From: McKenny Michael <bn872@FreeNet.Carleton.CA>
Subject: Redefining the Baha'i Faith
Date: Sunday, January 24, 1999 7:25 AM
Greetings, Susan, from Ottawa.
You wrote:
>
> It means people were using their authority as scholars to try and remake the
> Faith in their own image.
Let's be more specific. Let's list some of these views which Susan
calls a redefining of the Baha'i Faith, some of these beliefs considered
so threatening to those in authority, some of these ideas deemed in the
past so worthy of censorship, harrassment and exclusion from the Baha'i
Faith.
Such views include that the Baha'i Faith be run according to the
fundamental principles of the Baha'i Faith, that discrimination cease in
the Baha'i Faith, that, as the prophet said there is no evil, then there
are no enemies, that there is room in the Baha'i Faith for those who
agree with the prophet that where the findings of modern science conflict
with the literal text of scripture, then science may be correct, that the
Baha'i "world" religion is big enough to include people of a Sufi-like
temperament, people who perceive deity with a feminine aspect, people
who understand that when a woman asked the son of the prophet before
World War One why only men were running Baha'i affairs in Chicago, the
answer was not tolerate a Baha'i world patriarchate to be established
in 1963.
These are some of the so shocking opinions, some of the so heretical
views (in a movement whose founder so insightfully said there are no
heretical views) that academic work was censored, that scholars were
interrogated, that some of the most broad minded members of the religion
were hounded out of it.
Now in an uncontrolled forum everyone will have the opportunity to
see these views, to observe what the reaction to them is now, to witness
just how the Baha'i Faith really is defined.
May this find you very well, and may each day ahead of us be better
than the one it succeeds.
All the Best,
Michael
--
"My name's McKenny, Mike McKenny, Warrant Officer, Solar Guard."
(Tom Corbett #1 STAND BY FOR MARS p2)
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