In attacking the new Unitarian Baha’i movement, Sen McGlinn made the following absurd declaration:

http://senmcglinn.wordpress.com/2010/04/17/muhammad-ali-revived-2/

Do not be deceived: the latest attempt to rehabilitate Muhammad Ali is not due to some universal love and progressive ideas, or any great knowledge about Muhammad Ali: it springs from a desire to avoid the straight line that leads from authenticated texts by Baha’u’llah and Abdu’l-Baha, through inescapable reasoning, to the conclusion that the Universal House of Justice is the head of the Bahai community today. To avoid that conclusion, some people will bring forward anything, however implausible, that seems to offer an alternative.

Anyone who actually reads the Baha’i Faith section of this blog would know, if they were intellectually honest, that this claim is simply bogus postering. And there’s more:

http://www.uubahai.com/2010/03/ghusn-i-akbar-part-1-the-facts/

http://www.uubahai.com/2010/04/ghusn-i-akbar-part-2-his-significance/

Indeed, like most Baha’is, McGlinn takes at face value the profoundly one-sided narratives favored by the Haifan Baha’i Administrative Order about the conflict between Abdu’l-Baha (AB) and his brother Mirza Muhammad Ali (MA), never questioning them; never asking why, if MA was such a despicable man and AB was indeed so perfect in his ways, why nearly all the descendants of Baha’u’llah, even those descended directly from AB,  would reject the claims of AB and Shoghi Effendi and find themselves expelled from the Baha’i community rather than submit to the Covenant AB established in his Will and Testament. Also odd is that the mansion of Bahji, in which Baha’u’llah spent his last years, was lived in by MA after Baha’u’llah died, not AB! I’d think if AB was as highly favored by Baha’u’llah as the official Baha’i history claims, he would have been living in Bahji with Baha’u’llah and would have inherited it, but in fact, AB never lived there at all! Such logical gaps should be debated and worked over, not ignored and swept under the rug.

 People who operate like McGlinn have no business claiming to be reputable scholars on religion, unless they are promoting a scam.

And what is really ironic about this, is that McGlinn was actually expelled from the very Haifan Baha’i community he is still defending:

http://senmcglinn.wordpress.com/about/

In late 2005 I was removed from the rolls of the Bahai community, following a decision of the Universal House of Justice. I have put up some of the documents on a page here, in response to speculations about the reasons for the decision. I have applied to be re-enrolled periodically, and in the meantime continue as a believing and practising unenrolled Bahai. There are some informal reflections on being unenrolled in an email in my archive called ‘who belongs.’

Why would anyone continue to defend an organization that no longer even wants him around? To me, that is idiocy, and I do not respect idiots.

Several years ago, philosophy and religious studies Professor Dann May and his wife Phyllis E Bernard, current Robert S. Kerr Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law, Oklahoma City University, were devoted Baha’is. They were prominantly featured in this article about a private Baha’i School:

http://www.bahaindex.com/en/news/1-general-news/3258-school-in-bonny-doon-emphasizes-religious-tolerance

Continue reading →

Ever since I came out as opposing the Baha’i Faith headquartered in Haifa, Israel, I have been a lighting rod of criticism from a few of those zealots associated with it.

Let me clarify my position for those who may be confused about where I stand.

1. By theological conviction, I am an agnostic, meaning I consider the issue of God’s existence to be beyond the ability of humans to know. By some definitions, I am also an atheist, except I consider atheism to be only the claim that there is no God. As a strict empiricist, this is not an option I accept for myself.

2. By religious affiliation, I am a Unitarian Universalist.

3. As far as Christianity is concerned, I consider the Baptist wing of Protestanism to be the “true” form of it, and see all others as deviating from the original Gospel in various ways and degrees. But if the teachings of Jesus were literally true, then he should have returned to establish his kingdom by AD 100. He did not, so any further claim that he will eventually return is bogus.

4. As far as the Baha’i Faith is concerned, I see the Faith as having been vitually ruined by the concept of the “Covenant” established by Abdu’l-Baha in his Will and Testament. No Baha’i sect which claims to follow the directives of that document is legitimate, because no one actually follows it consistently.  NONE OF THEM!

http://orthodoxbahai.com/what_is.htm

Those who encounter the title “Orthodox Bahá’í” for the first time, especially those who are followers of the sans-Guardian Universal House of Justice, may wonder why people would identify themselves as Orthodox Bahá’ís if, as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has stated, the Bahá’í Covenant makes it “impossible for any one to create a sect or faction of belief.” Why, then, would those who identify themselves as Bahá’ís find it necessary to add the word “Orthodox”? Aren’t they, by doing so, going against the Covenant and what ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said? Aren’t they attempting to make a schism in a Faith that carries the promise of never experiencing division? Shouldn’t they, instead, identify themselves with the majority faction of the Cause so that the Bahá’í Faith continues to convey the promise of never splintering into differing sects?

When you start off like that, you already look rediculous, and you make it worse when you continue with a ton of doublespeak. Why not just say Abdu’l-Baha was wrong and be done with it? Oh, because then the Orthodox Baha’is’ own claim to be following the true Guardian would be invalidated. LOGIC FAIL!

There is absolutely NOTHING in the Will and Testament of Abdu’l-Baha to indicate that anyone outside the male descendants of Baha’u’llah (defined in that document as “branches”) could succeed Shoghi Effendi. Charles Mason Remey, who tried to claim the Guardianship even before the Universal House of Justice could be established, was not a “branch”. There was no explicit statement from Shoghi Effendi in his lifetime that Remey was intended to be his successor. And nine elected Hands of the Cause of God would have had to approve Shoghi Effendi’s choice anyway. That certainly was not done! Instead, Remey was declared a “Covenant-breaker” and expelled from the Faith by his fellow Hands. And likewise, Joel Bray Marangella has no rightful claim to the Guardianship either. He is a fraud, just as much as the Universal House of Justice in Haifa. The only “true” Baha’is are those who recognize that even Baha’u’llah was not totally sinless and infallible and allow for him to be as human as the rest of us, respecting him as their Faith’s founder but also being willing to think for themselves to allow the Faith to evolve according to the needs of the modern world. To some extent this evolution has occured even within the Haifan Baha’i Faith, but the assumption of infalliblity of the Faith’s leadership remains. That is a lie and we need to deal with that lie constantly until its credibility is destroyed completely.