Posted by Stuart Gilman (67.68.253.56) on August 18, 2003 at 08:38:31:

In Reply to: Re: What would Bahaullah say today? posted by Jim Habegger on August 15, 2003 at 18:17:39:

Since obedience is blind, blind obedience is redundant and obedience must be blind without being apologetic.

My personal connection to devout Bahais is wide and varied.
The Universal House of Justice is given Divine Authority which should not be questioned. For many of us, who cannot even name the leaders who sit on the Universal House of Justice it is difficult to accept their purported perfection and absolute truth of their edicts and proclamations. To us, these are not necessarily Messengers of God but worthy appointees in the absence of Bahaullah and Abdul Baha. Thus, by necessity, their roles are conservative and not progressive.

The Persian portion of Bahai is the core population of our Religion. To stray forward or sidewise from their beliefs, interpretations and superstitions would destroy the Faith. Change is difficult and progressive change impossible. This is how it is and how it should be.

For a minority to demand equal rights for women and gays at all levels right up to membership in the UHJ is equivalent to religious suicide. History allows the formation of new religious groups formed out of rebellion to tenets of its conservative or fundamentalist base. You do not choose to be a Bahai to change it; we ordinary mortals have not even begun to understand the full breadth and wealth of Bahai as it is. To bypass our imperfections and our failures in performing our simple, daily obligations by focussing on modernist, contemporary radicalism is to miss out on the fundamentals of Bahai.

If instead of ablution you choose revolution, you have no right to question, but an obligation to obedience, though it be blind.

Stuart's opinion

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