Church and State in Scripture

In a conversation with a friend about the translation of the 8th Ishraq (discussed here), I realised that he thought the whole question of the Bahai teachings on church and state hinged in some way on doubtful matters: on the translation of the Ishraqat, on whether the words “the consummate union and blending of church and state” had been interpolated into a report of Abdu’l-Baha’s words, (See the entry ‘A consummate union’), and such like.

Nothing could be further from the truth:

Foundations for inter-faith sharing

Bahais have been frequent participants in inter-faith fora, and like all the participants we need to work out what our basic stance is: are we there to protect our interests and have our say; are we counting the other participants as anonymous Bahais and including them into our project; are we there to show what we have to offer that other religions do not have, and so win converts?

Conversation with God

We had a potluck for yummy-ha, with pecan pie. It was followed by imaginative and effective musical devotions: first all learning to sing a simple prayer with variants, and then all humming that tune while some short readings were read slooowly, the spoken phrases matching the musical phrases.

Since the potluck took place at the day and home which regularly hosts a Ruhi circle, the devotions flowed straight on to a Ruhi session, Book 1 Chapter 2, on Prayer. The first words of the chapter are “Abdu’l-Baha says that prayer is conversation with God.” No source was given. This part of the Ruhi book raises a lot of questions, and questions are always good.

1917 and all that

The Bahai community has a tendency to get carried away with its enthusiasms for prophecies that supposedly give an insight into the immediate future. I’ve discussed one of these in Century’s end, about the expectation that “unity of nations” would be achieved by the year 2000. The story this time goes back to the beginning of the 20th century, when the Bahais were waiting for cataclysms to strike in 1917, followed by a world at peace in which “all nations shall be as one faith.”

House of Justice, House of Worship

Now concerning nature, it is but the essential properties and the necessary relations inherent in the realities of things. And though these infinite realities are diverse in their character yet they are in the utmost harmony and closely connected together. As one’s vision is broadened and the matter observed carefully, it will be made certain that every reality is but an essential requisite of other realities. Thus to connect and harmonize these diverse and infinite realities an all-unifying Power is necessary, that every part of existent being may in perfect order discharge its own function.
(Abdu’l-Baha, Tablet to August Forel, pages 20-21)

In a letter dated 7 April 1999 the Universal House of Justice warns among other things of an “attempt to suggest that the Mashriqu’l-Adhkar should evolve into a seat of quasidoctrinal authority, parallel to and essentially independent of the Local House of Justice.” Although I am not aware that this idea has ever been put forward in the English-speaking Bahai world, the letter may be taken as evidence that it has or may emerge somewhere. So it seems a good idea to consider the relationship between the Mashriqu’l-Adhkar or House of Worship and the Houses of Justice (i.e., the Bahai administrative institutions, which at the local and national level are now known as Spiritual Assemblies). To understand the institutional relations at the core of the organic Bahai community, we will also have to include the guardianship.

Century of light

In Century’s end, I showed that Bahais of my generation widely expected universal peace to arrive in the twentieth century. Some of the texts on which this belief was based did not refer to the twentieth century; others did refer to the twentieth century or dates in the 20th century, but were pilgrims’ notes. There may be more, but I have found five such unauthentic sources:

- The Maxwell’s pilgrim’s notes, anticipating the Lesser Peace by 1953.
- Esselmont’s pilgrim’s notes, in the first edition of Baha’u'llah and the New Era, anticipating universal peace by 1957. As Dan Jensen has pointed out, the 1950 edition changed the date to 1963, but it is still just a pilgrim’s note, and universal peace was also not achieved in 1963.
- Sarah Kenny’s Haifa notes anticipating the Lesser Peace in the 20th century.
- A report in the Montreal Star on September 11, 1912, printed in Abdu’l-Baha in Canada p. 35, saying that peace would be universal in the 20th century.
- A talk reported in The Promulgation of Universal Peace page 126, and in Star of the West 3.8.14, calling the twentieth century the century of international peace.

Century’s end – my two cents

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 1 Corinthians 13:11

The word ‘century’ appears unproblematic: a period of a hundred years, which in common usage begins with the year 00 (although sticklers will insist that the century begins in the year 01, so that the 21st century began on 1 January 2001). But in reading the Bahai texts, things are not so simple. In this post I want to look at the peculiar significance Bahais have mistakenly attached to the 20th century and what can be learned from the whole affair; in the next posting I will look at what the Bahai writings really say about the ‘century’ (not the 20th century).

The future of religions

One of the friends asked:

What is the ideal future envisioned in Baha’i religion? Is it a global order in which the world is composed of many diverse religions, each tolerant of one another, and the Baha’i just one amongst many? Or would the Baha’i be the organizing principle?

I think it is both a pluralist world of diverse religions tolerant of one another and working together, and one new world religious order, whose organising principle is one that is given in the Bahai Scriptures. Tolerance and cooperation between religions is new (although not entirely unknown in history), and it is a Bahai principle, but it is not a monopoly of the Bahais. It’s something the world must learn.

He cannot override …

In Shoghi Effendi’s 1934 letter ‘The Dispensation of Baha’u’llah,’ there’s a well-known paragraph in which he says that “the Guardian of the Faith has been made the Interpreter of the Word and that the Universal House of Justice has been invested with the function of legislating …”. I want to look at the paragraph after that, which deals with the fact that the Guardian is a member of the House of Justice; so that while the spheres of the two institutions are distinct, their memberships overlap. How would that work, with the Guardian or his representative in the room, while the House of Justice was making its decisions?

The knower as servant (response to Paul Lample)

I’ve been reading Paul Lample’s “Learning and the Evolution of the Bahá’í Community.” He presents various possible roles for the “learned Bahai” in the Bahai community. I found it striking that he did not mention the possibility that the learned Bahai could be a servant, someone who uses knowledge to minister to the faithful.

What is theology, and what’s it good for ?

On my web site, I’ve put up my part of two discussion threads about theology, and how the Bahai community can face the fact that some people know more than others, on particular topics, but without replicating the structures of past religions in which greater knowledge often translates into greater authority.

It’s the first and third items on the page
http://www.sonjavank.com/sen/postings/o_cs.htm
Click on the blue PDF buttons.

The threads have started because of my statement in my Master’s dissertation, Church and State, a postmodern political theology:

“that my stance is not that of a historian or academic scholar of the science of religion, but of a Bahai theologian, writing from and for a religious community, and I speak as if the reader shares the concerns of that community. As a Bahai theologian, I seek to criticize, clarify, purify and strengthen the ideas of the Bahai community, to enable Bahais to understand their relatively new faith and to see what it can offer the world. The approach is not value-free. I would be delighted if the Bahai Faith proved to have a synergy with post-modernity, if it prospered in the coming decades and had an influence on the world. The reader who is used to academic studies of religion that avoid such value judgments will have to make the necessary adjustments here and there.”

The Universal House of Justice (who had apparently seen only a selective citation, omitting the words in italics) found the idea of a Bahai theologian objectionable, calling it “a claim that lies well outside the framework of Bahá’í belief and practice,” and removed me from the membership rolls of the Baha’i community.

At various times, people have suggested that the real reason for my disenrollment was something else: – ‘challenging the UHJ’; ‘wanting to set up a body of experts to define Bahai theology’; ‘wanting to give the Mashriqu’l-adhkars some kind of doctrinal authority’; doing something unspecified in Tehran, political involvement, disregarding Bahai review, or the actual content of my book Church and State, which shows that the separation of the religious order and political order is an essential Bahai teaching (usually presented under the heading ‘non-involvement in politics’) and is indeed one of the ancient teachings of the Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Babi and Bahai Faiths.

The House of Justice itself has said, in separate letters, that Bahai review and the contents of Church and State were not the basis of its decision to expel me, the others are also obvious canards. They can be unmasked by asking the spreaders of falsehoods: (a) “So if you know the real reason Sen was expelled, how did the UHJ tell you this?” (b) “are you saying that the UHJ was not being honest about its reasons?” And (c), “suppose that this was the reason, where’s the evidence that Sen actually did or wrote what you say?”

Having disposed of the misinformation, the core issue remains: what is theology, and what is it good for? This is often formulated as the issue of Reason and Revelation, but that is a misstatement. The ‘reason’ in this case is our reason, the ‘Revelation’ is God’s revelation of Godself and God’s will, and clearly our reason is inadequate to the task. The formulation ‘Reason and Revelation’ decides the issue before we start, in favour of Revelation.

But the formulation is wrong, because we never have the Revelation – we each rather have our own understanding and recognition of the Revelation. That understanding and recognition is something we make for ourselves; it is always inadequate and incomplete, it contains inconsistencies, it is mixed with other ideas we have brought in our baggage, and it can always be improved upon. So our understandings – our ideas, not the Revelation itself – can be criticized, clarified, purified and strengthened. And that I think is what theology is good for.

~~Sen McGlinn~~
tiny URL: http://tinyurl.com/822tqd