanity” (deliramentum). The latter pontiff also condemned, in the Syllabus accompanying Quanta Cura, the proposition that, “In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship.” His successor Leo XIII insisted that “lying opinions . . . should be diligently repressed by public authority, lest they insidiously work the ruin of the State.” “
This is the sort of situation the Baha’is are in now, the situation of Pius IX and Leo XIII. “Lying opinions” according to the Haifa authorities should not be tolerated. Hushmand Fatheazam, a UHJ member, told me that in future when Baha’is control the government, they would just jail [BOLD ADDED] dissidents. What is the difference between that point of view and the ideas of the 19th century popes, or indeed, of present-day Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Jurisprudent?
In contrast, the Baha’i scriptures stand for freedom of conscience and freedom of expression, *even within the Baha’i Faith*. This freedom has been quashed by the Saddam Husseins in Haifa, and the reign of tyranny everywhere is now coming to an end.
cheers Juan
http://www.fglaysher.com/bahaicensorship/Cole2003.htm
Baha'i Faith - Is it a Universal Religion ? 