Sen McGlinn’s "weak" arguments about the separation of Church and State and the Baha'i position on this issue.

As R. Danesh wrote: “..., the terms Baha’i State and Baha’i theocracy appear in authoritative Baha’i Writings and the Universal House of Justice has spoken of a future that will see the union of spiritual and civil authority.” [“Church and State in the Baha’i Faith: An Epistemic Approach” 2008.] With regard to Sen’s arguments and position, Danesh uses terms such as “weak”, “questionable”, and “unclear” but also goes further to state that Sen’s and Cole’s respective conclusions can only be reached by omitting certain “authoritative primary sources” and by minimizing what Shoghi Effendi said directly and what was said on his behalf by his secretaries.

Even in the future Baha’i State(s) and Commonwealth, there may be civic institutions and executive functions (at least initially) that are not exclusively Baha’i and for which membership in the Baha’i Faith would not be required to be employed or perform many functions. There may be means of allowing persons and groups not Baha’i to have means of expressing their concerns and have a voice (elected representatives in a parliament) until the community is so nearly Baha’i that such provisions become superfluous.

Roshan Danesh takes a less literal view of the issue in his paper at: Church and State in the Bahá'í Faith: An Epistemic Approach. He also waffles on the central question to some extent despite quoting the passages that clearly contradict Sen and Cole. He leaves open the possibility for different or more mixed approach, but is clearly rejecting Cole’s and Sen’s theories of strict separation of church and state in the Baha’ Faith.

Danesh similarly finds that Sen omits certain passages and references essential to the subject of church and state in the Baha’i texts.

He does state however that:

“The Universal House of Justice has described Shoghi Effendi’s explanation of the ‘future Baha’i World Commonwealth’ as one ‘that will unite spiritual and civil authority’ and rejects the assertion that the ‘modern political concept of ‘separation of church and state’ is somehow one that Baha’u’llah intended as a basic principle of the World Order He has founded.’

Given the above explications, one is hard-pressed to see how some scholars could have definitively concluded that the essential Baha’i view is of a form of institutional separation-whether complete separation as in the case of Cole, or event the English model advocated by McGlinn. Only through failure to fully incorporate certain authoritative primary sources can such as conclusion be reached. McGlinn demonstrates such an omission in his 1999 article when he writes inaccurately that ‘Shoghi Effendi’s own writings contain little that illuminates the church-state question...’”

(Source : Baha'i Scholar Scott Hakala on Quora)