In approaching members of the Bahá'í World Faith, that organization that is presently headquartered in Haifa and Wilmette ("BWF"), one must exercise great caution. These are people who are not at all what they seem to be. On the surface, they appear friendly and loving to the utmost degree. They espouse wonderfully liberal views of unity and harmony amongst the peoples of the world. They are so upright and kind, and seemingly open and tolerant. However, underneath the surface, they display much darker personalities. In my opinion, many of them are very dangerous.
Many people who have not experienced this darker element of the Bahá'ís will not believe it. I myself would never have believed it had I not witnessed for myself how awful the BWF members can behave when their world view is challenged. Their tolerance and openness is very robotic, for purposes of show only, in an effort to attract new adherents. They advocate unity in diversity, but they don't really mean this in the sense of being tolerant of diverse views and practices. What they really mean is a unity that swallows up diversity, more like the science fiction Borg who wish to bring cultures into unity by assimilation.
If you are considering joining the BWF, some caution would be advised. It is important to ask the questions that need to be asked. Do not allow them to sweep any topic under the rug. Do not join them unless they can answer your concerns fully. They are under great pressure to win new adherents and to give money to their organization. Many of them are very skilled at deflecting questions and concerns and making their Faith look attractive. Once you join their organization, their attitude towards you will change suddently. Once you are no longer a "seeker" they see their mission as completed and they no longer care about responding to your concerns. In fact, this not so subtle shift in their attitude will be displayed by active discouragement of the slightest criticism or questioning of anything about the BWF. This questioning attitude, while tolerated to a limited extent with "seekers," is simply not allowed by card carrying members of the BWF. Once you have joined the BWF, it is not that easy to extricate yourself from the organization unless you are willing to do it on their terms, meaning very quietly and without displaying any desire to remain a Baha'i outside of their organization.
I was a member of the BWF from around mid-1980 until I resigned from their organization in early 1997. Before joining, I conducted an extensive investigation of the BWF, including reading numerous books and attending "firesides", meetings conducted by ordinary Bahá'ís to teach the Faith and answer questions of seekers. As part of my investigation, I inquired into the Guardianship since the Writings clearly called for a continuing line of Guardians, but was told that it was impossible for Shoghi Effendi to have appointed a successor and therefore there no longer was a living Guardian, but instead the Universal House of Justice was the sole head of the Faith even though it did not have the Guardian as its "sacred head" as required by the Will & Testament of `Abdu'l-Bahá. Having been told by members of the BWF that there were no longer any living claimants to the Guardianship, I was satisfied with their explanation and embraced them.
It was not until the Fall of 1996, while surfing the Internet, did I come to the realization that there was a living claimant to the Guardianship (Joel B. Marangella) and that he had a worldwide following of believers who had accepted his Guardianship, the Orthodox Bahá'í Faith ("OBF"), and who were following what I considered to be the true original teachings of the Faith. The BWF considered them to be covenant-breakers. It had been a part of the teachings of the BWF that should any of us ever come across reading materials by covenant-breakers, we must not read them or have any contact with them because one could catch a spiritual disease from contact with them and their irrational ideas. Prior to 1996, I did not know of any living covenant-breakers and therefore never gave much thought to this teaching believing it was merely an historical reference. Once I came upon the web sites of the OBF and interacted with them on online bulletin boards, the prospect of "catching" irrational thought processes from these allegedly disturbed individuals did cross my mind. My intellectual curiosity compelled me to carefully review and consider their position, and I decided that if I came across any irrational ideas, I would simply stop reading their sites.
The OBF web sites contained intelligent, rational, and cogent arguments and explanations as to their version of the Faith's history of how almost all of the Hands of the Cause of God, persons appointed by Shoghi Effendi to protect the Faith, met in a secret conclave after Shoghi Effendi's death. The Hands decided that Shoghi Effendi did not and could not have appointed a successor. They later expelled Charles Mason Remey and his followers and tried to convince the rank and file believers that no Guardian could be appointed after Shoghi Effendi, but instead to accept the Custodians, a body of their own making from among their own, and a Universal House of Justice elected without a Guardian at its head, contrary to the explicit provisions of the Will & Testament of `Abdu'l-Bahá. In fact, Charles Mason Remey had been appointed by Shoghi Effendi, during his lifetime, as the President of the embryonic International Baha'i Council ("IBC"), an embryo of the Universal House of Justice ("UHJ"), the supreme body of the Faith. Since President of the UHJ and the Guardian are synonymous terms under the explicit provisions of the Will & Testament of `Abdu'l-Bahá, it was clear that upon the birth of the IBC (upon Shoghi Effendi's death), Charles Mason Remey became the second Guardian and the sacred head of the actively functioning IBC. However, the Hands rejected Charles Mason Remey and the IBC, the twin pillars of the Baha'i Administrative Order, and thus perpetrated the greatest violation of the Covenant of Bahá'u'lláh, turning most of the Baha'i world against the true Faith. No wonder the BWF tries to scare its members from reading the truth on the OBF's web sites!
On February, 18, 1997, I resigned from the BWF and declared and enrolled with the OBF. Although shortly thereafter, I received an acknowledgment of my resignation from the NSA of the BWF, several months later, on May 27, 1997, my wife and I were declared to be covenant-breakers and all of my friends in the Faith were instructed to shun me entirely and never to have any contact with me or face the same expulsion themselves. Although my wife did not join the OBF at that time, she was also expelled and shunned because she refused to take my children and divorce me as they had insisted she must.
The BWF claims that shunning us as covenant-breakers is required to maintain the unity of the Faith. The OBF believe, on the other hand, that unity in the Faith is achieved and maintained by obedience to the Center of the Cause, the living Guardian, and that a covenant-breaker is and always was defined as one who rejects the authority of the Guardian. Under the original definition of covenant-breaker, it was the Hands and those who followed them who are the covenant-breakers.
At the present time, the BWF is in court against the OBF in an attempt to prevent the OBF from using Bahá'í in its name and on its web sites and from using the symbol of the Greatest Name. In their view, if you do not show obedience to their organization, you are not allowed to call yourself a Bahá'í. For more on this, go to this web page:
http://trueseeker.typepad.com/true_seeker/court_case.html
My experience is not at all unique. Many of the OBF members have similar stories. Many others who have dissented from the BWF can tell you about the strange and cult-like behavior of the members of the BWF in their attempts to silence critics and stop all dissent.
If you are considering joining the BWF, I urge you to question them fully about the Guardianship, as this was supposedly one of the essential verities of their Faith. Read Shoghi Effendi's Dispensation of Bahá'u'lláh, and `Abdu'l-Bahá's Will and Testament and ask them why their organization does not comport with the requirements of their own Writings, which expressly state that the Institutions of the Faith (that BWF no longer has) are divine in origin and essential to the Cause of God. Watch their reaction and judge for yourself whether you really wish to belong to the BWF.
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