Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness
for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
(Isaiah 5:20)
Well paid and comfortable Christian priests and pastors promote their profession as true guides to Almighty God - not an insignificant assertion! They reserve on their office walls space for the diplomas they have received from college and theological schools attesting to their qualification to guide us in matters of faith. Thus, according the the practice of mankind, we are to be assured that they (like an accountant or lawyer or physician) are qualified in the practice of their calling.
Those who let themselves be guided by such worldly educated people have never considered
that the actual Manifestations of God (Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, etc.) had never chosen
professional clergy as the recipients of Their Revelation, nor have They confirmed their
positions of leadership. Of such guides Jesus said ...they be blind
leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the
ditch.
(Matthew 15:14)
Leaders of religion, in every age, have hindered their people from
attaining the shores of eternal salvation, inasmuch as they held the reins of authority in
their mighty grasp. Some for the lust of leadership, others through want of knowledge and
understanding, have been the cause of the deprivation of the people. By their sanction and
authority, every Prophet of God hath drunk from the chalice of sacrifice, and winged His flight
unto the heights of glory. What unspeakable cruelties they that have occupied the seats of
authority and learning have inflicted upon the true Monarchs of the world, those Gems of divine
virtue! Content with a transitory dominion, they have deprived themselves of an everlasting
sovereignty. Thus, their eyes beheld not the light of the countenance of the Well-Beloved, nor
did their ears hearken unto the sweet melodies of the Bird of Desire...
(Bahá'u'lláh, Kitab-i-Iqan)
God choose very simple and common people to receive His Revelation (not professional
priests and pastors), required only a pure heart (not a diploma in theology) and justice such
that thou shalt see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of
others, and shalt know of thine own knowledge and not through the knowledge of thy
neighbor.
The greatest woe to assail clergy of any age is the coming of the Promised One of their own religion. Driven by pride and/or constrained by their puny intellect, they reject the Holy One. Today the spiritual descendants of the scribes and Pharisees who grew fat from the Temple offerings on which they feasted are again occupied with calling good evil, putting light for darkness, and sweet for bitter. They busy themselves with caviling against the Person and holy teachings of Blessed Beauty, Bahá'u'lláh. Though they piously assert that they await the Second Coming of the Spirit, their flock was the first to line up at the firing squad when He did return.
Many Christian theologians have a big problem with the twelve basic Bahá'í principles - in particular with the principles of one world government, international language, universal peace, the elimination of extremes of wealth and poverty, and one common Faith. In every case they put these principles as misguided, impossible, dangerous, and essentially evil ideals.
In this writer's estimation the most interesting and revealing of their objections concerns the supposed evil nature of these principles. As evil is a moral consideration, it is not surprising that their argument is completely dependant upon their interpretation of Christian scripture.
There being nothing in the Bible indicating that these Bahá'í principles are inherently evil, the basis for such claims arise solely from interpretations of certain passages, especially the apocryphal book of Revelation. It is said that this book describes how, in the last Days, the Devil will be released from Hell and will establish a kingdom on earth wherein, for a period of 1,000 years, the nations will be united under Satin's rule - all men bearing the mark (666) of "the Beast." It is said that under this hellish rule God's work in confusing the tongues at Babel will be undone and all mankind will speak one language so as to better serve their dark master, that the nations will be united under his sinister rule, that the worship of Satin will be the universal religion, etcetera.
These Christians put the good of the Bahá'í principles as evil, imply that Bahá'u'lláh is the anti-Christ, and state that the Bahá'í Faith is a cult. The first problem with their idle fancy is that the book of Revelation does not state that Satin will accomplish any of these noble objectives - it is simply conjecture. How a "Satin" could accomplish anything but chaos and destruction is beyond comprehension.
Even if some of their conjectures were correct, one has to wonder if we have already seen it fulfilled in the past thousand years. For example, the worship of Mammon (wealth) has been a banal characteristic of mankind for ages: perhaps for 1,000 years, and certainly for a very long time. Materialism is the universal (false) religion in which all nations have eagerly cooperated, it's international government the world's commercial banking and trade standards, and it's language is that of debits and credits, assets and liabilities, and revenues and expenses.
A twisted scriptural objection to the Bahá'í principle of one universal
language is that challenging God's work in confusing the tongues at Babel is evil. DAVID L
JOHNSON, MA Midwest Christian Outreach, wrote: The idea that there
should be one universal language... may appeal to the wisdom of the world, but to the Christian
these goals evoke memories of another time in history when men tried to use these conditions to
pridefully rid themselves of the God that Bahá'ís want to serve.
(Gen. 11:1-9) What the Christian leaders who propound this argument
fail to mention (or do not know) is that a universal language is
prophesied as being one of the hallmarks of the promised Kingdom of God on earth.
Their objection to the Bahá'í principle of universal peace is based on the
admonition of Jesus: Do not think that I came to bring peace on the
earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
The establishment of world peace
was not the mission of Jesus - as He clearly indicates in the aforementioned quotation, and as
is evident from history. But to use this quote to set the Bahá'í principle of
peace as evil is absurd; no sane person denies the benefits of peace. If there is one
overriding objective of the Bahá'í Faith, it must be said to be the establishment
of world peace. World peace is prophesied as being one of the
characteristics of the promised Kingdom of God on earth. But because professed Christians deny
the returned Christ, they refuse to believe that He will establish universal peace, and call
this Bahá'í principle a "misguided human attempt destined to failure."
Louis D. Whitworth, a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary, wrote: Though Bahá'í seems small and innocuous at present, if it
grows in size and influence to the point that it could succeed in its aims of unifying the
world under its own terms, it could be a sinister force.
And because they
consider "fallen man" as inherently evil, the good of peace is evil if it is attained
by man. Presumably, when Jesus returns on the clouds, waves His magic wand and serves up world
peace on a silver platter, Christians will finally eat of the fruits of peace.
There being no actual basis for scriptural objections to the Bahá'í principles, one has to question the motives of the Christian leaders who resort to such tactics. The real problem that Christian theologians have with these principles is that they are so appealing to the best in human nature. These spiritual guides are jealous that their religion has no comparable ideals, and they are frightened that they will loose their positions of leadership and privilege if their followers embrace the true Faith of God.
These blind leaders of the blind cover their bases with quasi-intellectual arguments of interesting origins. For example, many modern mammon-worshiping American Evangelical Christian pseudo-theologians, confusing The Wealth of Nations with a chapter of the Bible and taking Adam Smith as their Prophet, maintain that the Bahá'í principle of the elimination of extremes of wealth and poverty is misguided. This argument is based on what they assert is the injustice of punishing the rich who have worked so hard for their wealth and rewarding the poor who are destitute because they are too lazy to better themselves. It is not clear from which medieval pit such reactionary attitudes crawled out of, but it is certain that severe economic imbalance is the source of much of the world's political and social instability. Our evangelical Christian friends unite in a chorus chanting "new age communism" against the good of Bahá'u'lláh's teaching — if these Christians had read in the Bible where Jesus fed the multitude (without a fee) and discovered how Jesus and His disciples shared their belongings, they would have likewise branded the Lamb of God and His disciples as communists.
Further quasi-intellectual arguments against the Bahá'í principles concern the impossibility of achieving, and the dangerous nature of, such principles.
In the mid 19th century when Bahá'u'lláh first enunciated His principle of the equality of men and women, the possibility of achieving such an ideal was unthinkable anywhere in the world, especially in Iran where the principle was proclaimed. But the hand of God has moved through women themselves who must be given the credit for advancing the Will of God as revealed by Bahá'u'lláh's principle. To be fair, some Christians give begrudging praise to the Faith of God as being the first and only religion to promote sexual equality "from the very beginning." The only reason Christian churches have changed their paternalistic practices to allow women some degree of equality is because they were forced to do so by the secular western society. But the point here is that what Christians consider "impossible" for men and women to achieve is really quite simple – so long as we are not shackled by man-made dogmas and prejudices.
Many Christian theologians ridicule the Bahá'í teaching of the virtue of the fear of God, but don't object to the exact same teaching of the Jewish prophets (e.g.: Isaiah 11:2-3). Though simply hearing the voice of God turned the hair of Moses white, Christians seem to have no fear of the Lord of the universe with Whom they imagine walking arm-in-arm as with a dear old buddy from college; their fear is reserved for the Devil. Does it not occur to them that we should have a deep and reverential awe of the Omnipotent, and a dread of jeopardizing our relationship with the Precious, the Best Beloved?
God revealed the words Fear God and God will give you
knowledge
in the Qur'án 2:282. Bahá'u'lláh quoted
the verse And if he feareth not God, God will make him to fear all
things; whereas all things fear him who feareth God.
Is it not better to fear the
Lord of the Universe and receive His knowledge, or to fear every created thing and be sunk in
the depths of ignorance?
Those distracted by wealth and consumed with the pursuit of the acquisition of material have not seriously considered the question of the mortality of their human spirit, for it is be obvious that ownership stops at the grave and you can most certainly not take your things with you.
Christian theologians maintain that the Bahá'í revelation concerning the Unity
of God (i.e.: that all God’s Manifestations revealed the same Divine Truth) is false
because “the so-called Manifestations contradict one another.” They support this
contention with tables purporting to classify the various contradictory teachings grouped by
topic. One concludes his argument by pointing out that such differences can not logically be
the same, that Bahá’í teachings also stress the unity of science (reason)
and religion (revelation), and that the Bahá’í teaching is thus
hypocritical; He then casts the light of the revelation of the Unity of God as darkness by
quoting Jesus (Luke 11:39) saying Now do ye Pharisees
make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and
wickedness.
What these Christian theologians do not tell you is:
A full disclosure of the real Bahá’í teaching would reveal that one of the purposes served by the coming of the Promised One of each Age is to clarify and purify the religion of His Predecessors of the man-made additions and corruptions of the past religious leaders:
Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of
heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:
But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.
But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.
So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in
thy field? from whence then hath it tares?
He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we
go and gather them up?
But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.
Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers,
Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat
into my barn. (Matthew 13:24-30)
In their scurrying to hide the light of this teaching these Christians fail to mention that Bahá’ís recognize that God is revealed only through His Manifestations, not through disciples, followers, or theologians who claim to follow Them. In particular, Bahá’ís believe that the four Gospels are inspired of God but are not necessarily the actual words and record of the literal deeds of Jesus. Therefore the balance of the New Testament, which consists primarily of the works of Paul and his disciples, are not considered the revealed Word of God.
It follows, and is specifically stated in Bahá’í teaching, that this same principle of the need for renewal applies to all the older religions. Indeed, the only scripture universally and unreservedly accepted as completely authentic by Bahá’ís (and scholars of all denominations) are the Qur'án and Bahá’í Writings.
The previously mentioned comparative table produced to demonstrate incompatibility between the Holy Messengers is one Christian theologians “understanding” of the various teachings. His brief synopsis of each item is completely unsupported by any reference to scripture of the various religions and only restates common Christian prejudices. These prejudices are admittedly irreconcilable. His summary of the Christian teaching on the various topics is that of a Protestant Evangelical theologian – not the actual teaching of Jesus Himself. To understand the teachings of Jesus Christians must turn to “The Spirit of Truth” – Bahá’u’lláh – Who "will guide you into all truth."
It is by the transcendent Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh that the denominational differences within religions and apparent differences between major world religions are resolved. In this Age mans beliefs have been harvested, the dogmas and permutations introduced by man into God’s religion have been thrashed and separated from the abiding truth, the truths have been glorified and the falsehoods have been consigned to the fire. Even though this was promised them by their Prophet, Christians passionately object to each and every word of Bahá’u’lláh that does not completely support their dogma.
From the prison barracks of the penal colony of 'Akka, Bahá’u’lláh
penned these lines: The Ancient Beauty hath consented to be bound with
chains that mankind may be released from its bondage, and hath accepted to be made a prisoner
within this most mighty Stronghold that the whole world may attain unto true liberty. He hath
drained to its dregs the cup of sorrow, that all the peoples of the earth may attain unto
abiding joy, and be filled with gladness. This is of the mercy of your Lord, the Compassionate,
the Most Merciful. We have accepted to be abased, O believers in the Unity of God, that ye may
be exalted, and have suffered manifold afflictions, that ye might prosper and flourish. He Who
hath come to build anew the whole world, behold, how they that have joined partners with God
have forced Him to dwell within the most desolate of cities!
Though Bahá’u’lláh has been personally attacked by Christians for
everything from His personal residences to His family life, the most contemptible is their
characterization of His acknowledgment of His plight at the hands of the religious divines and
temporal rulers: Such Christians put the sweetness of Bahá'u'lláh's sacrifice as
bitterness, saying He was full of self pity and whined like a spoiled child. Though they don't
deny that Bahá'u'lláh suffered stoning, scourging, poisoning, exile, galling
imprisonment, personal loss, duplicity, betrayal and public humiliation to bring us His message
– they see His words such as quoted above as "whining." By their standard the
prayer of Jesus Father, if Thou art willing, remove this cup from
Me (Luke 22:42; Mark 14:36)
is the prayer of a coward.
Wolves, dressed in sheep's clothing, call evil good, put darkness for light, and bitter for sweet.
Between about the year 400 and 1800 western society had been run by Christians. In this time they brought us the wonders of the Crusades, Inquisition, Dark Ages, Conquistadores, Witch Hunts, World War I, World War II, and Holocaust. Few Christians today celebrate these great evils that their forefathers perpetrated in the name of Jesus. In fact they distance themselves from such doings – saying that the perpetrators weren't Christians. But if they weren't Christians, who were they? The people who did these deeds called themselves Christians, thought they were Christians, subscribed to the same creeds as the deniers of today, and were baptized as Christians. And if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it seems obvious that it is a duck.
The Christians who brought such evil fruits into the world did, at the time they performed such deeds, justify as great goodness each of their abominations. It is by the grace of God that secular authority has replaced Christian influence in the 19th century, or we'd be right back in the same dark pit that Christians dragged mankind into for over a thousand years.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints specifically criticizes the
Bahá'í teaching that God is perfect and unchanging. They propose that God is
getting better each day, that He was once as we now are, and that we will some day be as God
now is. The LDS saying goes, As man is, God once was: as God is man
may become.
It's difficult to know where to begin refuting this absurdity, and
one is inclined to just say "we worship the one true God, Whom your god worships"
because (if such a god as they describe exists and is superior to man) it must also recognize
it's Lord and Creator.
The darkness of this LDS teaching proposes that God once was a pretty sorry creature and that any man may one day become the One Creator of the universe. As with all the countless tares growing in the wheat fields of the Lord, this useless man-made doctrine has no scriptural basis or rational foundation.
If God needed to be created, then there is no end to the number of gods needed to have created the previous god, and there is no God. Jesus taught that there is only one God – perfect in His own right. Jesus did not teach that God was created by another God.
Change is an attribute of all created things. If (as the LDS affirms) God changes and improves, then God is a created thing – and an imperfect one at that. Why should we worship such a thing? Specific potential is intrinsic to a things nature. If a thing improves, it has advanced into a more mature state of it's potentiality. But things have certain potentialities which define their natures: an apple tree has the potential to yield a certain fruit (apples) at which time it has reached complete maturity, but an apple tree can not recite poetry nor can monkeys fly. If God is advancing, He is not a mature god, and he is not the one true God. If God is changing, there is the danger that He may change from God into an apple tree, in which case He is not now God and will certainly then be a vegetable.
In the Faith of God we are preserved from such insanity and idol worship. God is the Uncreated, Changeless, Eternal, Transcendent, and Omnipotent. God is He Whom all things worship, and Who worshipeth no one.
This summer (2003) I heard with my own ears the assistant pastor of the Lethbridge Regional Hospital say that Muhammad was a false prophet and the Qur'án a false scripture. She told me that she was given a beautiful and comprehensive Qur'an by a relative – the original Arabic script, including three English translations. Upon asking her which of the translations she had read, she admitted that she hadn't read the book at all! Apparently, just owning it makes her an expert and qualifies her as a guide to her flock which she leads down the dark paths of ignorance.
Such ones reject as evil the Bahá'í principle of the elimination of prejudice and simply consign to hell the hundreds of millions of the followers of the second largest religion in the world: Islam. Christianity has thus been robbed by it's jealous leaders of the true guidance of their promised Comforter and of any ability to bring about the reconciliation of religions – surrendering this task to the Bahá'ís.
This Fall a Christian pastor in nearby Coalhurst withdrew his offer to let the Bahá'í community host a devotional gathering in his church for prayers and readings of all Holy Scriptures. His change of heart came after the Bahá'í contact answered his question "do you believe that Christ has returned" affirmatively. The learned pastor said that we were wrong because the return would be proceeded with the stars falling from heaven (Matthew 24:29) . This is what he actually teaches his flock in the year 2003!
How can the pastor's statement be explained? Perhaps he doesn't know that each star is a sun
that dwarfs our little planet. Perhaps he doesn't know how to interpret his own scripture
(e.g.: Genesis 37: 9,10). Such people say "with God, all things are possible" —
all things, apparently, except that the Scripture is figurative. In any case, he and those he
blindly leads will wait forever for this to happen and, in denying Muhammad, the Báb and
Bahá'u'lláh, are like Peter to whom Jesus said: The cock
shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice.
(John 13:38)
Bahá'u'lláh, writing to the religious leaders of Christianity, declared:
Ye are the stars of the heaven of My knowledge. My mercy desireth not
that ye should fall upon the earth.
Falling from his place of learning, this pastor
betrayed his obstinacy in the face of reality. 'Abdu'l-Bahá said Whatever the intelligence of man cannot understand, religion aught not to
accept. Religion and science walk hand in hand, and any religion contrary to science is not the
truth.
Orthodox Christianity is based on the premise of the "fallen man" – an assertion that man is inherently evil and essentially sinful. This is the most degrading myth imaginable, and an affront to God Who created us in His image. This myth, however, is the core of Christian teaching and the basis of the Jesus cult.
Fundamentalists of every religion share a common trait: literal interpretation of the Holy Text. They talk about miracles, angels, and Almighty God as if they were cans of fruit so easily opened with the right utensil: a sledge hammer. If spiritual matters could be discussed so literally it is curious that almost all of the discourses of Jesus were in parables. What possible benefit is there to us that Jesus should tell us stories about clothing, blind people and widows, wine, weddings, shepherds, noblemen, stone masons, stewards, sowers and farmers if these were literal events? The only redeeming feature in this regard is that whoever compiled the Gospels two centuries after the death of Jesus took the trouble to note that this or that saying of the Blessed One was (in their opinion) a parable. Jesus never prefaced His discourses with indications that His saying was literal or allegorical – He assumed some basic intelligence of His Jewish audience and Hebrew disciples.
From this one might be tempted to speculate that perhaps Jews are more intelligent than Gentiles. Whether or not this is true, it is not the cause of the difficulty. In fact, the Jewish religious leaders used the same claim of literal interpretation of the Holy Text to dispute and contend with the Spirit of God, telling Him to His face that He couldn't be the Messiah because the Promised One would rule on the throne of David and fulfill all the other prophecies of the Old Testament according to their literal interpretation. This is the occupational hazard of people who make a profession of guiding others on the path of God: They promote their ability to give us something that they don't possess. Jesus allegorically called such ones "blind leaders of the blind."
How do the Christian leaders of the third millennium guide their flock, and down what paths do today's stars in the heaven of divine guidance seek to guide mankind? These guides, after long years of study in bible schools and seminaries, announce that the Bible must be interpreted literally! This is the extent of their insight. It is our natural inclination to not look deeply into matters, and fools don't require a Pastor's instruction on how to attain ignorance. But those whom God has graced with seeing eyes and who have departed the chain of fools will not walk into the valley of idle fancy and vain imagination into which fundamentalist theologians invite them to graze, like reasonless animals, on the sparse fodder of their folly.
Those in whose hearts the eternal Beloved One has ignited the fire of the love of God can not bow the knee before the lamb of gold fashioned by these later day Pharisees who teach us to ignore the sayings of the Lamb but rather believe lies about Him.
It doesn't matter how many lights are lit for the blind. It doesn't matter how sweet is the spring to which a stubborn mule is led if it refuses to drink. It doesn't matter how much truth is revealed to Christian theologians who are amongst the most arrogant of mankind and use what little intelligence they posses only to preserve their undeserved status amongst men while they howl like wolves against the Light of one true God. The tares they have cast in the wheat fields of the Lord are too numerous to identify, much less pick out; but this is the food they have chosen to eat.
Thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow
their own spirit, and have seen nothing!
(Ezekiel 13:3)
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Author - John Roncalio. © 2003, John Roncalio.
The views expressed herein are those of the author who is solely responsible for their contents. |