Me:
I am saying, clearly and in several different ways that the Covenant of
Baha'u'llah is personal with each of us, and a small part of that Covenant
is that we should obey the sanctioned institutions of the Baha'i Faith in
their official capacities as they themselves define those capacities.
> Yes, it would help if you found sup****t for your position in the
> Writings rather than in Pilgrim's notes. It would also help if you
> looked specifically at those Writings which spoke directly to the
> issue of the Covenant.
I challenge the assertion that it would help to find words in other places
besides those "Pilgrim's notes" such as Paris Talks, Promulgation of
Universal Peace, and such. I boldly assert that those works are a basis
for
belief in the Baha'i Faith, and they accurately reflect the ideals and
ideas
that should be known to the world as Baha'i ideals and ideas.
To challenge those works serves no purpose but to isolate, to bolster
exclusivism, to deny the clear truth of reality as presented in Baha'i
Writings.
Each individual sentence or word might be challenged as to authenticity or
translators preferences, but taken as a whole, taken by the paragraph, the
jist of these works is the Baha'i Faith. To rob that from me would rob my
faith, would exclude me from the Writings which inspired me to become a
Baha'i.
If the aim of the Baha'i Faith is to exclude people like me from
'Abdu'l-Baha's religion, well then the Baha'i Faith itself is counter to
the
Covenant of Baha'u'llah. These legalistic, exclusivist tactics of the
interpreters of Baha'i Writings is clearly divisive.
"As regards the meaning of the Bahá'í Covenant: The Guardian considers the
existence of two forms of Covenant both of which are explicitly mentioned
in
the literature of the Cause. First is the covenant that every Prophet
makes
with humanity or, more definitely, with His people that they will accept
and
follow the coming Manifestation Who will be the reappearance of His
reality.
The second form of covenant is such as the one Bahá'u'lláh made with His
people that they should accept the Master. This is merely to establish and
strengthen the succession of the series of Lights that appear after every
Manifestation. Under the same category falls the covenant the Master made
with the Bahá'ís that they should accept His administration after Him..."
(From a letter written on behalf of the Guardian to an individual, October
21, 1921)
In that quote I point out that whoever wrote this letter on behalf of the
Guardian ordered the Covenant of God, second the Covenant of Baha'u'llah,
appointing 'Abdu'l-Baha as the center, and His teachings the teachings of
the Baha'i Faith only later talking about the administration of the Baha'i
Faith
I point out the teachings of 'Abdu'l-Baha include commands to unify to
better oneself, to be a light to humanity.
> But that order is also
> chronological and we live in the time of the Administrative Order, not
> the Heroic Age when Baha'u'llah and Abdu'l-Baha lived.
Such an interpretation is unlikely, in my opinion, to be primary in the
mind
of the Guardian as his secretary wrote this letter.
> Sure, if they can find some authoritative sources to back up their
> assertions. Otherwise, it isn't much of a challenge.
You might also prove that whenever the Guardian spoke it was
chronological.
That to order by im****tance was not likely for him.
But to me this all seems just silly. Why exclude the likely possibility
that the Guardian wanted Baha'is to follow the clear teachings of
'Abdu'l-Baha even if they are not entirely and completely verified
accurate
to the punctuation?
It is exclusivism.
--Kent
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