But I think it’s a profound illustration of how beneficial, potentially transformative spiritual messages can be twisted and obscured by leaders and members of a religion for their own misguided ends — a problem that is all too common in every significant religion.
So what do the Baha’is do? As one might guess from the rich history of religious followers doing the opposite of what the founder of their faith taught, Baha’is today focus all their energies on trying to build their own new sect and convert as many people as possible to it!
The Baha’i leaders open their message to the Baha’is during a major holiday season of their faith by talking about how wonderful it is that Baha’is are following the UHJ’s “global Plan” for “intensive programmes of growth” — i.e. that they are focusing, in a systematic way, on trying to convert as many people as possible. And then they go on to mention how Baha’is held a lot of big conferences where they gathered among themselves. This is supposed to be an “extraordinary contrast” to the world that is currently suffering from a severe economic crisis and so many other problems.
Baha’is think that they will get more members because they are trying hard to get more members — especially because they feel confident in their religion while the world outside the Baha’i bubble is “caught in a spiral of crisis.” The irony is that if Baha’is shifted their focus away from proselytizing and organizing events for their own members, toward doing tangible things to help solve problems in the real world — economic development, human rights, peace movements, environmental protection, etc. — they would find that more people would naturally be attracted to their religion, because people would see that they care about helping the world, not the size of their membership rolls.
And therein lies the problem for Baha’is. They, or at least their leaders, seem to believe that the only way to truly help the world is to convert people to Baha’i. So that’s where they invest their time, energy, and money, leaving little or nothing for promoting the world-changing values and causes that really make a difference.
Sound familiar? Yup, it’s the same tired old attitude of fundamentalists of all religions. All of them essentially say some variation of the following: “Our religion is the only way of true salvation, so the whole world needs to join us. Doing other things is unnecessary or even counterproductive, because this world is destined to go through an apocalypse anyway, which will show people the glorious and absolute truth of our faith.”
Baha’is, with their progressive belief that all religions are inspired by One God, should at least in theory be particularly able to avoid the trap of fundamentalism. In reality, sadly, they are not. I know a few liberal Baha’is who believe that the future of human spirituality lies not in one religious sect converting everyone else and taking over the world, but rather in “meta-spirituality” and interfaith respect and reconciliation. But the Baha’is who follow the party-line of their religious organization, which seems to be most of them, are blinded to this reality and instead chase the quixotic, ever elusive dream of one world, one religious identity/practice for everyone. Just as the fundamentalist Christians and Muslims do.
Source : https://www.reddit.com/r/exbahai/comments/6upvh4/ridvan_2009_bahais_missing_the_point_of_their_own/
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