Baha'i What's Wrong with Baha'i?

[smaneck]

That quote of Shoghi Effendi clearly shows the incompatibility of the Bahai Faith and Christianity though.

That is okay, just so long as Baha'u'llah and Christ aren't incompatible.

 

[Arthra]

According to answers.com, Bahais regard the Universal House of Justice as infallible.

Quote:

“The Baha'i Faith is the first religion to have its administrative outlined and defined by the Prophet-Founder in the revealed scripture. Baha'is regard the Universal House of Justice as infallible because Baha'u'llah stated that it would be. ”

http://www.answers.com/Q/Who_are_the_Baha'i_religious_leaders

Baha'u'llah in the Kitab-i-Aqdas (Most Holy Book) mentions a House of Justice to be established... Essentially it deals with all matters that are not specifically dealt with in the Writings. The House of Justice is also responsible to see that Baha'i laws are carried out. The House is elected every five years and it's "seat" is on Mount Carmel in the Holy Land..the administrative Center of the Faith.

 

[com7fy8]

The question then is saved from what?

Well, we understand that we need Jesus to save us from our sins and from God's wrath. Jesus died on the cross for this, for us. This is my general answer. Also, Jesus sent Paul to turn people "from the power of Satan to God" (in Acts 26:18); so, I would say we need to be saved so we are safe from how Satan's evil spirit can effect people.

And, more personally, smaneck . . . the world needs to be saved from me!! First, I need how God changes me so I can do what He knows can do the most good in this world. In my case, this has become personal loving and sharing as family with people. If people only get their lives saved, but they do not know how to love, they miss out on too much. So, first I need to become an example of how to be Christ's way in love and relating, so God can spread this example to make others the same way, so then any better change in their lives will come with their knowing how to love, plus having God's creativity in this love.

You offered a lot more, above, but I'll stop here, for now

 

[Alithis]

Is this a debate or just an attack?

its the truth of the mater .

 

[Arthra]

what, for one example, do you find is an essential Bahá-í idea which is not already in the Bible? I mean something about how to become spiritually in real love, and how to relate with God, and how to love any and all people the way Jesus wants. I don't mean outward reform things like how views on slavery might have changed, for an example of what I don't mean. What have you discovered in Bahá-í writings which you find is spiritually and personally essential, but which is not already in the Bible?

You may not "mean reform things like how views of slavery might have changed..." but the "reform things" are very important to us. Unless there is a social kind of salvation such as abolishing slavery and establishing world peace there will be millions of people subject to slavery and war... Think about it.. we are blessed in this country a great deal to have accomplished what we have and it is costing us dearly biut it's worth it.

If you visited Washington D.C. in the early fifties as I did you would recall the segregation there... separate drinking fountains and bathrooms for "coloured" and "white"...Separate lunch counters.. Separation on buses... We had separate times of day when "coloured" and "white" people could swim... At the Lake my Grandfather developed Catholics and Jews could not belong to the "Club". So Baha'is began working on the oneness of humanity in the early twentieth century long before the Civil Rights movement. We're still encouraging the nations to byuild a world parliament and an international court of arbitration to settle disputes... Baha'u'llah wrote the world rulers back in 1867 and asked them to establish a world parliament. Today we have something close like the UN but it needs more support to accomplish things...

So there are specific "reforms" that we Baha'is have championed that carry forward a kind of social salvation for humanity... so you can have personal spiritual fulfillment and live in a world that is free from war..free from exploiting people and more of them can experience that fulfillment and blessing that comes from the Kingdom of God.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

That is okay, just so long as Baha'u'llah and Christ aren't incompatible.

Thats a little bit disingenuous. The Bahai view of Christ is not incompatible with the Bahai Faith and likewise the Islamic view of Christ is not incompatible with Islam, but the Christian view of Christ is incompatible with both and they are incompatible one to the other. It depends how you see Christ.

The problem in my opinion is that if we deny the full Incarnation and therefore the Atonement, then Christ's passion becomes just another instance of pointless suffering. The Crux of Christianity is the Atoning Sacrifice and Resurrection of Jesus, this is integral to the view of Jesus and all tenets of the religion, but this is absent in amongst the Bahai and all other Jesus-revering but non-Christian religions.

 

[Dale]

Bahais do not believe in running for office or holding public office. Arthra implied that in his reply to my comment about their headquarters being at Mt. Carmel in Israel. I've heard it from other members of the Bahai Faith as well.



If the Bahai Faith has anything positive to say to us, I see their policy on not running for office as a dead end.



One example of what I'm talking about is the United States before the Civil War. Among religious sects, the Quakers were most strongly against slavery, and Quakers were most numerous in Pennsylvania. However, Quakers didn't believe in running for office, they thought politics was a dirty business. Consequently, the strong opposition to slavery among Quakers had almost no effect in Pennsylvania or in the nation. Pennsylvania abolished slavery in slow motion. It took the state almost a hundred years to free the last slave.



By refusing to run for office, religious people only extinguish their moral witness.

 

[Dale]

This is Baha'i terminology. What we refer to as major prophets are generally called Patriarchs in Judaism. It is what Deut. refers to as "a prophet like unto Moses" and goes on to say that none of the prophets which followed Moses were like him as they did not see God face-to-face. Of course Acts places Jesus in that same station and we would agree.

On prophets who saw God face to face, take a look at this passage in Isaiah.

Isaiah’s Commission
6 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”

4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

Isaiah 6:1-5 NIV

 

[com7fy8]

You may not "mean reform things like how views of slavery might have changed..." but the "reform things" are very important to us.

Thank you for making yourself . . . yourselves . . . clear on this

If you visited Washington D.C. in the early fifties as I did you would recall the segregation there... separate drinking fountains and bathrooms for "coloured" and "white"...Separate lunch counters.. Separation on buses... We had separate times of day when "coloured" and "white" people could swim...

Oh my . . . may be I should be glad I did not visit. I have lived in ignorance that this was going on, even in Washington D.C. I knew a man who was Afro and he cooked for my uncle's high-end boys mountain climbing camp. He told me he never encountered race problems against himself. It seemed like he was actually clueless about what, ever, people were talking about. I guess we managed to live in another world. My grandmother had a sit-down with me, about how God loves all His children.

I remember reading how a Christian missionary came to America and moved into a native village in the Rhode Island area. While others were fighting with "Indians", he never missed a moment of peace with the native village where he had become adopted.

So, I guess a person can create one's own kingdom.

However, by having anti-discrimination laws and reforms, this can put people together so that, even though there may be ones who keep on insisting on their evil, others might discover how surprised and benefitted they are by mixing with people they had been brought up to avoid. So, law can not make anyone love; but it can make an issue. And God is able to use authority for His good end.

 

[Arthra]

Bahais do not believe in running for office or holding public office. Arthra implied that in his reply to my comment about their headquarters being at Mt. Carmel in Israel. I've heard it from other members of the Bahai Faith as well.
If the Bahai Faith has anything positive to say to us, I see their policy on not running for office as a dead end.

We don't participate in partisanship or register in political parties... If you have been following the partisanship in politics in the US you'll note that it is indeed a "dead end".

My wife and I just voted today in the primary election in California and again we vote for whom we choose without getting into sectarian partisanship.

Baha'is can serve on non-partisan commissions. I was involved with our City Human Relations Commission for about four years. Baha'is can also run for a non-partisan office in our state such as a Judgeship.

We also among ourselves have no partisanship or sectarian strife. At Baha'i Conventions there are no nominations or campaigning allowed. If someone has been distinguished by their service to the Cause it is usually noted by the friends.

 

[Arthra]

The Crux of Christianity is the Atoning Sacrifice and Resurrection of Jesus, this is integral to the view of Jesus and all tenets of the religion, but this is absent in amongst the Bahai and all other Jesus-revering but non-Christian religions.

You may be unfamiliar as yet with our Writings consider the following:

"Know thou that when the Son of Man yielded up His breath to God, the whole creation wept with a great weeping. By sacrificing Himself, however, a fresh capacity was infused into all created things. Its evidences, as witnessed in all the peoples of the earth, are now manifest before thee. The deepest wisdom which the sages have uttered, the profoundest learning which any mind hath unfolded, the arts which the ablest hands have produced, the influence 86 exerted by the most potent of rulers, are but manifestations of the quickening power released by His transcendent, His all-pervasive, and resplendent Spirit.

"We testify that when He came into the world, He shed the splendor of His glory upon all created things. Through Him the leper recovered from the leprosy of perversity and ignorance. Through Him, the unchaste and wayward were healed. Through His power, born of Almighty God, the eyes of the blind were opened, and the soul of the sinner sanctified."

~ Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 85

If His Holiness Jesus Christ had not possessed love for the world of humanity, surely he would not have welcomed the cross. He was crucified for the love of mankind. Consider the infinite degree of that love.

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Foundations of World Unity, p. 89

"There is no doubt that there is vicarious atonement for others, and our sufferings sometimes can be in the nature of a sacrifice accepted for others..."

From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer, October 25, 1949

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

You may be unfamiliar as yet with our Writings consider the following:

"Know thou that when the Son of Man yielded up His breath to God, the whole creation wept with a great weeping. By sacrificing Himself, however, a fresh capacity was infused into all created things. Its evidences, as witnessed in all the peoples of the earth, are now manifest before thee. The deepest wisdom which the sages have uttered, the profoundest learning which any mind hath unfolded, the arts which the ablest hands have produced, the influence 86 exerted by the most potent of rulers, are but manifestations of the quickening power released by His transcendent, His all-pervasive, and resplendent Spirit.

"We testify that when He came into the world, He shed the splendor of His glory upon all created things. Through Him the leper recovered from the leprosy of perversity and ignorance. Through Him, the unchaste and wayward were healed. Through His power, born of Almighty God, the eyes of the blind were opened, and the soul of the sinner sanctified."

~ Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 85

If His Holiness Jesus Christ had not possessed love for the world of humanity, surely he would not have welcomed the cross. He was crucified for the love of mankind. Consider the infinite degree of that love.

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Foundations of World Unity, p. 89

"There is no doubt that there is vicarious atonement for others, and our sufferings sometimes can be in the nature of a sacrifice accepted for others..."

From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer, October 25, 1949

Yes, but this is not the same as Christianity (as Smaneck made clear in a post preceding the one you quoted), which teaches an atonement for all sins forever more and resurrection based thereon. You and Smaneck have explained your positions well in these threads and unfortunately the concept of Manifestations is incompatible with Christian Atonement. These instances quoted therefore clearly has different implications than the Christian view.

 

[smaneck]

You and Smaneck have explained your positions well in these threads and unfortunately the concept of Manifestations is incompatible with Christian Atonement.

You yourself admitted that there is no single view of atonement in Christianity. I don't think anything I've said is incompatible with Peter of Abelard's theory.
It seems what you really object to is that we aren't exclusive like most Christian conceptions.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

You yourself admitted that there is no single view of atonement in Christianity. I don't think anything I've said is incompatible with Peter of Abelard's theory.
It seems what you really object to is that we aren't exclusive like most Christian conceptions.

The question then is saved from what? It seems to me that Christians are out to save individuals from a world which is otherwise going to hell whereas Baha'is are endeavoring to transform the world through action in the world.



Uh, Paul didn't write Timothy or any of the pastoral letters. That is why I didn't include them when I complained about some of the things Paul said about women.



We have very different ideas if what salvation is all about.



Obviously I experienced just the opposite, or I would not have left Christianity to become a Baha'i.

Let me explain what I believe about atonement and why I don't think regarding what Jesus did on the cross as a once-and-for all event works. Here is how I understand the Christian concept of atonement. The most common Christian concept of atonement and salvation is based on the arguments of Anselm of Canterbury who lived in the 11th
century. He had a neo-platonic notion of God wherein He was seen as possessing both perfect Justice and Mercy both of which must be satisfied. Because of His perfect Justice He cannot forgive sins without satisfaction. And because He is merciful the means had to provided for making that satisfaction. Does this sound familiar? Living in the
hierarchical world of early medieval Europe, Anselm felt the gravity of a sin or crime was measured by the station of the one against whom the crime or sin had been forgiven.

God being exalted above all stations, it stood to reason that a sin against Him was of infinite gravity with eternal repercussion's. It therefore incurred a debt which man could not hope to satisfy. The only way in which the satisfaction could be made, and men could be set free from sin, was for God Himself to make the satisfaction as a man.
My objection is that this formula seems to have more to do with 'fire insurance' than a relationship, except if one is seeing 'relationship' in cold, legalistic terms. It seems to me this is necessarily so, because when God's attributes are seen these kinds of static categories of Justice and Mercy we are trying to look at God in Greek
terms of essence rather than Hebrew sense of conception of God as a Living God, a Person. And we can only have a relationship with the
latter, not the former. Yes, the Baha'i Writings speak of ransoms and one doesn't necessarily have to die to make that sacrifice. Baha'u'llah Himself says:

"Fix your gaze upon Him Who is the Temple of God amongst men. He, in truth, hath offered up His life as a ransom for the redemption of the world. He, verily, is the All-Bountiful, the Gracious, the Most High.If any differences arise amongst you, behold Me standing before your face, and overlook the faults of one another for My name's sake and as a token of your love for My manifest and resplendent Cause." Gleanings, 314.

But while the Writings do speak of ransom but they also speak of repentance as being the sole prerequisite of forgiveness. We even have references to the kind of 'death-bed' conversions that some people make fun of Christianity for:

"He should forgive the sinful, and never despise his low estate, for none knoweth what his own end shall be. How often hath a sinner, at the hour of death, attained to the essence of faith, and, quaffing the immortal draught, hath taken his flight unto the celestial Concourse. And how often hath a devout believer, at the hour of his soul's ascension, been so changed as to fall into the nethermost fire." KI 194-95

He likewise says; "Should anyone be afflicted by a sin, it behoveth him to repent thereof and return unto his Lord. He, verily, granteth forgiveness unto whomsoever He willeth, and none may question that which it pleaseth Him to ordain."

Repentance doesn't mean simply feeling sorry for one sins, it means turning towards God. One story that is told about Muslim mystic Rabi'a is that one day she came upon Hasan al-Basra (an earlier Muslim mystic) who was weeping and wailing over his sins, saying what a wretched man he was. Rabi'a said, "Yes, you are. Because had you truly turned towards God you would be looking at Him and not noticing your own sins."

If repentance is the only prerequisite for forgiveness why then does Baha'u'llah speak of 'ransoms'? Perhaps it is because only these kinds of sacrifices which make true repentance, true focusing on God out of love possible. This is what another medieval Christian theologian, Peter of Abelard argued. He held that the Crucifixion was necessary to forgive men's sin not because it was required on God's part but because only such a dramatic expression of God's love would enable people to repent and cause them to turn towards Him.

It strikes me that this form of atonement, unlike Anselm's formulation is relational. But it is also something which could not be done once and never again as in Christianity. If it is indeed grounded in God's determination to reach us, instead of satisfying some abstract requirements of the Divine Essence, then it would happen again and again as Baha'u'llah seems to affirm.

I think there is a great danger in seeing God as static, understandable by human categories like justice and mercy as Anselm liked to do. The God of Abraham was a Living God, a Person and like all persons (and unlike pure essences) He had a Will, one like all wills was subject to change on occasion. It seems to me this attempt to make God fit our mental conceptions, to put Him into a predictable box is in the end, a form of idolatry. The Living God is not so predictable. He fulfills prophecies in ways we don't expect, and at times appears to fulfill them not at all.

I quoted your previous post again. This says multiple atonements are necessary. This is not Christian which has a single atonement of Man to God via God as Man. Manifestations are not fully God as well, so this is incompatible with Christian concepts of Atonement including Peter of Abelard's views.

EDIT: Its not the fact of exclusivity that is the problem. If Jesus is not fully God, then His Passion is not the full act of Love on the account of God to reconcile creation to Him, but a sacrifice of a subsidiary creature. This transform it into a metaphysical act of sadism, no matter how well-intentioned, as if a homeowner tortures his dog to stop his other dogs from doing things that are harmful to them. This conception does much to misrepresent the implications of the Moral Influence theory. Repeatibility also transforms it from a universal act which can be trusted to mediate between sinful man and God, to a transaction of how much Atonement on the one hand of the scale is necessary for God, leaving us soteriologically on quicksand of limited atonement.

 

[smaneck]

I quoted your previous post again. This says multiple atonements are necessary. This is not Christian which has a single atonement of Man to God via God as Man. Manifestations are not fully God as well, so this is incompatible with Christian concepts of Atonement including Peter of Abelard's views.

You're ignoring why I said multiple atonements were necessary. If it is, as I suggested a matter of reaching us rather than God needing to satisfy some abstract notion of divine justice, then He will use all means at His disposal. This does not mean that Christ's sacrifice is not sufficient for the Christian who believes in it! It is, just as the sacrifice of the Imam Husayn is sufficient for the Shi'ite Muslim who believes in it. My point is that God has more than one way of opening us up to grace.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

You're ignoring why I said multiple atonements were necessary. If it is, as I suggested a matter of reaching us rather than God needing to satisfy some abstract notion of divine justice, then He will use all means at His disposal. This does not mean that Christ's sacrifice is not sufficient for the Christian who believes in it! It is, just as the sacrifice of the Imam Husayn is sufficient for the Shi'ite Muslim who believes in it. My point is that God has more than one way of opening us up to grace.

Sorry, I added a bit to my previous post earlier. Please read that, I explained my position.

 

[smaneck]

I quoted your previous post again. This says multiple atonements are necessary. This is not Christian which has a single atonement of Man to God via God as Man. Manifestations are not fully God as well, so this is incompatible with Christian concepts of Atonement including Peter of Abelard's views.

EDIT: Its not the fact of exclusivity that is the problem. If Jesus is not fully God, then His Passion is not the full act of Love on the account of God to reconcile creation to Him, but a sacrifice of a subsidiary creature.

Since I see the Manifestations as everything we can understand about God humanly speaking, that isn't a problem for me.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Since I see the Manifestations as everything we can understand about God humanly speaking, that isn't a problem for me.

Yet they aren't God in essence and therefore Peter of Abelard's conceptions do not fully apply as he stated only something fully God can reconcile Man to God. Therefore this form of Christian Atonement cannot be applied in a Bahai Faith framework as well without making significant alterations to what is meant by atonement and God.

 

[smaneck]

Yet they aren't God in essence and therefore Peter of Abelard's conceptions do not fully apply as he stated only something fully God can reconcile Man to God.

That was Anselm's argument, not Abelard's.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

That was Anselm's argument, not Abelard's.

No, you miss my point. This is not about God needing something from man, you read too much into that 'to' of Man to God. This was just ambiguous grammar. I was referring to Peter of Abelard's Moral Influence theory throughout.