From: Michael McKenny <bn872@FreeNet.Carleton.CA>
Subject: UHJ Fundamentalist Fantasy (Reply to Susan and all)
Date: Sunday, August 15, 1999 9:33 AM
Greetings, Susan and all.
Actually, the comment below is of a class that is highly significant,
if not central to an understanding of the ditch into which the Baha'i
Faith has been driven.
The UHJ is here seeking to portray itself as lacking responsibility
for what has happened. It is actually a normal custom of a beaurocrat to
place responsibility for her/his own failure on anyone other than the one
really responsible, i.e. herself/himself.
Here, the UHJ has the duty to guide the influence of Baha'u'llah, the
movement associated with his name, indeed, all of humanity to harmony on a
global scale. It has the responsibility to decide all issues of a divisive
or of a confusing nature. It has a responsibility to guide according to
the essential principles revealed by Baha'u'llah, expressly stated to be
essential for the realization of the only reason for there being a Baha'i
Faith, the attainment of human harmony.
Instead of doing this, the UHJ has devoted the attention and the
resources of this religion into the erection of a canonical text and an
authoritative interpretation of some words of Shoghi Effendi, Abdu'l Baha
and Baha'u'llah in that descending order of priority. In other words the
words of Shoghi Effendi, as literally understood, take precedence over
the words of Abdu'l Baha' whose words take precedence over those of the
Universal Manifestation of God.
The appointed members of "The Institution of the Learned" are sent
around to ascertain the doctrinal purity of thoughts of the members of the
Baha'i religion, notwithstanding the teaching that the harmony of humanity
requires the independent investigation of truth, the harmony of science
and religion, the non-interference with the thoughts and beliefs of any
person, the freedom of expression, and tolerance of the views of others
within, as well as without, the Baha'i Faith.
Now, this methodology adopted by the UHJ is not new. It has long been
the natural encrustation of the spirit of a Manifestation after this being
has departed this world and his religion has come into the hands of those
lacking his vision, but of a mindset focusing on the letter of the word,
instead of spirituality. This is why such individuals and clerical orders
have been addressed so harshly by each Manifestation of God, as, for
example, Moses harshly spoke to the priests of Egypt, Jesus to the priests
who took control of the religion of Moses, Muhammad to those in charge of
previous religions, and so on with the Bab and Baha'u'llah.
It is this methodology of seeking to impose one single interpretation,
indeed, one single method of interpretation, the literal, upon what may be
termed spiritual influence, the water of life, the light, only because it
is a rising above, a cleansing of and a dispelling of the darkness of this
dead, dirty, dark, literalist fundamentalism.
Let there be no Orwellian obfuscation. The UHJ, if it insists on a
single, literal, monolithic "interpretation" of the words of Shoghi Effendi
and Abdu'l Baha and then, at the lowest level of priority, the writings of
the Word of God for this age, is solely responsibility for the fantasy that
it is seeking to perpetrate upon its own followers and the rest of the
world.
There is no impediment at all to it guiding humanity, according to the
essential, necessary and harmonizing principles enunciated by Baha'u'llah.
That its hands are chained up by the infallible (has this word not already
been explained as meaning "morally upright" and NOT inerrant?) letter of
the words of Shoghi Effendi, and the leading according to the spirit of
the text, according to the example of the Guardian and the Perfect
Exemplar an impossibility, is a UHJ fundamentalist fantasy.
May it be this fundamentalist fantasy, rather than the Faith, which
is ditched.
May the fundamentalists in the religion, all of them, from UHJ members
on down, rapidly acquire that breadth of open-mindedness, tolerance,
empathy and understanding it was the intent of the Central figures of this
religion to seed, nurture and harvest.
May today find the human species faring very well, may tomorrow treat
humanity even more kindly and may each day after that be better than the
one it succeeds.
To the Future,
Michael
Smaneck (smaneck@aol.com) writes:
> If it is a fundamentalist fantasy it is Corinne True's and Shoghi Effendi's,
> not the Universal House of Justice's.
>
> Susan Stiles Maneck
--
"My name's McKenny, Mike McKenny, Warrant Officer, Solar Guard."
(Tom Corbett #1 STAND BY FOR MARS p2)
Homepage
|