The Baha'i Studies Listserv Gilberto wisely says: >They certainly have distinctive beliefs but every church has their own >distinctive beliefs or practices ... that's why at some point they split off from some other church.
>And when those splits were fresh, some of the mutual recrimination was >certainly intenses. When the Reformation was going on, I'm sure Catholics were saying Protestants were non-Christian and vice-versa. But then over time Catholics started to have a more mellow notion of the Church which included non-Catholics. T>he only reason I might call them Christians is >> because that is what they call themselves, but I'm certainly not >> critical of Christians who says they are not. >At least in this thread, I'm not criticizing Bahais for refering to groups like the Orthodox Bahais or Bahais Under the Provision of the Covenant etc. as non-Bahais. But I wouldn't expect outsiders who don't >have a dog in the fight to follow the same rules. >>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<< What occurs to me is: I am a totally active, conventional, mainstream, majoritarian, Haifan Baha'i with no bones to pick or axes to grind against anyone who has not been officially designated a Covenant Breaker by the legitimate Baha'i Authority which meets on Mt. Carmel in Israel. And I suspect that Gilberto has a point. Sooner or later, just like the Church of Rome, we may well need to decide on a term to distinguish ourselves from fringes who call themselves "Baha'i". Maybe we will just capitalize "Mainstream". While it is true that the Covenant has protected us from schism, there is no bright line number beyond which the number of dissident "Baha'is" or even Covenant Breakers cannot potentially grow. Our imaginations often drift altogether past the perilous "Middle ages" which separate our "primitive", "classical" Baha'i community from the glorious Baha'i World Commonwealth of the (perhaps very distant) future. Meanwhile, oh say 362 or 594 or 813 or something years from now the world may have countries which are 37% "Haifan" Baha'i and 8% dissident "Baha'i" side by side with some other country which is 42% "Haifan" and 12% dissident and the Christians or Muslims or atheists in political power will be eye-balling each other for a war. At that point what the dissidents or the atheists call us will be the least of our problems. Are there any tablets in Persian or Arabic which can be construed to give guidance to a Baha'i community perched so precariously near the border of disaster in the future. And for that matter, what about the third country just around the corner who has just become 51% Mainstream Baha'i? Is there a provision in untranslated Scripture that allows (or commands) them to take a strong role in national politics or to advocate for a "just war" once That line has been crossed? Will the UHJ of B.E. 986 wish that the ragtag Baha'i intellectuals of B.E. 167 had started to ruminate about Baha'i political theory for the Long Interim? Are my assumptions totally stupid? Am I missing something which should be obvious to an old Baha'i bookworm? Hit me with your best shots please... Peace, Gary __________________________________________________ You are subscribed to Baha'i Studies as: mailto:[email protected] Unsubscribe: send a blank email to mailto:leave-528067-27401.54f46e81b66496c9909bcdc2f7987...@list.jccc.edu Subscribe: send subscribe bahai-st in the message body to [email protected] Or subscribe: http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/all_forums/subscribe?name=bahai-st Baha'i Studies is available through the following: Mail - mailto:[email protected] Web - http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/?forum=bahai-st News (on-campus only) - news://list.jccc.edu/bahai-st Old Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] New Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
