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| Reform Bahai Faith... |
 Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 8:44 pm |
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Reform Bahai Articles
The Reform Bahai Faith has once again been born anew from tyranny and
oppression, from essentially the same spiritual upheavals as that of
Ruth White, Mirza Ahmad Sohrab, Julie Chanler, and the thousands of
Bahais who left in protest under the imposition of an oppressive
organization based on the fraudulent will and testament of Abdu’l-Baha
throughout the 1920s, ‘30s, and ‘40s. God has, throughout the decades,
preserved the historical record of events for perceptive minds and souls.
Despite all fanatical, fundamentalist attempts to suppress all memory of
Abdul-Baha’s vision and interpretation of Baha’u’llah’s Faith, to root
it out, to coerce and slander, malign and expell, shun and besmirch the
testimony of the Writings and the early believers, the Bahai Movement
has continued to endure, quietly persist, giving testimony to the vision
of God’s oneness, the oneness of humanity and religion, and the human
potential for peace and brotherly love.
The books and publications of White, Sohrab, and Chanler have kept this
vision alive, while the Baha’i upheavals and conflicts of the last three
decades have led many thousands of Baha’is to experience for themselves
the depth and degree to which the Faith of Baha’u’llah has been traduced
and desecrated by people who seek to use and exploit it for their own
worldly benefit, power, glory, and material gain.
The Divine Being has created a world of impermanence, evanescence, where
nothing lasts forever, and all humanity is subjected to the vicissitudes
of life, the fragility of health and constitution, the limits of human
existence that He alone knows and sets. With an increasing sense of
mortality, I feel it is incumbent upon me to set down, in writing, my
own testimony of what I believe to be the truth about the Bahai Faith,
having now been a member for over thirty years and having watched or
participated in many struggles and debates and studied or watched those
of many other souls in their search for truth and understanding.
Thinking of Martin Luther and John Wesley, I feel it especially as a
duty and obligation to leave a record of my views for the Reform Bahai
Convocation, which, God willing, one day, shall convene to restore and
revive the moderate, spiritual religion of Baha’u’llah and Abdu’l-Baha
and clearly set a new course away from the fanatical and fundamentalist
Islamist sect of the Haifans, based on their fraudulent will and
testament, propagating a manipulative creed intended only to coerce the
individual believer and subject him or her to the tyranny of an
illegitimate and mutilated organization.
Article I
“The Revelation which, from time immemorial, hath been acclaimed as the
Purpose and Promise of all the Prophets of God, and the most cherished
Desire of His Messengers, hath now, by virtue of the pervasive Will of
the Almighty and at His irresistible bidding, been revealed unto men.
The advent of such a Revelation hath been heralded in all the sacred
Scriptures.” – Baha’u’llah.
Article II
Baha’u’llah’s appointed heir and Interpreter, the Center of the
Covenant, is Abdu’l-Baha.
Article III
As scientifically judged by Dr. C. Ainsworth Mitchell, the purported
will and testament of Abdu’l-Baha is a fraudulent document: “That is to
say, the writing does not agree with the hypothesis that it was all
written by one person.” “A minute comparison of the authenticated
writing with the writing on every page of the alleged will . . . has
failed to detect in any part of the will the characteristics of the
writing of Abdu’l-Baha, as shown in the authenticated specimens.” – Dr.
C. Ainsworth Mitchell, Report on the Writing Shown on the Photographs of
the Alleged Will of Abdul-Baha, Library of Congress, 1930.
Article IV
The Baha’i organizations, based upon the fraudulent document, including
the writings of Shoghi Effendi*, are inescapably defective and
deficient: “There is apparent contradiction between this section of the
Will and his lifelong teachings” (56). “Abdul Baha had never in speech
or writing given the slightest indication that there would be a
successor to himself. On the contrary, a number of addresses delivered
by him on various occasions had made the opposite impression” (61). –
Mirza Ahmad Sohrab. The Will and Testament of Abdul Baha, An Analysis.
New York: Universal Publishing, 1944.
Article V
The results of the spurious document has reverberated down the
generations and decades, as Ruth White rightly perceived: “Whether the
alleged will of Abdul Baha is authentic or spurious, the results of the
administration of Shoghi Effendi and the National Spiritual Assembly of
Baha'is stand as an historical indictment against them. [Boldface in
original] They no more represent the Bahai Religion than the bigots of
the dark ages of Christianity” (100). – Ruth White. Abdul Baha's
Questioned Will and Testament. Beverly Hills: White, 1946.
Article VI
“The Bahai Movement is not an organization. You cannot organize the
Bahai Movement.” – Abdu’l-Baha. The mystery of that paradox calls all
Bahais to seek its meaning and return to the universal, liberal
Teachings of Baha’u’llah and Abdu’l-Baha and their Writings.
Article VII
Far from creating a theocratic tyranny, the Founders of the Bahai Faith
taught a moderate, universal, global religion, grounded in a spiritual
democracy, teaching the separation of church and state, with science in
its own respected domain, each a profound differentiation of social duty
and responsibility, as in Abdu’l-Baha’s “Sermon on the Art of Governance”:
“The religious law is like the spirit of life,
the government is the locus of the force of deliverance.
The religious law is the shining sun,
and government is the clouds of April.
These two bright stars are like twin lights in the heavens of the
contingent world,
they have cast their rays upon the people of the world.
One has illuminated the world of the soul,
the other has caused the earth to flower.
One sowed pearls in the oceans of conscience,
while the other has made the surface of the earth a garden of
paradise.” (Tr. Sen McGlinn)
Article VIII
With every passing year, the Writings of Baha’u’llah are being restored
to humanity, from those who debased and lowered them to the level of a
trademark and copyright.
Article IX
Reform Bahais choose to leave those who choose hatred, shunning, and
interminable recrimination over the fraudulent will and testament and
over stultifying legalisms, and look to the Spirit of brotherhood and
love, knowledge and understanding, prayer and meditation, worship and
community, service to one’s country and the world of humanity.
With the assurance of Abdu’l-Baha that humanity has entered the stage of
maturity, wherein the individual can independently search for truth,
Reform Bahais testify, in this universal, global age, that He reserves
for Himself the “hearts of men,” rendering to Caesar what is Caesar’s,
as Baha'u'llah taught in the Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, accepting
and embracing His multifaceted vision, the mystery that surpasses
understanding.
Reform Bahais invite all Bahais, all humanity, to a Convocation of
celebration, peace, love, and brotherhood, to seek humbly together His
Will and service, for the good of all people and nations of this
spinning globe.
The Reform Bahai Faith
95 Theses - On Bahai Liberty
www.ReformBahai.org
0ctober 4, 2007
* Please note that the Reform Bahai Articles do not accept the
authenticity of the purported will and testament of Abdul-Baha and,
hence, the legitimacy of any guardianship. See Abdul-Baha's Covenant.
Reform Bahai Faith
Rochester, Michigan USA
www.ReformBahai.org
Chicago Tribune. Baha'i rift. Baha'is upset with Orthodox Baha'i Faith
May 18, 2009
http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2009/may/18/local/chi-bahai-18-may18
Comments posted to The Chicago Tribune Forum on one page:
http://www.fglaysher.com/bahaicensorship/Chicago_Tribune.html
Yahoo Group - ReformBahai
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ReformBahai
Baha'i Faith & Religious Freedom of Conscience
http://www.fglaysher.com/bahaicensorship |
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