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Bahá`í/Why do Bahais ignore questions?

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Expert: - 11/7/2009


Question
I’ve noticed somthin on this site and the net about some Baha’i sects. can you answer it? why do they ignore questions? or hide from them? like this one

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Bah-2728/2008/7/policies-Baha-administration.htm

The guy was just asking a simple question. What do you Bahas have to hide?

Answer

Reform Bahai Faith
You're asking a very good question, one that has often been noted by many people in various Bahai forums. The example you refer to, from here on AllExperts.com, is a case in point.

The views of the people that David mentions, Juan Cole, myself, Karen Bacquet, “and the many others” may easily be read by anyone interested at

http://www.fglaysher.com/bahaicensorship

I agree with David that what these people have written, leaving others to decide regarding myself, is “legitimate.”

Here’s an excerpt from Professor Juan Cole’s book “Modernity and the Millennium: The Genesis of the Baha'i Faith in the Nineteenth-Century Middle East,” Columbia University Press, 1998, in which, Professor Juan Cole observes that the Baha'i administration has increasingly come under the control of fundamentalists, "stressing scriptural literalism . . . theocracy, censorship, intellectual intolerance, and denying key democratic values" (196).

Here’s an extract from Karen Bacquet’s article “Enemies Within: Conflict and Control in the Baha'i Community”: "The Baha’i Faith, best-known for its liberal social teachings and tolerance towards other religions, has an authoritarian governing structure that has caused a high level of disillusionment among adherents. Because of the religion’s stress on unity, there is considerable insecurity about the expression of dissent and a fear of internal enemies. Conformity is enforced by sanctions, excommunication, and shunning, and information is controlled through a system of censorship.” http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/bigquestions/enemies.html

Again, similar views from “many others” may be read at http://www.fglaysher.com/bahaicensorship

My concern with Suzanne Gerstner’s response to David and her posting a link to the fundamentalist UHJ’s letter to Susan Maneck is that it seeks to minimize what is really involved: fanaticism that has no respect for religious freedom and liberty, including freedom of conscience, and uses the most reprehensible tactics towards anyone who does not accept its narrowly conceived doctrines of who is a Bahai.

Finally, presenting Susan Maneck as a reliable academic is utterly ridiculous to anyone who actually knows what her record is and has been. Professor Juan Cole, of the University of Michigan, has written of her, "...she has behaved toward me in an academic setting with dishonesty and deceit in such a way as deprives her  of the right to debate me publicly. She spied on me and lied about it." Prof. Juan Cole: http://www.fglaysher.com/bahaicensorship/Cole20.htm

I suggest to readers of AllExperts.com that Susan Maneck is not a reliable source for anything and has a very long history on the Internet of being a fundamentalist apologist for the worst fanatical elements among the theocratic Haifan and Wilmette Bahais. Extensive comments to that effect, from many, many people, Bahai and otherwise, for more than a decade, may be read at Susan Maneck, Baha'i scholar:
http://www.fglaysher.com/bahaicensorship/Maneck8.htm  
http://www.fglaysher.com/bahaicensorship/Maneck1.htm

Finally, to answer your question directly, Why do they hide from or ignore questions? As a member of the Reform Bahai Faith, I would have to say it is ultimately because they are afraid of Abdul-Baha's teaching that "The conscience of man is sacred and to be respected."

Also, depending to what degree you've studied the Bahai writings, the theocratic Bahai denominations, of which there are several, all believe that after Abdul-Bahai's death in 1921, what purports to be his will and testament appointed his grandson Shoghi Effendi as a "guardian" to interpret and run the Bahai Faith. That document was judged fraudulent in 1930 by Dr. C. Ainsworth Mitchell of the British Museum in London, its chief document expert and one of the most respect forensic researchers of the 20th century. Much of the fanaticism that the theocratic Bahais demonstrate is focussed on defending that fraudulent document and the corrupt, power-hungry organization it and Shoghi Effendi created.

The Reform Bahai Faith follows Abdul-Baha's 1912 Covenant, which he delivered publicly, and which emphasizes the universal Covenant of God with man, since Abraham, not to leave mankind unguided, and teaches a moderate spiritual democracy, not a theocracy.

Hope this helps to answer your question.

Bahai regards,

Frederick Glaysher

Reform Bahai Faith
http://www.reformbahai.org  

Frederick Glaysher

Expertise

I've been a member of the Reform Bahai Faith since 1976, have published in the Bahai journal World Order, and served in several Bahai communities throughout the United States. Having read extensively in the Bahai writings for over thirty years and having had university coursework in religious studies and theology, I can confidently address issues of cultural, historical, and spiritual importance to Bahais and other interested people of various religious and secular outlook.

Experience

As a member of the Reform Bahai Faith and one of the founders of the Usenet discussion group talk.religion.bahai, I have been intimately involved in the issues of free speech and conscience within the Bahai Faith since 1996, if not longer. http://www.fglaysher.com/bahaicensorship

Organizations
Reform Bahai Faith http://www.reformbahai.org

Publications
I am also the editor or author of two books on the Bahai teachings. The Universal Principles of the Reform Bahai Faith. Baha'u'llah & Abdu'l-Baha. With a new Introduction and the original 1912 Foreword. Hardcover: ISBN: 9780967042138 148 pages. Reform Bahai Press, 2008. Letters from the American Desert: Signposts of a Journey, A Vision. ISBN: 9780967042114. Preface. 172 pages. 2008. In Letters from the American Desert, Glaysher reflects on the cultural, political, and religious history of Western and non-Western civilizations, pondering the dilemmas of postmodernity, in a compelling struggle for spiritual knowledge and truth. Fully cognizant of the relativism and nihilism of modern life, Glaysher finds a deeper meaning and purpose for the individual and the world community in the writings and global vision of Baha’u’llah, as expressed in the Reform Bahai Faith. Confronting the antinomies of the soul, grounded in the dialectic, Glaysher explores a path beyond the postmodern desert. Alluding to Martin Luther and W. B. Yeats at All Souls Chapel, Glaysher calls Reform Bahais and others to consider the universal, moderate form of the Bahai Teachings as interpreted by Abdu’l-Baha, Baha’u’llah’s son, who had spoken throughout the West in Europe, England, and the United States from 1911 to 1913. Abdu’l-Baha’s message of the oneness of God, all religions, and humankind holds out a new hope and vision for a world in spiritual and global crisis. Far from a theocracy, the Reform Bahai Faith envisions a modest separation of church and state as the will of God, in harmony and balance with universal peace, in a global age of pluralism, where religious belief is a distinctive mark of the individual, not collective, communal identity. Printed books and eBooks available via links at http://www.fglaysher.com/order_books.html

Education/Credentials
MA, University of Michigan, English, 1981 BGS, University of Michigan, English, Biblical Studies, Islam, 1980 Ten years teaching, at the university and college level, English, Rhetoric, American literature, non-Western literature, World Religions, and other courses.

Awards and Honors
A Fulbright-Hays scholar to China in 1994, I studied at Beijing University, the Buddhist Mogao Caves on the old Silk Road, and elsewhere in China, including Hong Kong and the Academia Sinica in Taiwan. While a National Endowment for the Humanities scholar in 1995 on India, I further explored the conflicts between the traditional regional civilizations of Islamic and Hindu cultures and modernity. I have been an outspoken advocate of the United Nations and was an accredited participant at the UN Millennium Forum (2000).

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