This year’s Naw Ruz is a historic one for the Bahai world. A new Bahai movement has begun and an organization has been founded this month that, God willing, will in time free the Bahais and their faith from the grip of fundamentalism and will restore them to the role of a progressive voice for interfaith spirituality and reconciliation, global peace, social justice and human rights for all.
Over the past several decades, the religion of Bahaism has been led by men who have refused to allow it to evolve to reflect the greater knowledge and changing needs of humanity. Women remain banned from serving on the highest Bahai leadership institution. Gay and lesbian Bahais are forced to hide their sexuality and live without loving companionship or else face rejection by the Bahai community. Bahais are prohibited by their leaders from participating in politics and are discouraged from devoting their energies to secular causes, preventing them from making the impact they might have in free and democratic societies if they could apply Bahai principles in these important arenas of action.
Moreover, in the age of unfettered and decentralized communication on the internet, Bahais still rely on overly bureaucratic forms and still suffer their religious scholars to be censored by committees of doctrinal watchdogs, facing expulsion from organized Bahaism if they dare to disagree on any point. Individual initiatives and personal expressions of opinion are stifled, and the interpretations and plans of the supposedly “infallible” international council of nine men ruling the Baha’i Faith organization based in Haifa, Israel, are asserted as perfect and unchallengeable.
Can such a religion — purportedly based on progressive teachings for a new era of modern civilization — attract the hearts and minds of today’s world if it cloaks its original innovative spirit in the garb of old-fashioned conservative attitudes, assumptions, policies and forms that belong to a bygone era?
The Unitarian Bahai Association is founded this Naw Ruz with the vision of bringing the Bahai faith into the 21st century; offering an alternative to the degraded, stagnant, and largely useless sectarian tradition it has become; restoring it to be a great cause of continual progress for humanity as the Prophet Bahaullah originally envisioned.
The UBA has emerged from a grassroots movement of liberal and freethinking Bahais — many of whom are involved in Unitarian Universalist churches, some of whom renounced their Bahai faith and have now returned to it outside the confines of their former organizational affiliation — who believe the Haifan Baha’i Faith tradition and organization has lost its way. Instead of harping on the flaws of the mainstream conservative Baha’i Faith, however, we present to the Bahais of the world — and indeed to all the people of the world — a better alternative. We seek to form communities of liberal Bahais in UU congregations, in much the same way that liberal Christians, Buddhists, and followers of other religions have done who value the open-minded interfaith spiritual community that is found there.
Bahaism and Unitarian Universalism naturally complement each other. Bahaism is a progressive new religious movement that emerged from Islam in the East, and Unitarianism and its close cousin Universalism similarly emerged from Christianity in the West. The social principles of both the Bahai and the UU traditions overlap considerably; the spiritual emphasis on accepting all the great religions as containing truth and wisdom is very similar; and they share a world-embracing vision of a more humane, united, and peaceful planet.
The Unitarian Bahai movement offers the hope of rebirth for the Bahai cause. It represents and embodies a new springtime for a faith that displayed so much promise but, like the falling of the leaves in autumn, was left barren and bereft of the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit. The winter of a cold religion without vital energy and growth has ended! A season of transformation is here!
O God, we pray on this special Naw Ruz that You will enliven our faith, empower our efforts, and make the vision of a more liberal, relevant, rational, mystical, intellectually diverse, lovingly tolerant, and truly beneficial Bahaism a growing reality this year and in the years to come. Let this faith bear remarkable fruit and not wither on the vine.
In the name of all the prophets and saints and exalted souls we pray. Amen.
“Instead of harping on the flaws of the mainstream conservative Baha’i Faith, however, we present to the Bahais of the world — and indeed to all the people of the world — a better alternative.”
Beautifully crafted and skillfully expressed! Wonderful!
Naw-Rúz Mubárak!
I am not going to be original this time, so all I am going to say that your blog rocks, sad that I don’t have suck a writing skills
“Instead of harping on the flaws of the mainstream conservative Baha’i Faith, however, we present to the Bahais of the world — and indeed to all the people of the world — a better alternative.”
Beautifully crafted and skillfully expressed! Wonderful!
Naw-Rúz Mubárak!