Note: This is a guest entry by Eric Stetson.
Dale Husband, a fellow Unitarian Universalist and former Baha’i, invited me to write a short summary of a book I edited which has recently been published, A Lost History of the Baha’i Faith: The Progressive Tradition of Baha’u’llah’s Forgotten Family.
This book tells the story of the Baha’i faith through the writings of some of the children and grandchildren of its founder, and others who knew Baha’u’llah personally. They called themselves “Unitarian Baha’is” and stood for a broad-minded faith based on reason and individual freedom of conscience. Because of their liberal views and skepticism of absolute religious authority, they were excommunicated and shunned as the Baha’i faith developed into an organized religion. In fact, all but three descendants of Baha’u’llah – totaling dozens of people – were excommunicated by their own relatives who led the religion after its founder’s death.
The Baha’i faith was founded in the mid 1800s by a Persian nobleman in exile who claimed to be a new messenger of God. Baha’u’llah taught that all nations, races, and religions should come together to build a global civilization of peace and justice for all. Although Baha’i began as a pluralistic, reform-oriented offshoot of Islam, it quickly relapsed into a form of fundamentalism based on claims of infallibility by its leaders.
The Baha’i organization expects its members to believe that Baha’u’llah’s successors were perfect and infallible and that their interpretations and decisions can never be changed. A Lost History of the Baha’i Faith offers a different perspective on what Baha’i could have become – an Islamic-inspired faith with similar progressive values as Unitarian Universalism – if the Baha’i prophet’s own descendants had not been ostracized and expelled as heretics.
This book reveals how even liberal religious movements can be hijacked by dogmatic thinking. A cautionary tale for people of conscience of any faith.
http://www.voxhumri.com/books/a-lost-history-of-the-bahai-faith/ —
http://www.amazon.com/Lost-History-Bahai-Faith-Progressive/dp/0692331352
Dale Husband's Intellectual Rants 
Another statement about the book and its subject:
http://www.historyoftheadepts.com/historyoftheadepts/?p=1714
There is a reason that all of Baha’u’llah’s descendants turned out to be corrupt and were excommunicated by mainstream Baha’i leaders: The corruption of Baha’u’llah himself. He explains it beautifully in Epistle to the son of the wolf:
“Ye are even as a spring. If it be changed, so will the streams that branch out from it be changed. Fear God, and be numbered with the godly. In like manner, if the heart of man be corrupted, his limbs will also be corrupted. And similarly, if the root of a tree be corrupted, its branches, and its offshoots, and its leaves, and its fruits, will be corrupted.” (note that Baha’u’llah also referred to his children as leaves and branches)
If you are a Baha’i, you just discredited Baha’u’llah himself (a Messenger of God CANNOT be corrupt according to Baha’i teachings) and thus betrayed him even more than any of the “Covenant breakers” ever did. If you are not a Baha’i, you have no business quoting from the writings of Baha’u’llah to support the insane actions of the Baha’i leadership over the past century or so against Baha’u’llah’s own descendants. Either way, damn you, hypocrite!
Whoah! Take it easy. I am not a Baha’i. I only meant to say that were we to accept the corruption attributed to Baha’u’llah’s descendants by the Haifan Baha’is, then according to Baha’u’llah’s words, this corruption shows nothing but Baha’u’llah’s own corruption.
Pingback: Dale Husband’s battle on Amazon with a Haifan Baha’i – Bahá’í Censorship
Pingback: My Battle on Amazon with a Haifan Baha’i | Dale Husband's Intellectual Rants