Re: Can someone make sense out of this theologian thing for me?

Hi, Susan.

Many thanks again for sharing this with us. This past weekend was very
busy and I continue to be busy. However, you deserve acknowledgement
for for sharing this with us, and I did say I would try to respond more
fully to it.

smaneck@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> In short, I don't think we should be looking to the elected
> institutions to
> achieve the vision of Baha'u'llah and `Abdu'l-Baha, regarding the role
> of
> the learned and divines, for us. It would even be normal for there to
> be a
> degree of tension and jealousy between the elected organs and the
> incipient
> organs of the divines and the house of worship.

Actually, Sen and I do not agree on the ideal Baha'i attitudes involved
here. Ideally, Baha'i transcends such tension and jealousy. It is,
however, very legitimate, in light of the less than ideal functioning
of the Baha'i elected organs (possibly due to the less than democratic
nature of Baha'i elections, where the higher one goes the more remote
those elected are from the actual votes of their constituents, voters
voting for delegates who then vote for delegates...) for people to see
no difference in the actual functioning of Baha'i administration and
other administrations which seem as a matter of course to embody such
tensions and jealousies.

I believe it remains a reasonable and a spiritual goal within a
religion to strive to co-operate
rather than to engage in contentious power games. This is the more
important, in my opinion, within Baha'i, as Baha'i has asserted it may
be scrutinized by the peoples and rulers of the world as an example of
more mature human behaviour as humanity comes of age, recognizes it is
a single species and beneficially advances forward leaving conflict
behind it.

Quite frankly, Baha'i has performed terribly and any real Baha'i would
be embarassed to behold the sorry state to which Baha'i administrators
have fallen. Baha'u'llah did prohibit fanaticism in his Most Holy Book,
and anyone truly believing (rather than pretending) that Baha'i
administrators are paragons of infallible perfection ought to call
themselves to account each day in light of this prohibition and pray to
really be allowed to witness effective administration within Baha'i.

That said, the issue of clergy within Baha'i remains. I think it is
logical to deduce that were there a sagacious, harmonious, universal
Baha'i administration, then Baha'i believers would not be confronted by
the consequences of the current divisive, jealous and contentious men
in current control. This newsgroup's archives are an astounding
collection of responses to the inadequacy of current leaders to measure
up to the call of advancing Baha'i forward in a spirit of amity,
fellowship and friendship, of truly providing the rulers and peoples of
the world with that example of a loftier way of doing business.

When a leader or leadership body simply insists it be obeyed
regardless, that leader or body is not providing the reasonable, the
resonating, the thrilling guidance that surpasses the requirement of
obey on the grounds the leaders are in control. And so, the hapless
Baha'is have surged and frothed and tossed up pretenders to
prophethood, fulminating betrayed lovers, reasoned efforts to
re-establish clerical authority, etc. -- all because there is no ideal
leadership within Baha'i, nothing to arrest the eyes of humanity, other
than in amazement that the Twenty First Century can contain such
anachronistic throwbacks to ages of religious intolerance and
thoughtless absolutism.

On the issue of clergy, what are we to make of the so called
"Institution of the learned," a whole vast hierarchy of appointed
individuals, easily perceived as priests functioning in the role of
authoritarian informers, a network of spies, selected not for knowledge
but for a conservative, narrow minded and intolerant attitude within a
Faith that is ideally the antithesis of these attitudes? This is a
matter that could well sustain real Baha'i consultation.

Since Baha'i is a religion, a Faith (though one teaching the balanced
necessity of reason and belief), a spiritual entity, spiritual
attitudes are very significant in such considerations. Human ego is
something to be concerned about, and both those who fantasize about
speaking in a temple in Leydon, or wherever else, expounding on the
scriptures to their assembled congregations and those who take pride in
their infallible pronouncements from Mount Carmel, do well to wrestle
with the demons of arrogance, admit the democratic spirit contained in
the Baha'i revelation and open their hearts and minds to the diversity
of views divinely endowed within Baha'i, as well as the validity of the
religious sentiments, understandings and theologies of those
identifying as other than Baha'i.

I'll pause here, and I hope I have at least begun to address the vast
issues contained in these quotes you, Susan, so kindly shared with us.

Thrice Three Blessings, Michael

.

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