The temple in Chicago seems very impressive and I feel bad that I have never visited it, especially since I live in the Chicago-land area.
But, some parts of the video and website bothered me. Like in our discussion in class, I felt that the Bahai say they are incorporating "all" the religions of the world, but that those who follow the other religions have strayed from the correct path and Baha'ullah is the prophet to follow now. Similar to the chart in our book on Baha'ullah, a graphic in the video shows different religious prophets from Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, etc, around a sun ( as if they are the rays of the sun). According the video, all these religions had prophets that are delivering the same message, just at different points in history and Baha'ullah is the most recent and up to date prophet doing so. In the video, his name is larger than all the names and as they fade away, his name is still present, showing his importance. All religions feel that their way is the right way but I feel that the Baha'i faith take it a step further with including the prophets of other religions but then saying those followers are wrong.
The video states "Bahai's recognize the unity of all religions" but this isn't really true; if they did, they wouldn't think other religions were wrong from believing that their stories and prophets are the correct ones to follow. There is so much stress on unity in this video that it starts to become overwhelming and almost cliche.
Also, the website seems more like advertising for people to come to visit rather than a place of worship. I do realize that the Baha'i Temple is a landmark, but on the homepage of the temple, the things that stuck out to me were " There is no admission fee", which makes it seem like a tourist attraction and the section on media coverage. Also, on the right side there is a list of links and the first one is "visitors information." I may be over analyzing this because the temple is the only one on the continent so many people would be visiting it, but the website seems focused on recruiting visitors and making itself known to the outside rather than services, its already committed Baha'i followers, etc.
Hi, I'm a Bahai. I don't know what video you saw, but your comment is sharp, and a fair critique of what many Bahais believe and the language they use. They act as if God send a series of religions, and each time a new one gets the power, God pulls the plug on the old ones. This is not what Baha'u'llah taught, he was an intelligent man who had a real appreciation of the religions he encountered: Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism.
ReplyDeleteThe same is true of his sone Abdu’l-Baha, who said:
… the breezes of Christ are still blowing; His light is still shining; His melody is still resounding; … and it is the same with those souls who are under His protection and are shining with His light.
(Some Answered Questions, 152)
And Shoghi Effendi wrote about the future of Christianity:
The indwelling Spirit of God which, in the Apostolic Age of the Church, animated its members, the pristine purity of its teachings, the primitive brilliancy of its light, will, no doubt, be reborn and revived as the inevitable consequences of this redefinition of its fundamental verities, and the clarification of its original purpose. For the Faith of Baha’u'llah — if we would faithfully appraise it — can never, and in no aspect of its teachings, be at variance, much less conflict, with the purpose animating, or the authority invested in, the Faith of Jesus Christ.
(The World Order of Baha’u'llah, 185)
etc.. The Bahai leaders are (as you would expect) vastly more perceptive and broad in vision than many of their followers. You get that with religions :-)
See more on my blog at
htt p://tinyurl.com/BahaiEcumenics
and
htt p://tinyurl.com/futureofreligions
(remove the spaces in the urls)
I've had some occasion to have some curious conversations about this stance of accepting all the prophets of the great religions vs having a particular prophet to follow. One time there was a person making a big deal of personally taking multiple faiths on completely equal grounds. We (some Baha'is that is) chimed in with admiration that this was an official position in the Baha'i Faith. He got incensed. He was completely upset that a religion could theologically affirm a position of the equality of religions when the other religions didn't make a similar stance. He felt the Baha'is had sort of co-opted the position he thought possible only outside every religion.
ReplyDeleteHere's more about this idea from my understanding. If you study the religions academically you may think that it's just a matter of choices people make or systems of thought and how they change. Historical trends and such. But from inside a religion somewhere at it's root is a belief that God, or the Uncreated, the Most Great Being, actually did something. So while a variety of religions might drift on the status of divorce or when or how to fast or how it administers the affairs of the community may be part of a fabric of human history it is also not just a matter of that human history that particular stances on such matters take place.
Now bring this to the question of the equality of the prophets, yet following a particular prophet. If the religion is just a placement in human history then a position of equality and distinction of a particular prophet may be hard to reconcile. However if religion is essentially and foremost a process by which God speaks to us, then the choice God makes to have a religion be established must be honored. Moreover the religions and scriptures don't just pop up arbitrarily. Later ones refer to earlier ones. Buddhism criticizes the millions of gods of Hinduism. Islam criticizes the status Jesus is given. Etc. As such these are not simply things to be compared and viewed without appreciation of the relationships of the religions even from the scripture's internal point of view.
Now particular Baha'is may be in particular personal places of understanding and may have a strong historical relationship with one prophet but hardly know of another - but their duty, often mentioned one way or another in the Baha'i writings, is to study, reflect upon, what has happened to a variety of prophets. Think of what the Christians did - they accepted the Old Testament as a work of God and kept it in almost all printings of their Scripture. And they promulgated the history of Moses and Abraham et al around the world. So do Indian (asia) Baha'is redigest Hindu terminology and promulgate their understanding of Hinduism from a Baha'i point of view. Baha'is in the west have written many books working through the issues of relating the Baha'is Faith to Christianity. And so etc, minding particular circumstances.
And as pointed out above, Baha'is do have references in their Scripture to the continuing effect and reality of past prophets. One of my favorites is:
"Blessed is the soul which, at the hour of its separation from the body, is sanctified from the vain imaginings of the peoples of the world. Such a soul liveth and moveth in accordance with the Will of its Creator, and entereth the all-highest Paradise. The Maids of Heaven, inmates of the loftiest mansions, will circle around it, and the Prophets of God and His chosen ones will seek its companionship. With them that soul will freely converse, and will recount unto them that which it hath been made to endure in the path of God, the Lord of all worlds."
I think it would a wondrous thing to have a chance to visit with the prophets of the past though of course I'm still working towards that hour of leaving.