From: McKenny Michael <bn872@FreeNet.Carleton.CA>
Subject: Testamonials From Infallible Sources
Date: Thursday, January 28, 1999 9:40 AM
Greetings, Frederick, from Ottawa.
Many thanks for your public statement concerning the way I was
treated by the Universal House of Justice.
Actually, what they did was to provide a testamonial to the efficacy
and the irrefutability of the views I was presenting on Baha'i e-mail
lists. Now, when I post to this broader forum, I do so having received
such a testamonial from an "infallible" source.
However, really, ideas stand on their own both according to the
principles of basic logic and the Baha'i principles of consultation. All
issues of personality, including the possession of such a testamonial,
are irrelevant.
Let me be very clear. One interpretation of reality is that one
individual sitting at a keyboard in snowy Ottawa was so shaking the
authority of the infallible Universal House of Justice that extra-
ordinary action was required.
So, what was accomplished by issuing such a testamonial? The chasm
between Baha'i principles and Baha'i action was further exposed. If views
are freely expressed, whatever those views are, then the Baha'i principle
of freedom of thought and expression is shown to be more than a thing of
words alone. If you take extra-ordinary measures intending to silence
free expression, this exceptional behaviour is what shakes your actual
authority.
Do you imagine actual authority, real beneficial influence, has any
connection with insisting that everyone must silently comply with any
command soever? Would you really wish to bequeath to your descendants a
world where leaders were above putting principles into practise, a
civilization where rulers took exceptional measures to enforce silent
compliance with unprincipled commands?
You lead a religion endowed by its founders with the capacity to
raise up individuals who will witness to the truth that fundamentalism is
too narrow a mindset, that exclusion and division in religion, as in all
aspects of humanity, are to evolve into ever increasing harmony. This
is one of the strands of Baha'i history wherever the religion has met
those seeking to maintain a stranglehold on human thought, wherever it has
encountered forces opposed to the harmonizing principles of the Baha'i
Faith. From the earliest days of the Baha'i Era the extent of this
capacity to raise up such witnesses has gained international attention.
Why would you wish to draw international attention to the extent to
which such witnessing was required in your presence, the extent to which
you were seeking to maintain such a stranglehold over human thought, the
extent to which you were causing fundamentalist exclusion and division
in religion?
May the ever-growing Tree of Life speedily produce these initial
blossoms intended by the Baha'i prophet.
May the most basic, the most essential, the most vital manifestation
in the Baha'i Faith of the fundamental principle of the equality of women
and men come into real existence through the recognition that there is no
impediment to the election of women to the Universal House of Justice.
May the complete freedom of all Baha'is to express themselves on
this, as on all topics, be acknowledged, in deed.
May all the beneficial principles of the Baha'i Faith be ever more
widely evidenced, especially from those who are called upon to guide as
if they are the Source of all Good.
Thusly, may their actual authority, their real beneficial influence,
their true leadership ever shine more brightly.
To the Future,
Michael
>
> Thank you, Michael. I respect the integrity of your conscience
> and believe still you were Wronged by the Universal House of
> Justice when they shamelessly threw you out of the Bahai Faith.
> I'm ashamed of them. I'm ashamed to belong to such an
> intolerant religion.
>
--
"My name's McKenny, Mike McKenny, Warrant Officer, Solar Guard."
(Tom Corbett #1 STAND BY FOR MARS p2)
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