Intro to Reform Bahai Faith, Troy Interfaith Group

Introduction to Reform Bahai Faith, Troy Interfaith Group - March 5, 2012



http://youtu.be/jH1SHXqq6AU

NOTE: The speaker misspoke in terms of the date in which Dr. C. Ainsworth Mitchell judged the purported will and testament of Abdul-Baha fraudulent. The correct date was in 1929. Dr. C. (Charles) Ainsworth Mitchell's "Report on the Writing Shown on the Photographs of the Alleged Will of Abdul-Baha," may be found at the following link: http://www.reformbahai.org/CAMitchell_Report.html

Introduction to the Reform Bahai Faith. Delivered at the Troy Interfaith Group on March 5, 2012.

"To be a Bahai simply means to love all the world; to love humanity and try to serve it;
to work for universal peace and universal brotherhood." --Abdul-Baha

"O people of the world, ye are all the fruit of one tree, and the leaves of one branch." --Baha'u'llah

"Consort ye, O people, with the followers of all religions with joy and fragrance." --Baha'u'llah

"'Glory is not his who loves his native land; but glory is his who loves his kind.' By these exalted Words He taught the birds of souls a new flight and effaced restriction and blind imitation from the Book." --Abdul-Baha quoting Baha'u'llah

"The Bahai Movement is not an organization. You cannot organize the Bahai Movement. The Bahai Movement is the spirit of the age. It is the essence of all the highest ideals of this century. The Bahai Cause is an inclusive movement. The teachings of all religions and societies are found here." --Abdul-Baha

"This movement is not an organization—it is the realization of a new spirit. The foundation of that spirit is the love of God; and its method, the love and service of mankind. Many who have never heard of this revelation teach its laws and spiritual truths." --Abdul-Baha

"It is the wish of Abdul-Baha that the friends may establish general unity and not a particular meeting of unity. You must have great consideration for this fact, for during the past cycles though such events (founding of particular, i. e., exclusive unity meetings) were, in the beginning, a means for harmony, they became in the end the cause of trouble." --Abdul-Baha

"There are no officers in this Cause. I do not and have not 'Appointed' anyone to perform any special service, but I encourage everyone to engage in the service of the Kingdom. The foundation of this Cause is pure spiritual democracy and not a theocracy." --Abdul-Baha

"People think religion is confined in an edifice, to be worshiped at an altar. In reality it is an attitude toward divinity which is reflected through life." --Abdul-Baha

"You can be a Bahai-Christian, a Bahai-Freemason, a Bahai-Jew, a Bahai-Muhammadan." --Abdul-Baha

"These are effectual and sufficient proofs that the conscience of man is sacred and to be respected; and that liberty thereof produces widening of ideas, amendment of morals, improvement of conduct, disclosure of the secrets of creation, and manifestation of the hidden verities of the contingent world." --Abdul-Baha

1893, "Treatise on Leadership," Abdul-Baha. Separation of church and state.
1912, "Address Upon the Covenant," Abdul-Baha. Facsimile at http://reformbahai.org/Covenant.html

Early Reform Bahais:

Ruth White, author of several books. Mirza Ahmad Sohrab, Abdul-Baha's secretary for eight years, author of several books.
Julia Chandler, Bahai from a prominent American family.
Jenabe Fazel Mazandarani, Bahai scholar on universal religion.
Dr. C. Ainsworth Mitchell, in 1929, a British Museum document expert, judges the will and testament of 1921 fraudulent.

Reform Bahai Faith
Rochester, MI 48308-1842 USA
http://www.ReformBahai.org

Troy Interfaith Group - March 5, 2012 Introduction to Reform Bahai Faith

Troy Interfaith Group - March 5, 2012 Introduction to Reform Bahai Faith

Friends,

Many of you know that members of the Reform Bahai Faith in Michigan have been participating for a couple of years in the monthly meetings of the local Troy Interfaith Group, at Christian Protestant and Catholic Churches, Mosques, Gurdwara, Hindu Temple, and Unitarian Universalist Churches, among others.

Frederick Glaysher, a member of the Reform Bahai Faith in Rochester, Michigan, will be the featured speaker on the Reform Bahai Faith at the Troy Interfaith Group on March 5, 2012, 7:00 to 8:30 PM, held at 

Northminster Presbyterian Church
3633 W. Big Beaver Road (Second church just east of Adams Road)
Troy Michigan 48084
http://www.troyinterfaithgroup.org/

Mr. Glaysher has been a member of the Reform Bahai Faith since 1976 and is the editor of The Universal Principles of the Reform Bahai Faith, available through the Reform Bahai Press http://reformbahai.org/Reform_Bahai_Press.html and other online book sellers. He holds two degrees from the University of Michigan, with course work in religious studies and has taught world religions at the college level. His personal website and info may be found at http://fglaysher.com/about.html

Mark your calendar! Hope you can make it!

The Reform Bahai Faith Forum

A new Bahai discussion forum, the Reform Bahai Faith Forum!

Reform Bahai Faith Forum
http://reformbahai.org/forum/

"To be a Bahai simply means to love all the world; to love humanity and try to serve it; to work for universal peace and universal brotherhood." -- Abdu'l-Baha

The Reform Bahai Faith affirms the universal spiritual and moral principles taught in all of the great religious traditions. Similar to Mahayana Buddhism and the Buddha's Example of compassion, Reform Bahais believe the Example set by Abdul-Baha during his travels to Europe and the United States in the early 20th century, an Example of universal love and brotherhood, was perhaps his greatest Teaching. As Abdul-Baha often suggested, far from having the exclusive truth and the fanaticism to which that notion has so often led, Reform Bahais look to what is universal in the world's religious experience, and include prayers and meditations from other religions in their private and community worship, listen to and learn from God's other religions.

The Reform Bahai Faith, known during Abdul-Baha's time as the Bahai Movement or Cause, is not an organization, but a way of life.

The Reform Bahai Faith is an independent denomination that reforms Baha'u'llah's Dispensation and offers humanity His Teachings in the universal Interpretation of Abdul-Baha. Reform Bahais follow Abdul-Baha's 1912 Authentic Covenant: http://www.reformbahai.org/Covenant.html

See the Reform Bahai Faith website for further details: http://www.reformbahai.org

NECESSARY POLICY:

This Bahai discussion forum is for members of the Reform Bahai Faith and people of *goodwill* interested in exploring Reform Bahai or just curious. The Reform Bahai Faith Forum is closed to members of the Wilmette-Haifan Baha'i Faith. Members of other Baha'i denominations are welcome. Acceptance of this Registration Agreement constitutes that you are not a member of the Baha'i denomination located in Haifa, Israel.

Disrespecting and denouncing other Bahais as "covenant breakers," essentially the Shiite practice of "takfir," violates the civil rights of the individual as well as the teachings of Baha'u'llah and Abdul-Baha. It will not be allowed or tolerated in this Forum. For details see the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against the Baha'is of Wilmette, Illinois, November 23, 2010: http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/fdocs/docs.fwx?caseno=08-2306&submit=showdkt&yr=08&num=2306

Universal Religion, Brotherhood, and Peace

A Sketch of the History and Teachings of the Bahai Movement

The object of the Bahai Movement is the establishment of universal religion, which will be the foundation of interreligious, interracial, and international brotherhood and peace. It offers to mankind a practical basis of unity, one which is in direct line with the great world needs of our time. It is paving the way for the great universal civilization which will evolve as people of all religions, races, and nations unite both spiritually and materially into one world order.

The Bab (The Gate)
This movement began in Persia in 1844, with the rise of a teacher known as the Bab, a John-the-Baptist figure, who proclaimed the coming of a greater teacher whose mission would be that of establishing universal religion, the brotherhood of man, and universal peace. The Bab, a reformer within Islam, was but the forerunner or herald of this greater teacher who was to come, and to this Promised One and to His cause the Bab and thousands of his followers testified by suffering martyrdom inflicted upon them by Muslims under the charge of heresy.

Baha’u’llah (The Glory of God)
Shortly after the martyrdom of the Bab, the great teacher and world reformer who was promised appeared in the person of Baha’u’llah (1863), from whom the movement now takes its name. His mission lasted forty years, during which time he was subjected to all manner of imprisonment and suffering at the hands of Oriental despots, because of his teaching, which brought freedom of thought and enlightenment to all people who heard it. Baha’u’llah was sent in exile as a prisoner from Iran to Baghdad, to Adrianople at the southern edge of Europe, and then eventually incarcerated in the Turkish penal colony of Akka, Syria, where, after having given His great teaching of universality to humanity, He passed naturally from this world in the year 1892.

Abdul-Baha (Servant of the Glory)
Abdul-Baha, the son of Baha’u’llah, was the one chosen by his father to further establish this great movement and to explain and demonstrate it before the world. He was constantly at his father's side during the exile and imprisonment of the latter, and was in every way Baha’u’llah’s chief disciple. For forty years Abdul-Baha was a prisoner in the fortress of Akka, held there by the Sultan of Turkey for no other reason than that his teaching was bringing enlightenment and freedom of thought to all who came within the radius of its power. With the fall of the old despotic regime of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the present constitutional rule, which occurred in the summer of 1908, he was liberated from prison. During the summer and fall of 1911, he visited England and France, where he spent some months in teaching his Interpretation of Baha'u'llah's Teachings for the modern world. From there he traveled to the United States, speaking across the country to early American Bahais and others from New York to Chicago, Iowa and San Francisco, and elsewhere, addressing people in churches, lecture halls, and universities. Abdul-Baha wished to be known as the servant of humanity. He sought no higher station. As the “Master” of Baha’u’llah’s Teachings, he set the Example of self-sacrificing love, compassion, and service to humankind that Bahais strive to emulate.

Abdul-Baha continued to pray at a mosque until the end of his life, even as he continued to teach and spread the knowledge of the universal teachings of Baha'u'llah and Bahai communities grew and developed in both the East and West. Reform Bahais believe it's a matter of individual conscience whether and how someone continues to worship with the traditional religious community of one's heritage. As recorded in Abdul-Baha in London, it is up to the individual to define his or her relationship to the Bahai Cause: "You can be a Bahai-Christian, a Bahai-Freemason, a Bahai-Jew, a Bahai-Muhammadan. The number nine contains eight, and seven, and all the other numbers, and does not deny any of them. Do not distress or deny anyone by saying 'He is not a Bahai!' He will be known by his deeds" (98).

Bahai Teachings
The Bahai philosophy is simplicity itself. It is expressed in this short quotation from Baha’u’llah’s writings, “The root of all knowledge is the knowledge of God.” Each of the world’s great spiritual teachers has taught the same eternal Truth, revealing it in the measure and in terms applicable to the people of his time. This truth has ever been the mainspring and source of human advancement and civilization.

Relation of the Bahai Movement to the Religions of the Past
The people of each religion look for the coming of a prophet or teacher who will fulfill the hopes of their own teaching and establish the truth in the world. The Christians look for the coming of the Christ (spirit), and the establishment of Christ's Kingdom ; the Jews await the coming of their Messiah and God's Kingdom on earth; the Muslims believe that the Mahdi will come and prepare the way for the coming of the Lord and the Kingdom; the Zoroastrians have prophecies relating to the coming of Shah Bahram; the Hindus believe that the divine spirit Krishna will speak again to the world for the enlightenment of the people; and the Buddhists look for the coming of the great Fifth Buddha or Maitreya, whose mission will be that of bringing a general worldwide spiritual enlightenment.

Bahais believe that all the prophecies of all traditions have been fulfilled in the appearance of Baha’u’llah. His universal Teachings offer the spiritual and practical solutions for both the individual and the global problems of today. The Bahai teachings confirm all religious teachings which have gone before, and offer a practical philosophy which meets the present day spiritual needs of humanity, free from the exclusivism, triumphalism, and fanaticsim of past Dispensations.

Baha’u’llah wrote many books and epistles, in which He demonstrates the oneness of the spirit of all of the former religious teachings; also treating of the present teaching in its relations to the religions of the past. Many of these writings were in reply to special questions asked by men of learning and were therefore written from various points of thought, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, etc. The writings and example of Abdul-Baha are explanatory and interpretative of the teachings of Baha’u’llah, bringing them into the modern, democratic, pluralistic realm of the twentieth century, until his passing in 1921, and laying the foundation for a spiritual vision beyond even his own Islamic heritage, as well as that of the other religions, looking towards what is held in commond, truly universal, the transcendent heritage and oneness of humanity.

Social Reforms, Laws and Ordinances
In addition to the purely spiritual teachings of Baha’u’llah, He ordered certain changes in the manners and customs of people, through the observance of which the world in general will be helped both
materially and spiritually. He advises the Bahais to be tolerant, and in no way to separate themselves from other people, nor denounce those of other beliefs. All men are free to believe as they wish, but all are exhorted to unite in faith and to lay aside the prejudices and superstitions of past ages. Warfare should be abolished and international questions settled by arbitration, consultation, and negotiation. A universal language is favored as a means of bringing people together in unity. Legislation should be representative. The Bahais should be peaceful and law-abiding citizens. Their thought should be humanitarian before all else. Faith without works is not acceptable. One's worship should be supplemented by a pure and useful life in the world. Men and women should marry. Asceticism is discouraged. Monogamy is taught. Harshness and hatred are to be overcome by gentleness and love. Man should not use intoxicants as a beverage. Opium and kindred drug habits are denounced, as is also gambling.

The practical affairs of the Bahai movement are conducted by assemblies of consultation, composed of nine democratically elected members. Eventually there will be a general assembly of consultation composed of representatives from all parts of the world. This, when properly elected, will be known as “The Universal House of Justice.”
Adapted from Charles Mason Remey, 1912. (PDF or Print)

See About Baha'u'llah for further historical details.

Recommended works on Babi and Bahai history.

For a brief outline of teachings, see Some Vital Bahai Principles

Brochure: What is the Reform Bahai Faith? Download in PDF (or print)

If you have any questions or comments, the Reform Bahai Faith may be reached via email Contact

Thank you for visiting!

http://www.reformbahai.org/

On Bahai Liberty

The Prisoner of Akka, Baha’u’llah, lived much of His life deprived of liberty, harassed and suppressed by the tyranny of one despot or another, yet He envisions a world of global freedom and universal brotherhood. From His experience of the liberty of His own Mind, from His mystical experience of the oneness of God, He teaches the oneness of all religions and the oneness of humankind. His immortal and challenging proclamation is "The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens." His love of liberty resonates with the noblest reflections on liberty that run throughout human history, East or West. Like Edmund Burke, Lord Acton, and the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Baha’u’llah upheld a responsible liberty seasoned with a sense of duty to God and society, while preserving and protecting the sanctity of the individual from tyranny and debasement.

What the Baha’i Faith has become today contrasts sharply with His enlightened Writings: a prison house of oppression, coercion, deception, manipulation, employing all manner of "slanderous vilification" against its own members for the slightest ideological divergence from its interpretation of His Teachings, calculated to deprive the individual of religious liberty and freedom of conscience, demanding nothing less than complete, absolute, and servile obedience. From a secular perspective, the Baha’i Faith has become the antitheses of the liberty discussed by John Stuart Mill in his classic work and the antitheses of the virtues extolled by Baha’u’llah and his son in the societies of England and the United States of America.

To those who are unfamiliar with the complicated history of the Baha’i Faith during the last one hundred years, these claims may well seem extreme and unwarranted, if one only knows the version propagated by self-serving Baha’i sources; To those who have suffered at the hands of Baha’i administrative inquisitors and oppressors, these claims will ring all too true, evoking bitter and painful memories. For the past ten to thirty years, the Baha’i Faith has imposed one inquisition after another upon its members. It has been widely assumed by many Baha’is that these incidents marked a temporary aberration from Baha’i administrative conduct, which would soon be corrected once the Universal House of Justice became sufficiently apprised of the issues involved, and that it would reprimand the particular counselor or auxiliary board member involved. Time has gone by, and incident after incident has accumulated, bringing home to many that far from a temporary aberration, a prison house of tyranny has indeed supplanted the liberty of the individual mind and soul that Baha’u’llah and Abdul-Baha had guaranteed their followers.

It is the sheer number of these incidents that convey, more than any one of them, the truest picture of what has become of Baha’u’llah’s Faith. In the mid 1970s, a group of young students and scholars in Los Angeles loosely formed a study class for the sharing and encouragement of their research of Baha’i history and theology. They were harangued, harassed, and attacked, some leaving the Baha’i Faith in confusion and disbelief. Later in that decade, Bahai scholars at the University of Michigan and elsewhere who were commissioned, by the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States of America, to write a Bahai encyclopedia, met with a similar experience, many ending up having to resign from working on it, believing they could not do so in good conscience, given the interference of Baha’i authorities regarding historical fact and detail; some were driven out into the self-censorship of silence. The 1980s witnessed an increasing number of incidents. In 1987 "A Modest Proposal," intended for, but never published, inDialogue Magazine, attempted to suggest improvements in procedure and operation of the national community, only to be publicly denounced at the national convention the following year, while its writers were handled in a most reprehensible fashion, some threatened with excommunication. Another group of scholars and writers in 1998 contributed to a paper known as "The Service of Women" which again met with a vehement crackdown all out of proportion to the issues and intentions of its authors. No brief highlighting of the shockingly dictatorial abuse of power by the Baha’i administration would be complete without mention of an open letter in 1996 by Steven Scholl, one of the Dialogue editors, which attempted to bring attention to the frequency and severity of these incidents and urged moderation and a more open and tolerant community. Many of the young editors and writers of Dialogue Magazine, as well as others, have been harassed and hounded into silence or driven out the door.

With the wide availability and development of the Internet during the 1990s, Baha’is all around the world, enjoying the liberty given them by God Himself and lauded by both Baha’u’llah and Abdul-Baha, entered into free and open discussion in a number of online venues. One of the first was Talisman, an email list sponsored through one scholar’s affiliation with Indiana University. Baha’i interrogators of conscience were quick to quibble and denounce members for their views and opinions expressed in emails to group members, ultimately denouncing, as had happened in previous incidents, individuals as "covenant breakers" or possibly holding opinions which were tending toward covenant breaking. Through such methods, the abuse of individuals was carried out "in the best interest of the Faith," driving more young, intelligent, inquisitive, vigorous minds and souls away in shock and horror over what the Baha’i Faith had become, not was.

Another major incident, publicly documented in the newsgroup databases of Google and other search engines, was the proposal of an open and unmoderated newsgroup, talk.religion.bahai. Given the pervasive censorship and manipulation of thought and discussion on the previously existing newsgroup, soc.religion.bahai, praised in The American Baha’i, many Baha’is and non-Baha’i observers believed such a newsgroup was essential for unfettered discussion about Baha’i matters of concern. The overwhelming opposition of Baha’is to its formation shocked many inside and outside of the Baha’i Faith, as many fundamentalists called upon Baha’is "in good standing" and "firm in the covenant" to vote NO against it, garnering more than 600 votes through such rabble-rousing techniques on private Baha’i-only email lists. It took three years and as many rounds of voting to create what is still, as of 2004, the only forum on the Internet that cannot technically prevent the expression of any opinion or point of view.

No survey of incidents should fail to mention the lawsuit of Deborah Buchhorn against the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the United States and the Assembly of Albuquerque, New Mexico for fraud and libel in 2001. The court’s dismissal of the lawsuit proved only that the government of the United States was wisely not about to adjudicate on issues of religion and conscience and in no way exonerated the Baha’i administration of the charges.

Throughout all these incidents and others, most Baha’is thought only in terms of an aberration, surely something had gone wrong, a miscarriage of Baha’i justice that the ultimate defender of justice, the Universal House of Justice, would rectify, restoring order and sanity to Baha’u’llah’s Cause. Yet the tactics used were virtually identical in each case, and have become widely known, through talk.religion.bahai, as The Baha’i Technique, essentially, "slanderous vilification," imputations of covenant breaking or incipient covenant breaking, frightening people involved into silence, fear, and self-censorship. To assist in this program of ideological terrorization of the Baha’i community, the uhj has on a number of occasions apparently, or purportedly, autocratically thrown people out of the Baha’i Faith, despite such a practice not existing anywhere in the Baha’i Writings, despite Shoghi Effendi* explicitly stating that only the Guardian could pronounce someone a covenant breaker. This indefensible, desperate tactic, non-doctrinal, has been wielded a number of times since 1997. All these incidents and more are documented on the Internet and elsewhere for those unfamiliar with them or for those who wish to independently investigate them further:http://www.fglaysher.com/bahaicensorship/

How often in religious history have the teachings and vision of the Founder become debased by the organization that rears itself upon His Sacrifice. No impartial, fair-minded observer who conscientiously explores, to whatever degree, these incidents, thus far recounted, can fail to perceive that the Baha’i Faith and what it calls its "administrative order" has become, in the most apropos words of Martin Luther, a "terrible tyranny." Its wolves in sheep’s clothing have turned far aside from the Middle Path, envisioned by Baha’u’llah and Abdul-Baha, universally condoned by the reason of all persuasions. On all sides Baha’i administrators see only heretics and apostates, point the finger, denounce people as breakers of Baha’u’llah’s covenant, or Abdul-Baha’s Will and Testament, or Shoghi Effendi’s* non-existent will, which, in disobedience to Abdul-Baha, he never wrote.

In 2004, H-Net, a scholarly website supported by Michigan State University and Humanities & Social Sciences Online, reprinted in digital format the works of Mirza Ahmad Sohrab, who for over eight years served Abdul-Baha as a secretary and translator in the Middle East and on his American and European journeys. In Sohrab’s several books, especially in Broken Silence: The Story of Today’s Struggle for Religious Freedom (1942) and The Will and Testament of Abdul-Baha: An Analysis (1944), Sohrab presents his opinion that the Baha’i Faith was already well on the road to becoming an oppressive organization in the 1920s and ‘30s, exploitative of the individual, and departing further, with every year, from the moderation and predominately democratic liberalism of Baha’u’llah and Abdul-Baha. Sohrab located the source of the emerging problems of conscience and religious freedom in the desire of some early American Baha’is for absolute control, modeled on the Roman Catholic Church and other forms of autocratic religious organization, leading to and encouraging Shoghi Effendi’s* increasingly fanatical interpretation of Abdul-Baha’s Will and Testament:

"To interpret this section of the Will in such a literal sense, is, to say the least, utterly short-sighted and a complete subversion of all the glorious teachings of the Bahai Cause" (53).

The young and impressionable Shoghi Effendi, a little dreamy and not entirely ready for it all, unsure of himself and what direction to chart after Abdul-Baha’s passing, increasingly came under the influence of people in both the East and West who wanted a rigidly controlled bureaucratic system, until his own hand became the dominating force shaping the now trademarked, incorporated, and copyrighted organization. H-Net’s digital reprinting brought home for insightful observers of the victimization of fellow Baha’is, during the purges and pogroms of the 1970s and after, the inescapable realization that, far from an aberration, the same pervasive fanaticism and censorship had indeed been experienced by Sohrab and earlier Baha’is in virtually the same form and manner. No amount of distorting and slandering the intentions and beliefs of Sohrab and Mrs. Chanler could deny the validity and eloquent truth of their own testimony, repeated and confirmed by the experience of subsequent generations of Baha’is.
Dying without leaving a will in 1957, Shoghi Effendi* left the Baha’i Faith with no infallible successor, no appointed Guardian, and no infallible interpreter of Baha’u’llah’s Writings. Shoghi Effendi’s own words state emphatically that without a Guardian the Baha’i Faith would be mutilated and completely deprived of the "unerring guidance of God." Subsequent to his death, Baha’i experience only corroborates his judgment. No matter to what extent the Hands of the Cause assumed, or presumed, an authority that neither Abdul-Baha’s Will and Testament nor any of the writings of Shoghi Effendi bestowed, their innovations and attempts to lay a credible foundation for the uhj failed, and time has proven it, made it open and blatant as the noonday sun.

The end of the Guardianship and the innovations and attempts to fill in the gaps and unfulfilled portions of Abdul-Baha’s Will and Testament have continued unabated since the earliest schism between the Hands of the Cause, their unilateral and unauthorized attempt to fill the interpretive void left by Shoghi Effendi’s failure to foresee his untimely end and the commotions it would unleash upon Baha’u’llah’s Faith. Neither the custodians nor the Orthodox Baha’is had, or have, a credible claim to assumption of the mantle of authority. Nothing in Abdul-Baha’s Will and Testament nor Shoghi Effendi’s writings anticipated or justified what they did after the Guardian’s death. Similarly, the International Baha’i Council that the Hands put aside was not in the Will and Testament nor an instrument of the Master for the appointment of a new Guardian. That the Hands were nominated and appointed by Shoghi Effendi gave them no legitimate authority to assume, or usurp, the "rights and powers in succession to the Guardian," which they claimed, nor to change the method of creating a universal house of justice from what was stipulated by the Master in His Will and was already anticipated by the Guardian through the unfolding of the International Baha’i Council. Any pretense to "infallibility" ended with Shoghi Effendi, and subsequent Baha’i experience has proven it in the ruined and destroyed lives of many thousands of individuals, married couples, families, and Baha’i communities.

The eventual creation by the uhj of the continental board of counselors, a type of Baha’i college of cardinals, and the auxiliary boards, notorious for operating like the Jesuits at their worst, has only exacerbated the situation and deepened the rift between Baha’is in all walks of life and the barely concealed clergy that now exists and demands at every turn "obedience" to the covenant, as the "infallible" universal house of justice interprets it, ignoring that Abdul-Baha and Shoghi Effendi both explicitly stated that only the Guardian has interpretive guidance and that the uhj has only legislative authority.

For decades the fanatical interpretation of Abdul-Baha’s Will and Testament has demonstrated that not the slightest reform, or suggestion of reform, will be tolerated, let alone considered or acted upon. The uhj and its clergy have demonstrated beyond a doubt that they do not possess infallible powers or interpretive authority worthy of respect, let alone obedience.

Reform Bahais have watched or participated in all this. Many have been victims of intolerance and witch hunts; of coercion of conscience and denunciation, ostracism and shunning, and all the other tactics and techniques of The Baha’i Technique, suffered under the ferocious attacks of their fellow Baha’is who never hesitate to violate the Words of Abdul-Baha: "According to the direct and sacred command of God we are forbidden to utter slander."

Far from censuring such slander, a corrupted organization has encouraged among its cadre an ever more vicious campaign of slander, by what Mirza Ahmad Sohrab rightly recognized and scathingly called in the 1940s, "fawning, cringing, sniveling, mealy-mouthed sycophants, flatterers and flunkies."

Lessoned by time and history, by experience that cannot be taken but as a revelation of the Will of God, an unveiling of what lies behind the marble facade, acknowledging that the loss of the dream of unity and infallibility happened long ago, Reform Bahais seek to recover, restore, and return to Baha’u’llah’s central and pristine Teachings–the oneness of God, the oneness of religion, the oneness of humankind–to His vision of responsible individual liberty in service to humanity, to the Example of the Master’s Love, Wisdom, Kindness, Compassion, and Self-Sacrifice.

Reform Bahais choose to leave those who choose hatred, denunciation, shunning, endless and unproductive argument and recrimination over Abdul-Baha’s Will and Testament, seeking justification for fanaticism, over the Will of Shoghi Effendi, which he never wrote or implied, or over the successors he never intended or appointed, or over the oppressive organization Baha’u’llah Himself never envisioned nor proclaimed.

Reform Bahais invite all Bahais, all humanity, to a Convocation of celebration, peace, love, and brotherhood, to seek humbly His Will, during Ridvan 2006.

The Reform Bahai Faith
www.ReformBahai.org
October 4, 2004

* Please note that the Reform Bahai Articles depart from the acceptance here and elsewhere of the authenticity of the purported will and testament of Abdul-Baha and, hence, the legitimacy of any guardianship. See the pages for Reform Bahai Articles and Abdul-Baha's Covenant. 

95 Theses of the Reform Bahai Faith

95 Theses of the Reform Bahai Faith

Please feel free to share and distribute, in any manner, preferably in full, these 95 Theses.

To His Great Ends, the Reform Bahai Faith invites all souls to a Convocation of celebration, brotherhood, and Reform, during Ridvan, 2006.

---

The Reform Bahai Faith, calling to mind the sufferings and imprisonment of the Bab, Baha'u'llah, and Abdul-Baha, under the brutal oppression of tyrannical regimes, bent upon silencing and destroying their testimony of God's New Day, resolves

1.    To witness the truth of the deviation of the organized, incorporated Baha'i Faith from the Path, and its imposition of manifest corruptions and innovations, over many lamentable decades, that have wrought ever-increasing alienation, fear, censorship, coercion, misrepresentation, distortion, and damage, all the stratagems of despots and dictators, political and religious, upon individual Bahais, their families, and the community of believers.

2.    To seek afresh His Will, as at the dawn of a New Day, whereby the earth is born anew and man stands transparent before God's manifestation of His Will.

3.    Baha'u'llah execrated execration, slander, and abuse, shunned shunning, and warned his followers against such unseemly tactics.

4.    He prohibited the burning of books and all its evils.

5.    The tongue and the pen are the sword of this Day.

6.    Liberty was a Teaching of Baha'u'llah, recognized and respected by His Son, Abdul-Baha.

7.    Baha'u'llah envisions a spiritual democracy.

8.    The Founders of the Bahai Dispensation teach a Universal Religion.

9.    The Founders did not teach a system of stifling rules and regulations.

10.    Crippling creeds of the soul and conscience are abominations.

11.    The Writings of Baha'u'llah teach freedom of conscience and respect for the individual.

12.    Assemblies are servants of the Bahai community, not dictatorships that are designed to hector people into submission and servile obedience.

13.    At all levels, subtle manipulation of the voting for assemblies has undermined and destroyed the integrity of Baha'i "administration."

14.    A free, open, and honest voting system, allowing for the give and take of the qualities of individuals, is essential for service to His Cause.

15.    The Founders taught not an organization but a Faith.

16.    Persecution, harassment, and enmity are barred from the tabernacle of religious freedom.

17.    Baha'u'llah did not "copyright" His Revelation but gave it freely to all the peoples of the earth.

18.    The more than 3,000 martyrs did not die for a trademark and copyright.

19.    Slander and libel, as well as all their variations, are anathema in the Writings of Baha'u'llah.

20.    Legalism is the dead letter of the atrophied spirit.

21.    The Ocean of His Revelation beckons all mankind to dive and swim in it, seeking its pearls of Wisdom.

22.    Shoghi Effendi's death ended the era of an authorized interpreter of Baha'u'llah's Revelation.*

23.    Shoghi Effendi did not appoint anyone, directly or indirectly, to succeed him as Guardian.*

24.    The Universal House of Justice has only legislative power, not interpretive.*

25.    Baha'u'llah opened His House of Worship to all mankind at all times and under all conditions.

26.    Baha'u'llah's Universal Revelation transcends the locks and chains created after the passing of the Master.

27.    Reform Bahais make no claim to possess His Truth but seek it everywhere and always.

28.    His Revelation is not a means for a disguised sacerdotal order to acquire material and monetary wealth and control.

29.    His Revelation is a call to service, sacrifice, and brotherhood.

30.    All portions of the Bahai Feast are open for the repast of humanity.

31.    God's Gift to all mankind is the Most Great Name.

32.    Deceiving the governments of the earth, East and West, and the United Nations, playing them off against one another, misleading their appointed and elected officials and representatives, is a despicable practice.

33.    The financial and accounting records for the support of Bahai "administrators" or clergy shall be open and freely available for review by members and the general public.

34.    Baha'u'llah did not reveal a declaration of trust and by-laws.

35.    The Bahai Spirit loathes creeds and obscurantism.

36.    Baha'u'llah's Call is to Unity and Love: "Consort with the followers of all religions."

37.    Ecclesiasticism and dogmas are the structure of division, abuse, and exploitation.

38.    Baha'u'llah suffered for freedom of conscience.

39.    Abdul-Baha taught, "The Bahai Cause is not an organization."

40.    Reform Bahais do not seek "the elimination of any non-Bahai views."

41.    Abdul-Baha taught it is necessary and acceptable that citizens participate in the affairs of their nation.

42.    Baha'u'llah and Abdul-Baha invoked openness to all of humankind, not Religious Isolation.

43.    Social Isolation is the control tactic of tyrants and despots, charlatans and cults, fearfully dominating their flock.

44.    Fund raising is not an end in itself but a means of service to the people.

45.    The Goal of the Founders was not world domination but attainment to the knowledge of God and service to one's fellow man.

46.    God's gift to humankind is a liberal and lofty Cause, conserving the spiritual heritage of humanity.

47.    No form of the destruction of the press is taught and tolerated.

48.    A membership card does not record the testimony of the heart.

49.    No man or organization can fathom the depths God has freely bestowed upon the human heart.

50.    At all heights, the bird of humanity soars upon two wings.

51.    Baha'u'llah and Abdul-Baha taught independent investigation of the Truth.

52.    Abdul-Baha taught "conscientious opinion" and "freedom of conscience, liberty of thought, and right of speech."

53.    The literal interpretation of Abdul-Baha's Will and Testament has profoundly damaged Baha'u'llah's Faith and destroyed countless lives and Bahai communities.

54.    Thought-police, under any name, are not included in Baha'u'llah's Vision.

55.    Baha'u'llah's Dispensation does not include boards of censorship.

56.    Baha'u'llah's model for His New World Order is not the tyrannical religious institutions of the past.

57.    Bahai community life is not based on organized totalitarianism.

58.    Charitable works have more value in the sight of God than marbled ostentation.

59.    Fear is the refuge of tyrants and their primary crutch.

60.    The Reform Bahai Faith places its trust in God.

61.    Spying, informing, and keeping files and records on people for matters of conscience and opinion, expressed on or off the Internet, in email or any other form, are all denounced and banned.

62.    Reform Bahais embrace loving association with all the peoples of the earth and do not require identity checks, letters, and cards of verification.

63.    The nine doors of fraternity are open to all human beings.

64.    The nine doors are open at all times.

65.    Segregation and indoctrination, individually or collectively, are contrary to the Writings of Baha'u'llah.

66.    Excommunication is excommunicated.

67.    The practices of the Middle Ages are history and are an instructive lesson before which Reform Bahais beg God for guidance and protection.

68.    The Soul's Covenant is with God and Baha'u'llah.

69.    Abdul-Baha taught, "The conscience of man is sacred and to be respected."

70.    Everywhere in His Writings, Baha'u'llah loathes injustice, tyranny, and oppression.

71.    Guilt by association and collective punishment have no place in Baha'u'llah's Dispensation.

72.    A self-serving clergy, hiding behind the secular nuances of the word "administration," remains a pack of wolves whatever the clothing and outward seeming.

73.    Non-Bahais and Bahais have the human right to know the fullness of the historical record, without concealment and revision.

74.    Abdul-Baha taught human rights are Bahai rights.

75.    The distortion and corruption of historical fact is detrimental to the development of humanity and of Baha'u'llah's Faith.

76.    The Bahai Technique is not Baha'u'llah's.

77.    Individual conscience is not a "dangerous delusion out of Christianity" but a glorious gift of God.

78.    Baha'u'llah taught moderation in all things.

79.    Abdul-Baha taught humility before one's convictions.

80.    Intellectual vigor, especially of the young, should never be crushed, but nurtured.

81.    The descendants of the Bab and Baha'u'llah have no special or hereditary prerogatives and rights.

82.    Abdul-Baha set the requirements for Bahai membership: "To be a Bahai simply means to love all the world; to love humanity and try to serve it; to work for universal peace and universal brotherhood."

83.    Bahais are enjoined by Baha'u'llah and Abdul-Baha to associate,consort, with people of all religious persuasions.

84.    Receipt of mail or communication is not mandatory.

85.    Harassment for declining the receipt of mail is prohibited and in all cases rejected.

86.    Membership statistics are free and open to all interested parties.

87.    Shoghi Effendi's writings indisputably contain errors.

88.    Bahai experience and history demonstrate that the organized Baha'i Faith has strayed from Baha'u'llah's Teachings and blindly and fanatically opposes all discussion and Reformation.

89.    Bahais of good conscience have no alternative but to recognize reality and restore and Reform, at all levels, His Teachings.

90.    The Reform Bahai Faith looks not to other Bahai denominations for its understanding of Baha'u'llah's Teachings.

91.    The Reform Bahai Faith looks to the fullness of Baha'u'llah's Revelation for guidance.

92.    The Reform Bahai Faith does not distort nor select single or unusual passages of the Writings to manipulate or over-emphasize for organizational purposes of thought-control and indoctrination.

93.    The Reform Bahai Faith trusts and allows the individual believer to pray and meditate on the inner meaning and purpose of His Revelation, sharing the fruits of reflection with all who are willing to hear, receive, and discuss, without disgraceful groveling or humiliating qualifications.

94.    The Reform Bahai Faith recognizes and formalizes the inescapable conflicts of the human spirit that have existed in Baha'u'llah's Faith since the passing of the Master, exacerbated by an oppressive and inflexible interpretation of Baha'u'llah's Teachings.

95.    The Reform Bahai Faith rejoices at the Glory of His Revelation and seeks to share His Teachings, with unabashed and renewed enthusiasm, for the Redemption and Renewal of the human race.

Baha'u'llah called all humanity to feast at His bounteous Table.

Reform Bahais rejoice that God has revealed, through time and history, the inevitable path, through trial and turmoil, toward fulfillment of His Vision.

The Reform Bahai Faith invites all non-Bahais, Bahais, ex-Bahais, all humanity, the tens of thousands of people harassed and driven out by fanatical extremists, maligned and slandered, to join together in His Worship and in service to humanity, to restore a sane and moderate form of community life and association based on love, trust, and brotherhood, across all barriers of race and division, social and economic, nationalistic and provincial.

The Reform Bahai Faith bows humbly before His Threshold, supplicating for His Favor and Guidance, supplicating the Hosts of the Kingdom of Abha, recognizing the difficulties and obstacles, apparent and hidden, that confront and will confront the realization of His Vision.

To His Great Ends, the Reform Bahai Faith invites all souls to a Convocation of celebration, brotherhood, and Reform, during Ridvan, 2006.

95 Theses of the Reform Bahai Faith
www.ReformBahai.org

August 19, 2004

* Please note that the Reform Bahai Articles depart from the acceptance here of the authenticity of the purported will and testament of Abdul-Baha and, hence, the legitimacy of any guardianship. See the pages for Reform Bahai Articles and Abdul-Baha's Covenant.

Some Vital Bahai Principles

“Many who have never heard of this revelation teach its laws and spiritual truths. These people are performing what Baha'u'llah hath commanded though they never heard of him.” —Abdul-Baha

Compiled from the words of Abdul-Baha.

l. THE ONENESS OF THE WORLD OF HUMANITY

“Baha’u’llah addresses Himself to the world of men, saying, ‘Ye are all leaves of one tree and the fruits of one garden.’ That is, the world of existence is none other than one tree, and the nations or peoples are like unto the different branches or limbs thereof, and human individuals are similar to the fruits and blossoms thereof. While in all past religious books and epistles, the world of humanity has been divided into two parts; one called the people of the Book, or the Pure Tree, and the other, the Evil Tree. One half of the people of the world were looked upon as belonging to the faithful, and the other as belonging to the irreligious and the infidel; one half of the people were consigned to the mercy of the Creator, and the other half were considered as objects of the wrath of their Maker. But Baha’u’llah proclaimed the Oneness of the World of humanity—He submerged all mankind in the Sea of Divine Generosity.”

II. INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION OF TRUTH

“No man should follow blindly his ancestors and forefathers. Nay, each must see with his own eyes, hear with his own ears, and investigate Truth in order that he may find the Truth; whereas the religion of forefathers and ancestors is based upon blind imitation—man should investigate the Truth.”

III. THE FOUNDATION OF ALL RELIGION IS ONE

“The foundation underlying all the Divine precepts is that One Reality. It must needs be Reality, and Reality is One, not multiple. Therefore the foundation of the Divine Religions is one. But we can see that certain forms have come in, certain imitations of forms and ceremonials have crept in. They are heretical, they are accidental , because they differ; hence they cause differences among religions. But if we set aside these imitations and seek the Reality of the Foundation we shall all agree, because religion is One and not multiple.”

IV. RELIGION MUST BE THE CAUSE OF UNITY AMONG MANKIND

“Every religion is the greatest divine effulgence, the cause of life amongst men, the cause of the honor of humanity, and is productive of the life everlasting amongst humankind. Religion is not for enmity or hatred. It is not for tyranny or injustice. If religion be the cause of enmity and rancor, if it should prove the cause of alienating men, assuredly non-religion would be better. For religion and the teachings which appertain to it are as a course of treatment. What is the object of any course of treatment? It is cure and healing. But if the outcome of a course of treatment should be productive of mere diagnosis and discussion of symptoms, the abolition of it is evidently preferable. In this sense, abandoning religion would be a step toward unity.”

V. RELIGION MUST BE IN ACCORD WITH SCIENCE AND REASON

“Religion must be reasonable; it must agree perfectly with science, so that science shall sanction religion and religion sanction science. The two must be brought together, indissolubly in the Reality. Down to the present Day it has been customary for man to accept a thing because it was called religion, even though it were not in accord with human reason.”

VI. THE EQUALITY OF MEN AND WOMEN

“This is peculiar to the teachings of Baha’u’llah, for all former religious systems placed men above women. Daughters and sons must follow the same form of study and the same education. Having one course of education promotes unity among mankind.”

VII. THE ABOLITION OF ALL PREJUDICES OF WHATEVER NATURE

“It is established that all the prophets of God have come to unite the children of men and not to disperse them, and to put in action the law of love and not enmity. Consequently we must throw aside all these prejudices, the racial prejudice, the patriotic prejudice, the religious and political prejudices. We must become the cause of unity of the human race.”

VIII. UNIVERSAL PEACE

“That all men and nations shall make peace; that there shall be Universal Peace amongst governments, Universal Peace amongst religions, Universal Peace amongst races, Universal Peace amongst the denizens of all regions. Today in the world of humanity the most important matter is the question of Universal Peace. The realization of this principle is the crying need of the time.”

IX. ALL MANKIND SHOULD PARTAKE OF KNOWLEDGE AND EDUCATION

“All mankind should partake of both knowledge and education, and this partaking of knowledge and of education is one of the necessities of religion. The education of each child is obligatory. If there are no parents, the community must look after the child. Each person should have his part of the sciences.”

X. THE SOLUTION OF THE ECONOMIC QUESTION

“No religious books of the past Prophets speak of the Economic question, while the economic problem has been thoroughly solved in the Teachings of Baha’u’llah. Certain regulations are revealed which insure the welfare and well being of all humanity. Just as the rich man enjoys his rest and his pleasures surrounded by luxuries, the poor man must likewise have a home, be provided with sustenance, and not be in want. Until this is effected happiness is impossible. All are equal in the estimation of God; their rights are one and there is no distinction for any soul ; all are protected beneath the justice of God.”

XI. A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE

“The oneness of language, namely that a universal language shall be adopted which shall be taught by all the schools and academies of the world. A committee appointed by national bodies shall select a suitable language to be used as a means of communication, and that language shall be taught in all the schools of the world in order that everyone shall need but two languages, his national tongue and the universal language. All will acquire the international language.”

XII. A UNIVERSAL TRIBUNAL

“A tribunal which will be under the power of God, under the protection of all men. Each one must obey the decisions of this tribunal, in order to arrange the difficulties of every nation.”

“About fifty years ago in the Book of Akdas, Baha’u’llah commanded the people to establish the Universal Peace and summoned, all the nations to the Divine Banquet of International Arbitration so that the questions of boundaries, of national honor and property and of vital interests between nations might be decided by an arbitral court of justice.”

“Remember these precepts were given more than half a century ago—at that moment no one spoke of Universal Peace—nor of any of these principles, but Baha’u’llah proclaimed them to all the sovereigns of the world. They are the spirit of this age; the light of this age; they are the well-being of this age.”

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Download Some Vital Bahai Principles as a Pamphlet in PDF (or print)

For an Early Bahai response to Abdul-Baha's Interpretation of Baha'u'llah's Teachings, see "The Temple of Universal Religion—The Fundamental Oneness of All Existing Faiths."