Although I have been known in the past as an outspoken critic of the Baha'i Faith, I want to make it clear that I long ago moved beyond any feelings of anger or a desire to "attack" the Baha'i Faith -- and furthermore that it is possible to express disagreement with a religion without being unreasonable or unfair in any way. Everything I say on this website is offered in a spirit of respectful and friendly dialogue, rather than adversarial attack. I have no desire whatsoever to be perceived as an enemy of the Baha'i Faith or to cause people to fear or hate it. As I see it, the Baha'i Faith is simply a religion I once belonged to which has some positive and negative aspects that I would like to mention for anyone who may be interested. Introduction: What Is the Baha'i Faith?
The Baha'i faith is above all an attempt to build a more universal spiritual paradigm out of the foundation of Islam. Much in the way Christianity emerged as a Jewish reform movement and a project to spread the core principles of Judaism into the Greco-Roman world, Baha'ism was born from an Islamic matrix as a project to modernize and spread the central ideas and practices of Islam to the whole world. I would recommend to any Muslim, or anyone interested in new religious movements, to study the Baha'i faith as an example of one possible way that people have attempted to update Islamic spirituality for a more progressive and globalized age. Based on my own study and on conversations I have had with Muslims who have looked into Baha'ism, I can say it bears a striking resemblance to Shi'ite Islam while going in somewhat of an esoteric Sufi direction, and it rejects the finality of Muhammad's prophethood as a way of introducing new ideas such as including followers of non-Abrahamic religions as "people of the Book" and expanding the rights of women. Despite the liberalizing inclinations of Baha'u'llah, and of his son and successor Abdu'l-Baha who spread Baha'ism to Europe and America, these men nevertheless were firmly rooted in a 19th century Middle Eastern paradigm -- as one would expect considering their upbringing in that time and society. They literally believed and taught ideas such as direct, infallible (plenary verbal) divine revelation of the Qur'an and their own verses and books; strict obedience to prophets and religious law codes; and total opposition to "vices" such as homosexuality, sex outside of marriage, and alcoholic beverages. On the other hand, Baha'u'llah and his successors criticized the Islamic concept of military jihad or holy war; promoted the idea of peaceful cooperation among nations; advocated the use of one global auxiliary language to help people from different backgrounds communicate and understand each other; and made strides in the direction of gender equality -- though in a noteworthy departure from this principle, refused to allow women to serve on the highest leadership institution of the Baha'i Faith, a prohibition which remains to this day. Why I Joined and Left the Baha'i FaithI was introduced to the Baha'i Faith during my first year in college, by my next-door neighbor in my dorm. I decided to attend a Baha'i meeting because it sounded interesting. I had always been very interested in various religions and philosophies ever since I was old enough to begin exploring these things for myself. The Baha'is I met at the meeting seemed like nice people, and they held an idealistic view of human potential, emphasizing ideas such as world peace, racial reconciliation, and respect for all major religions. I would say that two things attracted me most to the Baha'is and their religion: the people themselves and their optimistic spirit about the future of humanity.
Throughout my college years, I was an active and serious Baha'i. I participated in local Baha'i community meetings and Baha'i college club meetings. I followed the religion's rituals of daily prayer and the annual period of fasting. I enthusiastically tried to share my Baha'i faith with other people, because Baha'is place a great emphasis on "teaching" the faith (trying to educate people about the existence of the Baha'i Faith and encourage them to study it and join). I even went on two Baha'i "teaching trips" to a rural, impoverished area where we attempted to befriend and evangelize Native Americans and other people living in poverty. I also wrote a draft of an introductory book presenting the Baha'i Faith for a Christian audience (never published). As I became more and more involved in the Baha'i Faith, I began to notice some things about it that bothered me. There were two things in particular that troubled me the most: first, that Baha'is overemphasize obedience to their religious institutions and believe the highest leadership organ of their faith is directly guided by God and infallible in all its decisions; and second, that Baha'is tend to have an unhealthy liking for bureaucracy and downplay the importance and benefits of individual free thought and activity. I was also frustrated by the fact that the Baha'i Faith prohibits its members from participating in partisan politics, since political activism had previously been an interest of mine.
Beyond the Baha'i Faith: "Manifestations of God"There are some theological reasons why I left the Baha'i Faith, and these have changed somewhat over time as my spiritual views have evolved. When I first became a Christian, I did so in large part because I had come to the conclusion that Jesus Christ was far greater than any other prophet, such as Moses, Muhammad or Baha'u'llah. Contrary to Baha'i doctrine, I believed that Jesus occupied a special place as the unique "Son of God" -- the only human being who ever was the perfect Manifestation of Divinity. I did not believe that other founders of religions were on the same level as Jesus. Today, I still believe that Jesus was the greatest example of the fusion of the human and the divine that is known to history. However, I have come to believe that all human beings are "manifestations of God" in some sense or to some degree. Baha'is believe that only the founders of the great religions are Manifestations of God, but that all other humans are mere servants. I disagree. I think all humans fall on a continuum of spiritual development, rather than being divided neatly into categories of "Manifestations" of the divine attributes or "Non-Manifestations". All human beings are manifestations of divinity, because we were all created in the image of God and we are all God's children. This teaching is found in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and in the writings of many modern spiritual leaders. The Baha'i Faith draws an ontological distinction between Manifestations of God and regular human beings, but there is no such distinction. There may be a small number of people whose special role in history was to found religions, but they were imperfect and fallible like all other humans. All humans are on a journey which begins when one's eternal spirit is birthed from the Womb of God, comes to earth in a physical body, and continues after death in other lifetimes and/or other dimensions of existence as we grow from spiritual infancy through stages of childhood, adolescence, and eventually adulthood. Given enough ages for development, everyone will ultimately reach the level of great spiritual masters such as Jesus, Buddha, etc. Even Jesus himself promised this! (see Luke 6:40). Beyond the Baha'i Faith: "Progressive Revelation"The Baha'i Faith sees all major world religions as being part of a dispensational progression of spiritual knowledge revealed by God. While this idea has some merit, it is an oversimplification of human spiritual history. The Baha'i Faith ignores or leaves out some important religious traditions, such as Taoism and Sikhism; excessively downplays the very real differences that exist between religions; and puts all religions on one track of progressive development when in fact they emerged on more than one parallel tracks and on different timelines in different parts of the world. The Baha'i concept of "progressive revelation" is true as a big picture idea -- that humans have gradually come to apprehend the Divine in more mature and sophisticated ways over time -- but not in the specific details taught by Baha'u'llah and his successors. Baha'u'llah knew very little about Eastern religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. He wrote almost nothing about these, even though billions of human beings have followed and been inspired by these traditions. Abdu'l-Baha and his grandson and successor Shoghi Effendi expanded the Baha'i view of religious unity to include acceptance of the divine inspiration of some of the Eastern religions, because they sincerely believed in the goal of uniting all humanity with one interfaith vision of truth. However, if we are to be intellectually honest, we must admit that the linear Baha'i concept of God sending a "new Manifestation" to "reveal" a "new Dispensation" with a "new Book" for the world roughly every 1000 years does not take into account all the great diversity and complexity of historical religious development. This idea comes directly from Islam and has a heavy Abrahamic bias. Baha'ism has attempted to embrace some non-Abrahamic religions by fitting them into the Islamic paradigm of religious history. This is a nice theoretical attempt with good motivations behind it, but in reality it is like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Beyond the Baha'i Faith: The "Most Holy Book"One of the reasons why I cannot be a Baha'i is because of the Kitab-i-Aqdas, which in Arabic means the Most Holy Book. Baha'u'llah wrote this book to establish a set of laws, commandments, regulations, and rituals for the Baha'i religion which would differentiate it from Islam. Baha'u'llah claimed that the whole world should follow the teachings of his Most Holy Book for the next 1000 years, and that no new revelation could come from God until the expiration of that time. While some ideas in the Aqdas are good and represent progress beyond the laws of the Qur'an and Islam, some of them are simply unsuitable for modern 21st century civilization and show that Baha'u'llah's mentality was to some degree limited by the standards of the time and culture in which he lived. For example, Baha'u'llah commands in his Most Holy Book that a thief should have a visible mark put on his forehead after the third offense -- presumably some kind of brand or tattoo. This is better than the Qur'anic punishment for stealing (amputation of a hand), but it's hardly compatible with the values of modern times. Baha'u'llah also recommends burning to death as the punishment for arson. It is hard to imagine that people living in the more advanced parts of the world would tolerate these prescriptions being acted upon today, let alone centuries from now when the world's values will presumably be even more progressive! I also disagree with the overall concept of the Kitab-i-Aqdas. Baha'u'llah begins the text by arguing that all people must recognize his absolute spiritual authority and must accept and follow all the laws and teachings in his book. Though I am a Christian, I do not believe in an infallible Bible. I wish that Christians, Jews, and Muslims all would move beyond the idea of rigid support for every law and teaching contained within their own preferred religious scripture. Some ideas in the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Qur'an, and other scriptures are outdated and should no longer be followed. Similarly, some of Baha'u'llah's ideas in his Aqdas have already passed into the realm of the historical rather than the currently applicable -- before they were ever even applied! To claim, as the Baha'i Faith does, that the next 1000 years of development of human civilization should be based on the laws of the Kitab-i-Aqdas is an untenable claim in my opinion, and distracts from the more positive and relevant aspects of the Baha'i spiritual tradition. Beyond the Baha'i Faith: The "Covenant"One of the central teachings of the Baha'i Faith is the notion of a special "Covenant" between God and the Baha'is, that the Baha'i religion will always remain united under one organization and will always have a perfect and infallible source of divine guidance in this world through their highest religious institution. Originally, this was supposed to be through individual successors of Baha'u'llah, appointed one after another in a series of "authorized interpreters" or "Guardians" of the faith. However, after two successors of Baha'u'llah (his son Abdu'l-Baha and great-grandson Shoghi Effendi), this chain of succession came to an end because Shoghi Effendi was unable to fulfill the conditions specified in Baha'i scripture for appointing a successor. In fact, he died suddenly without leaving a will, had no children, and did not provide specific instructions during his lifetime about who should lead the Baha'i Faith after his death. As one might imagine, this situation led to a power struggle. Ultimately, the vast majority of Baha'is consolidated under the authority of an elected institution called the Universal House of Justice, which Baha'u'llah and Abdu'l-Baha had said should someday be established. However, according to Abdu'l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi, this institution should have a Guardian as its chairman, who would have the right to insist on reconsideration of its decisions and to expel its members if necessary. Therefore, a Baha'i who adheres to all the scriptures and authoritative writings of the faith could legitimately question whether the current leadership organ of the Baha'i Faith known as the UHJ could possibly be perfect and infallible without a Guardian heading it. However, Baha'is are not allowed to question this or to regard the UHJ as merely a council of religious leaders making human decisions for the Baha'i Faith. Instead, they must profess belief that the Baha'i Covenant is still intact, that the infallible chain of succession of spiritual authority has never been broken. Baha'is are not supposed to disagree with any decision of the UHJ, since this institution is regarded as speaking for God. I disagree with this on two levels: First, it seems clear to me from the facts of Baha'i history and Baha'i scripture that the Covenant did not pan out the way it was supposed to, because of the untimely death of Shoghi Effendi without appointing a successor. Having a perfect, unbroken chain of succession was a big deal in the mind of Baha'is -- it was supposed to be the main thing that makes the Baha'i Faith superior to all other religions, which have had leadership disputes in their history. Secondly, I simply do not believe there could ever be such a thing as a perfect chain of infallible spiritual authority. The Holy Spirit doesn't want to be limited to working through such a single channel, and what happened in the Baha'i Faith ironically proves this. Furthermore, since the time of Baha'u'llah, there have been various other spiritual leaders and movements which were not part of the Baha'i Faith, and some of these clearly were infused with divine inspiration. Examples include the Transcendentalists, Unitarians and Universalists, the New Thought and New Age movements, and the Charismatic movement. Beyond the Baha'i Faith: The "Universal House of Justice"
A few liberal Baha'i scholars disagree with this interpretation, but they have either been expelled from membership in the organized Baha'i Faith or must keep quiet about their beliefs. It is unclear whether Baha'u'llah really believed in theocracy as most Baha'is understand it, or whether his writings can be taken to imply something different and more compatible with modern democratic forms of governance. In any case, the pro-theocracy view is almost totally dominant in the Baha'i Faith today, and looks to remain so, because this doctrine is promoted by the "infallible" UHJ itself! It is very unlikely that the Baha'i Faith will ever grow large enough to begin pushing for this kind of sweeping political power, so non-Baha'is need not worry. But regardless of practical realities, the Baha'i theory of future theocratic governance is a bad idea. In my opinion -- and the opinion of the vast majority of progressive-thinking people in the world today -- the leadership organs of any one religion should not aspire to assert authority over government. Instead, there should be separation of religion and state. Humanity is moving away from the idea of having popes, bishops, shaykhs, imams, ayatollahs, or any other kind of religious leaders holding a great deal of worldly power -- and this is a very good development for the progress of civilization! Conclusion: Moving Beyond Baha'ismBaha'is don't like the term "Baha'ism" because they don't want to think of their faith as just one more "ism". However, the reality is that the Baha'i religion, if believed in a strict way as many Baha'is do, is an ism like so many other philosophies and religions that claim absolute truth and authority while falling short of that impossible level of perfection. The Baha'i Faith has played a valuable role in human spiritual history and continues to benefit many people today, but spiritually mature individuals (whether they choose to consider themselves "Baha'i" or not) should be able to perceive and admit its flaws and refrain from adhering to this faith with a literalistic and fundamentalist attitude -- just as we should avoid all fundamentalisms so that we may continue the never-ending search for greater knowledge, understanding, truth, and meaning. If you are leaving or have left the Baha'i Faith and you are seeking to find a community of like-minded people, I recommend that you check out the following organizations:
Blessings to you in your spiritual journey, and may God be with you always! Love, Light, and Peace, Other Documents
"The Parable of the Great Reversal" -- written and produced by Eric Stetson. What happens when people try to unite the world by creating yet another cause for division? This provocative, profound, humorous video tells the mytho-poetic story of how religions can begin with very good intentions but degenerate into tragedy and farce.
Contact Eric StetsonBahai-Faith.com founded November 2002. Last updated March 21, 2009. |
I was a Baha'i from 1998 to 2002 and am the founder and former moderator of the 
The Baha'i Faith is a religious organization claiming 6 million adherents throughout the world, most of whom are found in Iran, India, and the United States, with others scattered among many other nations. The Baha'i religion (academically called Baha'ism or Baha'iyya in Arabic) was founded by Baha'u'llah (1817-1892), a Persian aristocrat in exile who in 1863 declared himself to be a new messenger of God. Baha'u'llah was born Mirza Husayn-Ali Nuri, was raised a Shi'ite Muslim, and in his young adulthood followed the radical millennarian movement of another contemporaneous Persian claimant to prophethood known as the Bab.
I decided to join the Baha'i Faith after a few months of studying the religion and socializing with Baha'is. Looking back, I would say that there were many details of the religion's beliefs and practices that I wasn't aware of when I joined, which if I had known about might have prevented me from joining. It was the overall spirit of the Baha'is and their faith -- the big picture view -- that drew me in, and at that time I probably would not have even wanted to know anything about the Baha'i Faith that would have turned me off from it!
After a few years, I decided to leave the Baha'i Faith for these reasons as well as others. Before leaving, I briefly felt compelled to promote some ideas for reforming the religion and its institutions, but did this in an arrogant and ineffective way. I began to feel attracted to Jesus more than any other great historical religious leader, so I decided to become a Christian, got baptized, and joined the Assemblies of God church. However, my broad-minded attitude prevented me from fully buying into Evangelical Christianity, and over the years I have grown increasingly liberal and universalist in my understanding of the Gospel. I can say that the Baha'i Faith had a positive influence on me in helping me to see the value in all religious paths, but that I found the Baha'i Faith itself to be too fundamentalist and restrictive for my free-thinking mind and mystical heart.
Baha'is not only believe that their Universal House of Justice is infallibly inspired by God and that all Baha'is must unquestioningly obey its decisions, but they also believe that eventually all the peoples and nations of the world should come under the authority of this Baha'i religious institution. Specifically, mainstream Baha'i doctrine asserts that all matters of state should be referred to the House of Justice; in other words, that the UHJ should one day hold a higher position of power than the governments of the world. Baha'u'llah appears to have taught this in a text he wrote which was appended to his Most Holy Book. Therefore, Baha'ism includes theocracy as one of it's teachings.