May 9. On this date in 1997, Denis MacEoin posted a letter concerning whether the Bahá'í Faith should be considered a "World Religion" or a "New Religious Movement".

May 9. On this date in 1997, Denis MacEoin posted a letter concerning whether the Bahá'í Faith should be considered a "World Religion" or a "New Religious Movement".


Date: Fri, 9 May 1997

From: Denis MacEoin

Subject: Re: Bahá'í: NRM or World Religion?
Dear All,

Since [another academic] and I have coincidentally just agreed to start a thread on this very subject, let me come in here with a few remarks. As many of you will know, I have been arguing for years that it is more accurate to describe the Bahá'í faith as a New Religious Movement than a World Religion (especially "a world religion on a par with Christianity, Islam, etc."). I'll start the ball rolling with a citation from a recent discussion with [another academic].

[The other academic] said:

As to Stephen Lambden's recommendation that you call the Bahá' i Faith a world religion, at what point will you reconsider? At the centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta, there were 37 chaplains pastoral associates) selected to minister to the spiritual needs of the Olympic athletes. These chaplains were chosen to represent six world religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the Bahá'í Faith. Over time, your refusal to recognize the Bahá'í Faith as a world religion may, in retrospect, underscore this tendency towards tendentiousness in your work.

To which I replied:

As far as the world religion bit goes, I really won't back down on this. The reason things like the Olympic Games chaplains happen is that the Bahá'ís have done a great PR job in convincing people that they are a world religion. But in what way does Bahá'í fit with Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism? Numbers? There are at most 5 million Bahá'ís in the world (and probably a very great deal fewer). That puts them on a par with Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons, and way out of the league of the rest. Time around? 153 years at most, if you include Babism. Again, not in that league. Influence on civilization? About as insignificant as it gets. Nation states adhering to that belief? Zero. To include Bahá'ísm as one of the world's 6 world religions is nonsense and very special pleading. There are no objective grounds for it. Bahá'ís would like to be members of a world religion, but that doesn't make it so.

End of that correspondence.

Let's take it a little further. Peter [Smith] is right to say that people like Eileen Barker don't treat Bahá'í as a NRM, because it ain't that new. But That doesn't mean I'm wrong to describe it as such.

For one thing, I think sociologists have got themselves in something of a twist here, often using 1945 as a cut-off point before which there was nothing called a New Religious Movement. Now, there are reasons for working on that basis: the post-WWII period saw a remarkable burgeoning of NRMs. But that leaves us with the problem of what to do about earlier religious movements which do not comfortably fit the church, sect, denomination, brotherhood, gemeinschaft, or world faith categories.

There are anomalies too: why is ISKCON treated as a NRM, when it might be more accurately classified as a sect of Hinduism? And why, for that matter, is Mormonism usually treated as a sect of Christianity, when it might qualify as a NRM? And so on.

I think some sociologists have had their judgement skewed by the cult factor. Books by people like Beckford on Cult Controversies (an excellent book, by the way) have tended to create a situation in which the public at large talk of cults, but sociologists talk of NRMs. In other words, NRM is a posh way of describing a cult. And cults tend to generate controversy. Since Bahá'ísm isn't seen as cultish or controversial, it gets declassified. That's another grave error. Bahá'ísm is extraordinarily controversial in Muslim countries, where it is treated exactly like a cult (sinister, operating through cells, brainwashing young people, etc. etc.). Just because Western sociologists still have a focus on Europe and America doesn't mean that perceptions from further afield can not be illuminating.

Having said all that, the debate about Bahá'í being a NRM or not is one that deserves to be carried on in wider circles. It's not the one I'm concentrating on here. In other words, while I do insist that it is nonsense to call the BF a world religion in any real sense, I don't insist on calling it a NRM. My problem is finding a more useful term. Certainly, it isn't a sect, church, or denomination. Unless somebody can come up with a better classification, NRM will have to serve. In any case, if we compare Bahá'í with some of the movements that are now regularly classed as NRMs, the resemblances are often striking. The Unification Church and Bahá'í have some extraordinary similarities, down to the style of their pamphlets and books, and the themes they express (world brotherhood, oneness of religions, etc.).

And I'm not sure Peter) is altogether right when he says Bahá'ísm does not have the same features as other new movements. As I've just said, the resemblances to the Moonies are not minor.

Everything depends on what you choose to emphasize and what ignore. There is no single type of NRM. There's a good summary of different typologies in the early pages of Roy Wallis's The Elementary Forms of the New Religious Life. It's not so much a case of fitting Bahá'ísm into one category or another, as seeing common features between it in different phases and other movements. That is particularly true when one brings in some of the other eastern religions that moved to the West in the late 19th C, early 20th C. Of course there are big differences between Bahá'ísm and, say, the Children of God.

I don't mean to push this element too far. I've always stressed that I think Bahá'ísm is the NRM most likely to develop into something more significant in the next fifty years or so (though the time-scale is pure guesswork), and that is because it does have features that make it more genuinely universalist in scope.

Just to reiterate. I'm not being deliberately churlish when I argue against Bahá'ísm being a world religion. There are no formal requirements for entry into the world religion club, but a quick glance at all existing member suggests certain common elements: you should be old (at least 1500 years), you should be the faith of at least one nation state, and preferably a great deal more, you should have created at least one major civilization, you should have a well-developed tradition (scriptures, commentaries, possibly a well-elaborated legal system with books of law, theological schools, philosophical schools, seminaries, etc.), you may be widespread (but need not be), and you should have a well-developed sense of dual tradition (i.e. versions of the 'orthodox' faith existing alongside folk belief in certain regions). The Bahá'í faith doesn't qualify at all. Even the widespread bit does not, frankly, impress me. It has been artificially generated through planned missionary enterprise, something quite common to a lot of modern religions like the UC, Mormonism, and Jehovah's Witnesses. The Brahma Kumaris movement has over 3000 centres worldwide, close links to the United Nations, a world headquarters, a Global Vision peace project backed by the UN, etc. Yet it only has about 250,000 members. Soka Gakkai, on the other hand, has about 16,000,000 members, branches in 115 countries, an international campaign for peace, a consultative role with the UN, and has only been going since 1930 (but really since 1945). Nowadays, becoming global isn't really that difficult.

I have, let me add, never denied that the status of the Bahá'í Faith in the eyes of believers is that of a world faith. But the idea that Bahá'ísm stands on a par with Christianity etc. is a theological formulation based on the idea that Bahá' Allah is the latest of God's prophets, not an academic calculation based on membership numbers or real social significance. It is precisely because Bahá'ís carry out a sort of deception in this respect that I feel compelled to counter the world religion pose. For example, does anyone know what percentage of the participants or audiences at the Olympic Games were Bahá'ís? I should think it was very few indeed. In which case, why should the Bahá'ís need chaplains more than, say, Sikhs or Transcendental Meditators (4,000,000 worldwide) or devotees of Santeria or Vodoun or Candoble, or lots of other groups? Merely, I imagine, because it's a status thing, and can be put in volumes of the Bahá'í World (or in pamphlets etc.) in order to impress people and enable the self-fulfilling prophecy to go a stage further.

To clarify further. For those of you coming very late to me and my controversies, my use of the term Bahá'ísm is an attempt to introduce to the widest possible use what I see as a neutral term. There is no reason to see it as pejorative, since analogues such as Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Judaism, or, increasingly, Mormonism are value-free. Bahá'í Faith, particularly with a capital 'F' is the official name for the religion, and should only be used in contexts where this is appropriate. This doesn't prevent use of Bahá'í faith, Bahá'í religion, and so on, but it does help avoid the awkwardness of always one phrase.

That makes me wonder if anyone knows what prompted the UHJ in 1966 to change the official name from Bahá'í World Faith to Bahá'í Faith. I seem to remember that the official explanation was that it avoided any confusion as to whether there was more than one BF: but on reflection that seems a very weak reason. Was something else going on then?

Sorry this has become a bit muddled. But it's an interesting topic and worth getting views on.

Denis MacEoin

January 26. On this date in 1949, Denis MacEoin was born. A former Bahá'í who was active from about 1966 to about 1980, he left the religion after clashes with the Bahá'í administration mostly due to his research works on Babism. He is a pro-Israel activist in Britain who writes for The Jerusalem Post and is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.

January 26. On this date in 1949, Denis MacEoin was born. A former Bahá'í who was active from about 1966 to about 1980, he left the religion after clashes with the Bahá'í administration mostly due to his research works on Babism. He is a pro-Israel activist in Britain who writes for The Jerusalem Post and is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.

Denis MacEoin is a former Bahá'í who was active from about 1966 to about 1980, lecturing at Bahá'í conferences and summer schools and writing in support of his religion. He left the religion after clashes with the Bahá'í administration mostly due to his research works on Babism. He is a pro-Israel activist in Britain who says he has "very negative feelings" about Islam. He writes for The Jerusalem Post and is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.

From his profile page at The Jerusalem Post...

Denis MacEoin
Danis [sic] MacEoin is a former lecturer of Arabic/Islamic Studies, the former editor the Middle East Quarterly, and is currently a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute. MacEoin authored several books and reports on Islam, the Middle East, and Israel including 'Dear Gary, Why You're Wrong about Israel', and blog 'A Liberal Defence of Israel.MacEoin is an active supporter of Israel in the UK.

From his profile page at the Gatestone Institute...

Denis MacEoin
Distinguished Senior Fellow, Gatestone Institute
Denis MacEoin is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute. He first graduated with a B.A. and an M.A. in English Language and Literature from Trinity College, Dublin, followed by a second 4-year M.A. in Persian, Arabic, and Islamic Studies from Edinburgh and a PhD in Persian/Islamic Studies from Cambridge (King's College).
He has lectured in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Newcastle University, and written several academic books and numerous articles, as well as many pieces of journalism. Recently, he has written reports on hate literature, Shari'a Law, and Islamic schools.
He has worked as a writing tutor as the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Newcastle University, where he has also taught a short course in creative writing ('Writing in Genre'). He was for some years the editor of a US-based journal, The Middle East Quarterly. In 1992, HarperCollins published a volume of his journalism under the title New Jerusalems: Islam, Religious Fundamentalism, and the Rushdie Affair.

In 2003, Juan Cole described in a message on the Talisman mail list the pressure placed on Denis MacEoin by the Bahá'í Administrative Order...

Denis MacEoin did not withdraw from the faith, he was chased out by powerful Baha'i fundamentalists who were deeply threatened by the implications of his historical work. Denis became a Baha'i in North Ireland around 1965 and quickly emerged as a Baha'i youth leader. He was chosen to come to Haifa to commemorate the 1968 anniversary of Baha'u'llah's Letters to the Kings.
He then wrote the House saying he did not know whether to serve the Faith by becoming an academic scholar of the Middle East or by going pioneering. They wrote back that either path would be praiseworthy. (They later stabbed him in the back about this). He therefore entered graduate school at Edinburgh in Middle East Studies, then went on to Cambridge University for his Ph.D. He was the first academic to study the Babi movement with all the tools of modern scholarship, and his findings were groundbreaking.
Denis made the mistake of continuing to be an active Baha'i. Since the community is so heavily dominated by aggressive fundamentalist fanatics, if a genuine academic wants to be a Baha'i s/he has to keep a low profile. Denis did not. He gave summer school talks. He was once viciously attacked by Abu al-Qasim Faizi. His new ideas were upsetting the conservative British community. He objected when the Baha'i authorities supported dictators like Pinochet and Bokassa. He corresponded with the Los Angeles Study Class and some of his letters were published in their newsletter (a newsletter that the Baha'i authorities later closed down, for all the world like Tehran ayatollahs pulling a publishing license).
Around 1980, fundamentalist UHJ members Ian Semple and David Hoffman called Denis to a meeting and told him he would have to fall silent (rather as the Vatican did to Leonardo Boff). Hoffman was especially harsh. Denis declined to fall silent, and ultimately withdrew from the Faith. He was pushed out by anti-intellectual bigots who had risen high in the Baha'ihierarchy and become Infallible. Denis's works on the Babi and Baha'i movements are some of the few pieces of solid scholarship that exist.
Instead of being grateful to him for sacrificing all those years living in penury as a graduate student, studying Arabic and Persian, traveling to a dangerous Middle East, all for the service of Baha'u'llah, the community could think of nothing better to do than viciously attack him and throw him in the gutter of infamy.
Denis's story is the story of most thinking people who have anything serious to do with the Baha'i faith. Either they adopt a cult-like mindset of true believers and covenant breakers, in which case they gradually cease being thinking persons, or they get chased out by the wild-eyed. A few people manage to avoid either fate by not drawing attention to themselves. The Baha'i Extreme Orthodox are like the Borg in Star Trek. They want to assimilate you, but might leave you alone if you stay quiet.
cheers
Juan Cole
https://www.juancole.com/

Juan Cole would continue on subsequent posts...

He wasn't saying anything polemic. He was just discovering who the Babis really were from solid historical sources. The powerful Baha'is, who have all the open-mindedness of Wahhabis, did not like it. It did not look like the fireside talks everyone grew up with, so they shoved Denis out of the community with threats of sanctions echoing about his ears.
cheers Juan

and later...

Denis's works were mostly published in Middle East or Religion journals or as academic books, and most could be gotten on interlibrary loan. There may be some things at www.bahai-library.org, and there certainly is a bibliography there.
I apologize that I am off to a conference, so cannot go into depth but there are others here who can discuss Denis's findings.
As to why they should have angered anyone, I suppose you'd have to pass them by a Baha'i fundamentalist and they would tell you. You could just ask about MacEoin at e.g. soc.religion.bahai or about his ideas on Babis. Or at beliefnet. I presume you will get an earful. One of them once more or less threatened to cut my head off with a sword, so they can be an irritable bunch.
cheers Juan
https://www.juancole.com/

January 7. On this date in 1979, Denis MacEoin wrote a "Letter on Bahá'í attitudes towards politics and scholarship" published in published in Los Angeles Bahá'í Study Class Newsletter, 34, pages 4-12, noting "The non-involvement tag is our get-out pass from just about everything, and the more we use it the more out of touch and irrelevant we become...Baha’u'llah wrote directly to rulers to reprimand them for their brutality and repression, while we today pose for pictures with Pinochet and Amin (thank God for your reference to the Pinochet photograph — I thought I was the only person who had noticed it). Yet, the moment anyone lifts a finger to harm Baha’is, in however a minor way, there is a universal outcry and we appeal for aid to the UN and suchlike...The fact is that we seem to judge the justice of a regime according to how well it treats the Baha’is. An unjust regime treating us well is tolerated or even extolled, while a popular regime which deprives us of certain freedoms (perhaps along with other religious groups) is regarded as evil."

January 7. On this date in 1979, Denis MacEoin wrote a "Letter on Bahá'í attitudes towards politics and scholarship" published in published in Los Angeles Bahá'í Study Class Newsletter, 34, pages 4-12, noting "The non-involvement tag is our get-out pass from just about everything, and the more we use it the more out of touch and irrelevant we become...Baha’u'llah wrote directly to rulers to reprimand them for their brutality and repression, while we today pose for pictures with Pinochet and Amin (thank God for your reference to the Pinochet photograph — I thought I was the only person who had noticed it). Yet, the moment anyone lifts a finger to harm Baha’is, in however a minor way, there is a universal outcry and we appeal for aid to the UN and suchlike...The fact is that we seem to judge the justice of a regime according to how well it treats the Baha’is. An unjust regime treating us well is tolerated or even extolled, while a popular regime which deprives us of certain freedoms (perhaps along with other religious groups) is regarded as evil."

Cambridge, England
7 January 1979
Dear Friends,
I have read your latest (November 1978) Newsletter [online here] with more than usual interest and sympathy, and feel that I would like to add a few words in its wake. I shall not try to expand on Tony’s account of our seminar here in Cambridge, much as it is tempting to do so — from the report in your Newsletter, he seems to have done a thorough job of leading you through a very complicated set of issues raised there. The full report, as stated, is available, and dwells more thoroughly on the major topics mentioned by Tony.
I was most interested by the discussion reported on pages 3-4 of your summary. As Tony knows, this is a topic about which I personally feel very strongly. In the simplest terms, I fear that the Baha’i faith as it stands today is in very real danger of becoming irrelevant to the problems faced by people in the world outside — if it has not already become so. As the faith has become more and more organised, with, as you so rightly point out, a growing obsession with figures, numbers, and statistics for their own sake, and a tendency to evaluate the significance of the faith as a religion in terms which have no bearing whatever on this (such as how many languages literature has been ‘translated’ into), we seem to have become more and more introspective and withdrawn, exclusive rather than all-embracing. As a result, most Baha’is appear to be completely ignorant of the issues facing modern man. And, what is worse, they don’t care — if you suggest that they read, say, Marcuse, most Baha’is react with a disdainful, slightly superior shrug: ‘we have the writings, we don’t need to waste our time on the book of false physicians’. As one friend, for some time an NSA secretary (not in the U.K.) put it to me: ‘nothing worth reading has ever been written in the twentieth century’. In fact, it is not even a case of whether people are up on Patti Smith or Malcolm Bradbury’s latest novel, they have yet to read Marx or early Koestler! Instead, the community is locked into an obsession with issues which were vital before or just after the first World War and, what is worse, are a lot less forthright now about issues such as war, poverty, race, and so forth that they were then. To speak about race integration in the States in the 20’s was genuinely progressive. Last year at a Youth Conference in the U.K. (facing a major race problem and the threat of growing fascism — the country’s fascist party is the fourth largest in the country), an NSA member told the youth that we should have nothing to do with the issue of race, since it is political!
In recent years, I feel, the situation has become even more serious (in this country at least). Whereas about ten or more years ago, the Baha’i community tried (in however outdated a fashion) to be involved with society around it, we now seem to think about and talk about and be told about nothing but goals, organization, conferences, and other purely internal matters — very few of them even of a spiritual or genuinely religious nature. Your phrase ’shopping list’ goals sums up very well indeed the utterly meaningless hole we seem to have dug ourselves into. The Five Year Plan in this country has been a mindless race after numbers, constant reshuffles, juggling with statistics, bombastic sermons which have passed beyond banality to the depths of uninspiration. Success is judged in the most material and sterile terms, important long-term tasks of the community have been shelved in order to win insignificant short-term goals, and above all, everybody knows that we will ‘win’ the Plan, whatever the real result. Beneath the surface, fairly large numbers of people are withdrawing, even larger numbers have become inactive, leaving things in the hands of thick-skinned administrators whom we could as well hire from an employment agency, the teaching work becomes more and more geared to attracting the less spiritual, and the circle becomes a spiral. Worst of all, I fear, is that the Baha’is are gradually gaining a reputation for hypocrisy and self-interestedness. To give one example, several years ago, when the troubles began in Northern Ireland, a few Baha’is gave help for some time at a refugee centre, along with other groups. Despite the fact that the Quakers, who ran the centre, had asked for no publicity, the Baha’is were the only group to seek and obtain newspaper publicity for their work with refugees. Since then, the Baha’is as a group, in Northern Ireland have done nothing to help anybody, have never even condemned the violence publicly, and have held numerous conferences and teaching activities which even the believers are beginning to avoid. To give just one other example: the Public Relations Officer of the U.K. Baha’i Community recently told a Mayor, in the course of a tree-planting (!) ceremony (which seems to be the most radical activity we engage in) that ‘Baha’is the world over were working hard in thousands of centres to help improve the environment and the quality of life of all the inhabitants of the earth. They were also involved in efforts to resist the spread of deserts which themselves resulted from the wholesale destruction of trees. At world level, through United Nations agencies, the Baha’i International Community was constantly involved in this work of improving the environment’. As any Baha’i should know, this is, quite simply, dishonest and unethical — but this type of exaggeration and distortion, coupled with the fact that we only ever become involved in any activity where there is a chance of publicity for ourselves, will, I feel, soon be regarded as the chief characteristic of the Baha’is, if it is not already in many quarters.
To a large degree, this lack of involvement in live issues is linked to the fact that many contemporary social issues (such as those mentioned in your Newsletter, and others, such as unemployment, prisoners of conscience, the union) have, or appear to have, a high political content. Since Baha’is have failed to define what they mean by politics in the context of ‘non-involvement in politics’, they are now taking the easiest course, which is to avoid anything which may be remotely political — which means, in effect, just about any relevant social or humanitarian issue today. By dealing with ’safe’ issues (such as tree-planting) and ‘pie in the sky’ policies, we manage to preserve intact our integrity on the principle of non-involvement in politics, even if to do so we have to sacrifice other basic principles regarding war, racialism, sex inequality, tyranny, freedom of conscience, economic adjustment, and so on. The non-involvement tag is our get-out pass from just about everything, and the more we use it the more out of touch and irrelevant we become.
The simple fact is that, in a real sense, the Baha’i faith is one of the most political movements around. After all, principles such as the ending of absolute national sovereignty, world government, universal currency, universal language, sex equality, racial integration, disarmament, world tribunal, anti-communism, retention of constitutional monarchism, the abolition of non-Baha’i religious legal systems (such as the Islamic sharia), the retention of a class system, the abolition of tariffs, international police force, and so on are among the hottest political issues around. Do we just dismember the faith, trimming off any principle or concept that seems likely to offend the political susceptibilities of someone or some government somewhere, or do we accept that we have these principles and that we intend to establish them, destroying, in the process, any other system or ideology which seeks to oppose them? We should also bear in mind that the apparently non-political activity of just teaching the faith is highly political. Quite apart from problems such as teaching race unity, say, South Africa, it is obvious that they will be able to (in theory, at least) to exert pressure on society as a whole, particularly in a democracy. It is hardly enough to say that we are ‘non-political’ — after all, we do plan to bring into being a series of Baha’i states and, in the end, a Baha’i world — no less extreme than the aim of every Marxist. And, in the same way that not everyone jumps with joy at the thought of his country becoming Marxist, so we can hardly expect that there will be universal rejoicing at the news that the Baha’i faith is becoming a threat to the established political system. We may say that the old order is destroying itself and that we intend merely to step in when it collapses, not to actively work for its destruction — but take another look at Marx’s theory of the dialectic of history: capitalism destroys itself in order to give way to communism. Instead of engaging in violent revolution to speed up the process, we ‘teach the faith’.
Tragically, however, in order to pretend not to be concerned with politics, we have more and more adopted a line of expediency in our relationship with the outside world. This has reached such proportions that Baha’is cannot officially be involved with a totally non-aligned organisation such as Amnesty International because it might give rise to a false impression. As a result, we are totally uninvolved with one of the major evils of this century — political and religious oppression coupled with wrongful imprisonment, torture, and execution on the most appalling scale — despite the numerous statements in the writings about opposing injustice and tyranny. Baha’u'llah wrote directly to rulers to reprimand them for their brutality and repression, while we today pose for pictures with Pinochet and Amin (thank God for your reference to the Pinochet photograph — I thought I was the only person who had noticed it). Yet, the moment anyone lifts a finger to harm Baha’is, in however a minor way, there is a universal outcry and we appeal for aid to the UN and suchlike. The Iranian regime has been massacring its people for decades, and thousands are dying in the present troubles, but the only thing to excite protests from the Baha’is has been the threat of violence to themselves. No mention is made of the fact that Jews or Christians have been threatened or attacked. The fact is that we seem to judge the justice of a regime according to how well it treats the Baha’is. An unjust regime treating us well is tolerated or even extolled, while a popular regime which deprives us of certain freedoms (perhaps along with other religious groups) is regarded as evil. No one has asked, for example, what the people of Iran, as a whole, want, but what would ensure the safety of the Baha’is there; so if thousands of Shi’i Muslims are killed, who cares? — they deserve it anyway for having persecuted the Baha’is.
As you say in your Newsletter, the Shah’s ‘continued reign seems to be the only hope the Baha’is have of avoiding full-scale persecution’. There was a time when this need not have been so. The fact is that the Baha’is of Iran have done nothing to help their fellow countryman inside or outside of the country. They have been content to benefit economically and in other ways from the present regime and have gained a real reputation as an inward-looking community which would sacrifice the country for its own ends. Baha’is actually hate the Muslims and try to have as little as possible to do with them. And they seem unable to understand the impression they create. Many years ago, when some Baha’i villages in Adhirbayjan [Azerbaijan] were suffering from a boycott, a well-known and ... [last line cut off].
No one could understand when I pointed out that this would only worsen the situation in the long term. Not only this, but there is a serious level of class distinction between the Baha’is in Iran, a fact which has not escaped the rest of the population, especially the intellectuals. I have lived in a reasonably wealthy Baha’i home in Tihran while, in a room underneath, another Baha’i family with two children lived on bread and yogurt with no furniture — and this is not abnormal. There are many Baha’i meetings in Iran at which a 400 dollar suit would be more of a passport than Baha’i credentials. I don’t wish to be mistaken — some of the most wonderful Baha’is in the world (and some of my dearest friends) live in Iran but the community is known for its wealth, inequality, and exclusiveness.
In general, a deradicalization of the Baha’i faith has occurred over recent years. Like many other originally radical religious movements, the faith has moved from a position of active hostility to the existing order (under the Babis) to non-violent condemnation of abuses in politics and religion, to a passive acceptance of the establishment and, of late, a positive attempt to become integrated with the establishment. This latter development is typical of an originally sectarian movement which becomes a denomination, and is generally a consequence (as has taken place in Iran) of second and third generation prosperity, the removal of charisma, and the growth of organisational elements. Baha’is in many places now show considerable eagerness to become respectable. Being a member of a quaint, exotic religious movement is usually acceptable in the first generation, but it can become an embarrassment to later believers who are successful in society and derive benefits from it. We have now reached that stage in several places. To give one example: almost two years ago, the LSA here suggested to the NSA that every LSA in this country should have 5 pounds (about 9 dollars) to the Venezuela earthquake disaster fund; the suggestion was dismissed on the grounds that we were not concerned with such matters. Not long after, Assemblies and groups throughout the country were asked to give their assistance to government bodies organising the Queen’s Jubilee Fund, collecting money for British youth clubs and organisations. The reason? It was a ‘door to proclamation’. A pamphlet was even produced and widely distributed by one Assembly detailing the links of the Baha’i faith with the British monarchy and our support for it. When our Assembly pointed out to the NSA that this kind of activity could be construed in many quarters as political, and that, in areas such as Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales (where there is strong anti-monarchical feeling), the faith would be identified with political views of wide unpopularity, the reply made by the secretary was simply that he could not understand the point we were making. Nor could he understand our making a distinction between loyalty to one’s government and active support for the establishment.
It is a tragic situation when, as seems to be happening more and more often, Baha’is show themselves to be proud of the fact that they have gained some form of recognition from the old order. Something subtle is wrong, I think, when, for example, such publicity is given to the fact that Baha’is have been asked to join in an inter-faith service in Westminster Abbey. We now think it a wonderful thing when the very churches which we used to describe as defunct and despiritualised patronize us in this way, and do what we can to ingratiate ourselves with clerics, bishops, and ‘respectable’ religious organisations. It seems curious too that we appear to be increasingly favourable to establishment, right-wing, and conservative religions and government bodies; we have very little do to with groups which advocate social change, such as Amnesty, race harmony bodies, sex discrimination groups, anti-war movements, and so on, and more and more with bodies advocating stability, order, law, and respectable social behaviour. It is not surprising that Pinochet and others show such favour towards the Baha’is — we are the ideal religious fringe group for repressive regimes: the offer of outward radicalism with absolute acceptance of the status quo in return for toleration. In Marcusan terms, we are an acceptable alternative to genuine radicalism which may threaten to actually change society. And, as you so well point out in your Newsletter and I have shown above, we are politically naive.
Here again, we are faced with a vicious circle. The faith, as it stands, is predominantly middle-class and conservative (in the West, at least): students, radicals, the ... [last line cut off] ... as presented and the community as met unattractive and irrelevant to their concerns (to the extent that anybody actually tries to teach such socially unacceptable people), and so the only converts are won among middle class quasi-liberals — and the circle repeats itself. The faith seems to be going through a severe crisis — without being aware of it. I have personally little doubt that, if a trenchant radicalisation of the community does not take place within the next decade or sooner, it will stagnate and collapse inwards. Exaggerated news items of mass teaching successes and ‘unprecedented’ campaigns in some areas should not make us lose sight of the fact that, in the longer established communities, there is a growing disillusion, retrogression, routinization, and apathy — highlighted by the increasingly frenetic pronouncements that ‘things have never been better’. The administration, particularly, the mobile, distant, and woolly appointed side (which is rapidly acquiring many of the characteristics of a clergy), seems to have lost all touch with the mass of believers. At meetings and conferences in this country, it is increasingly rare to find someone not an NSA member, Board Member, Counsellor, or, recently, Assistant, to speak formally — and most of the best-informed and stimulating people belong to none of these bodies. As you write, ‘...now, more often than not, the body of the believers are expected to only carry out policies, rather than help form them.’
To find a solution to any problems I have outlined above is hardly an easy task. But it is an urgent one — most of all because it is little recognised and even less admitted. Clearly fresh Baha’i scholarship in all fields, with considerably greater freedom of expression than is at present permitted, is a priority, as we discussed at Cambridge. But it is not only scholarship, but any fresh thinking, whether scholarly or not, which is being suppressed by those who are convinced that their version of the Baha’i faith is the one and only true version and anything else is heresy. If greater latitude in such matters is not very soon permitted, I fear that the faith will lose at increasing speed its most intelligent, sensitive, and creative believers — and we will be in the hands of civil servants and clergy. The Baha’is must make the decision to allow the faith to develop naturally as a universal religion or to prematurely ossify as an establishment ‘church’. New ideas are needed — and new actions. It is rubbish to say that, in view of our size and poverty we cannot do anything to help the sufferings of mankind. Single individuals, poor, humble, and dedicated, have, before this, become major forces for good among mankind. The Baha’i community could become a great force for the betterment of the world if, instead of planting trees and talking about the wonderful society of centuries hence, we were to take positive action on the principles for which we claim to stand, if we were to become known as a people for whom expediency and compromise were anathema, if we were to fight, in however a small and restricted an arena, against injustice, tyranny, oppression, corruption, exploitation, and other social evils — without ever taking sides. Perhaps we would be persecuted in some places, perhaps a few Baha’is would die, perhaps we would be misunderstood by some people — but the faith has always been richer for that. It has been well said that to sit on the fence is to take sides — is it not time to we came off the fence and showed our true commitment to the cause of good and humanity?
With warmest wishes,
Denis MacEoin

May 9. On this date in 2003, David Hoffman, who served on the Universal House of Justice from 1963 until 1988 and before that on the National Spiritual Assembly of the British Isles for 27 years, died.

May 9. On this date in 2003, David Hoffman, who served on the Universal House of Justice from 1963 until 1988 and before that on the National Spiritual Assembly of the British Isles for 27 years, died.

David Hoffman was born in 1908 in Poona, India where his father served in the British Army. Educated in England, as a young man he set out to see the world. While in Canada during the 1930s, he encountered the Bahá’í Faith at the home of May and William Sutherland Maxwell in Montreal. He became a Bahá’í and continued his travels, living for a time in Hollywood, California, and appearing in a number of silent movies. Back in England he earned several acting roles in the West End of London and in 1937 became the world's only television announcer on the BBC's first television transmissions. His voice was also heard on the radio, on the BBC's Empire Service.

Following World War II he married former US Olympic athlete Marion Holley, who predeceased him. They had two children. The Hofmans were very active members of the Bahá’í community, establishing Bahá’í communities in Northampton, Birmingham, Oxford, Cardiff, and Watford. Mr. Hofman served for 27 years as a member of the National Spiritual Assembly of the British Isles. To promote books of religious interest, including titles on the Bahá’í Faith, he established the publishing firm George Ronald, whose first title was The Renewal of Civilization, a book he wrote as an introduction to the Bahá’í Faith. Years later he authored a biography of Hand of the Cause George Townshend.

David Hoffman was elected to the inaugural Universal House of Justice at the first International Convention in 1963 and served on that body for 25 years, until retiring in 1988. As a member of the Universal House of Justice, David Hoffman was instrumental in applying pressure onthe academic Denis MacEoin.

In 2003, Juan Cole described in a message on the Talisman mail list the pressure placed on Denis MacEoin by the Bahá'í Administrative Order...

Denis MacEoin did not withdraw from the faith, he was chased out by powerful Baha'i fundamentalists who were deeply threatened by the implications of his historical work. Denis became a Baha'i in North Ireland around 1965 and quickly emerged as a Baha'i youth leader. He was chosen to come to Haifa to commemorate the 1968 anniversary of Baha'u'llah's Letters to the Kings.
He then wrote the House saying he did not know whether to serve the Faith by becoming an academic scholar of the Middle East or by going pioneering. They wrote back that either path would be praiseworthy. (They later stabbed him in the back about this). He therefore entered graduate school at Edinburgh in Middle East Studies, then went on to Cambridge University for his Ph.D. He was the first academic to study the Babi movement with all the tools of modern scholarship, and his findings were groundbreaking.
Denis made the mistake of continuing to be an active Baha'i. Since the community is so heavily dominated by aggressive fundamentalist fanatics, if a genuine academic wants to be a Baha'i s/he has to keep a low profile. Denis did not. He gave summer school talks. He was once viciously attacked by Abu al-Qasim Faizi. His new ideas were upsetting the conservative British community. He objected when the Baha'i authorities supported dictators like Pinochet and Bokassa. He corresponded with the Los Angeles Study Class and some of his letters were published in their newsletter (a newsletter that the Baha'i authorities later closed down, for all the world like Tehran ayatollahs pulling a publishing license).
Around 1980, fundamentalist UHJ members Ian Semple and David Hoffman called Denis to a meeting and told him he would have to fall silent (rather as the Vatican did to Leonardo Boff). Hoffman was especially harsh. Denis declined to fall silent, and ultimately withdrew from the Faith. He was pushed out by anti-intellectual bigots who had risen high in the Baha'ihierarchy and become Infallible. Denis's works on the Babi and Baha'i movements are some of the few pieces of solid scholarship that exist. Instead of being grateful to him for sacrificing all those years living in penury as a graduate student, studying Arabic and Persian, traveling to a dangerous Middle East, all for the service of Baha'u'llah, the community could think of nothing better to do than viciously attack him and throw him in the gutter of infamy.
Denis's story is the story of most thinking people who have anything serious to do with the Baha'i faith. Either they adopt a cult-like mindset of true believers and covenant breakers, in which case they gradually cease being thinking persons, or they get chased out by the wild-eyed. A few people manage to avoid either fate by not drawing attention to themselves. The Baha'i Extreme Orthodox are like the Borg in Star Trek. They want to assimilate you, but might leave you alone if you stay quiet.
cheers
Juan Cole
https://www.juancole.com/

Juan Cole would continue on subsequent posts...

He wasn't saying anything polemic. He was just discovering who the Babis really were from solid historical sources. The powerful Baha'is, who have all the open-mindedness of Wahhabis, did not like it. It did not look like the fireside talks everyone grew up with, so they shoved Denis out of the community with threats of sanctions echoing about his ears.
cheers Juan

and later

Denis's works were mostly published in Middle East or Religion journals or as academic books, and most could be gotten on interlibrary loan. There may be some things at www.bahai-library.org, and there certainly is a bibliography there.
I apologize that I am off to a conference, so cannot go into depth but there are others here who can discuss Denis's findings.
As to why they should have angered anyone, I suppose you'd have to pass them by a Baha'i fundamentalist and they would tell you. You could just ask about MacEoin at e.g. soc.religion.bahai or about his ideas on Babis. Or at beliefnet. I presume you will get an earful. One of them once more or less threatened to cut my head off with a sword, so they can be an irritable bunch.
cheers Juan https://www.juancole.com/

May 9. On this date in 1997, Denis MacEoin posted a letter concerning whether the Bahá'í Faith should be considered a "World Religion" or a "New Religious Movement"

 

 

May 9. On this date in 1997, Denis MacEoin posted a letter concerning whether the Bahá'í Faith should be considered a "World Religion" or a "New Religious Movement"

Date: Fri, 9 May 1997

From: Denis MacEoin

Subject: Re: Bahá'í: NRM or World Religion?

Dear All,

Since [another academic] and I have coincidentally just agreed to start a thread on this very subject, let me come in here with a few remarks. As many of you will know, I have been arguing for years that it is more accurate to describe the Bahá'í faith as a New Religious Movement than a World Religion (especially "a world religion on a par with Christianity, Islam, etc."). I'll start the ball rolling with a citation from a recent discussion with [another academic].

[The other academic] said:

As to Stephen Lambden's recommendation that you call the Bahá' i Faith a world religion, at what point will you reconsider? At the centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta, there were 37 chaplains pastoral associates) selected to minister to the spiritual needs of the Olympic athletes. These chaplains were chosen to represent six world religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the Bahá'í Faith. Over time, your refusal to recognize the Bahá'í Faith as a world religion may, in retrospect, underscore this tendency towards tendentiousness in your work.

To which I replied:

As far as the world religion bit goes, I really won't back down on this. The reason things like the Olympic Games chaplains happen is that the Bahá'ís have done a great PR job in convincing people that they are a world religion. But in what way does Bahá'í fit with Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism? Numbers? There are at most 5 million Bahá'ís in the world (and probably a very great deal fewer). That puts them on a par with Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons, and way out of the league of the rest. Time around? 153 years at most, if you include Babism. Again, not in that league. Influence on civilization? About as insignificant as it gets. Nation states adhering to that belief? Zero. To include Bahá'ísm as one of the world's 6 world religions is nonsense and very special pleading. There are no objective grounds for it. Bahá'ís would like to be members of a world religion, but that doesn't make it so.

End of that correspondence.

Let's take it a little further. Peter Smith is right to say that people like Eileen Barker don't treat Bahá'í as a NRM, because it ain't that new. But That doesn't mean I'm wrong to describe it as such. For one thing, I think sociologists have got themselves in something of a twist here, often using 1945 as a cut-off point before which there was nothing called a New Religious Movement. Now, there are reasons for working on that basis: the post-WWII period saw a remarkable burgeoning of NRMs. But that leaves us with the problem of what to do about earlier religious movements which do not comfortably fit the church, sect, denomination, brotherhood, gemeinschaft, or world faith categories. There are anomalies too: why is ISKCON treated as a NRM, when it might be more accurately classified as a sect of Hinduism? And why, for that matter, is Mormonism usually treated as a sect of Christianity, when it might qualify as a NRM? And so on.
I think some sociologists have had their judgement skewed by the cult factor. Books by people like Beckford on Cult Controversies (an excellent book, by the way) have tended to create a situation in which the public at large talk of cults, but sociologists talk of NRMs. In other words, NRM is a posh way of describing a cult. And cults tend to generate controversy. Since Bahá'ísm isn't seen as cultish or controversial, it gets declassified. That's another grave error. Bahá'ísm is extraordinarily controversial in Muslim countries, where it is treated exactly like a cult (sinister, operating through cells, brainwashing young people, etc. etc.). Just because Western sociologists still have a focus on Europe and America doesn't mean that perceptions from further afield can not be illuminating.
Having said all that, the debate about Bahá'í being a NRM or not is one that deserves to be carried on in wider circles. It's not the one I'm concentrating on here. In other words, while I do insist that it is nonsense to call the BF a world religion in any real sense, I don't insist on calling it a NRM. My problem is finding a more useful term. Certainly, it isn't a sect, church, or denomination. Unless somebody can come up with a better classification, NRM will have to serve. In any case, if we compare Bahá'í with some of the movements that are now regularly classed as NRMs, the resemblances are often striking. The Unification Church and Bahá'í have some extraordinary similarities, down to the style of their pamphlets and books, and the themes they express (world brotherhood, oneness of religions, etc.).

And I'm not sure Peter is altogether right when he says Bahá'ísm does not have the same features as other new movements. As I've just said, the resemblances to the Moonies are not minor. Everything depends on what you choose to emphasize and what ignore. There is no single type of NRM. There's a good summary of different typologies in the early pages of Roy Wallis's The Elementary Forms of the New Religious Life. It's not so much a case of fitting Bahá'ísm into one category or another, as seeing common features between it in different phases and other movements. That is particularly true when one brings in some of the other eastern religions that moved to the West in the late 19th C, early 20th C. Of course there are big differences between Bahá'ísm and, say, the Children of God.

I don't mean to push this element too far. I've always stressed that I think Bahá'ísm is the NRM most likely to develop into something more significant in the next fifty years or so (though the time-scale is pure guesswork), and that is because it does have features that make it more genuinely universalist in scope.

Just to reiterate. I'm not being deliberately churlish when I argue against Bahá'ísm being a world religion. There are no formal requirements for entry into the world religion club, but a quick glance at all existing member suggests certain common elements: you should be old (at least 1500 years), you should be the faith of at least one nation state, and preferably a great deal more, you should have created at least one major civilization, you should have a well-developed tradition (scriptures, commentaries, possibly a well-elaborated legal system with books of law, theological schools, philosophical schools, seminaries, etc.), you may be widespread (but need not be), and you should have a well-developed sense of dual tradition (i.e. versions of the 'orthodox' faith existing alongside folk belief in certain regions). The Bahá'í faith doesn't qualify at all. Even the widespread bit does not, frankly, impress me. It has been artificially generated through planned missionary enterprise, something quite common to a lot of modern religions like the UC, Mormonism, and Jehovah's Witnesses. The Brahma Kumaris movement has over 3000 centres worldwide, close links to the United Nations, a world headquarters, a Global Vision peace project backed by the UN, etc. Yet it only has about 250,000 members. Soka Gakkai, on the other hand, has about 16,000,000 members, branches in 115 countries, an international campaign for peace, a consultative role with the UN, and has only been going since 1930 (but really since 1945). Nowadays, becoming global isn't really that difficult.

I have, let me add, never denied that the status of the Bahá'í Faith in the eyes of believers is that of a world faith. But the idea that Bahá'ísm stands on a par with Christianity etc. is a theological formulation based on the idea that Bahá' Allah is the latest of God's prophets, not an academic calculation based on membership numbers or real social significance. It is precisely because Bahá'ís carry out a sort of deception in this respect that I feel compelled to counter the world religion pose. For example, does anyone know what percentage of the participants or audiences at the Olympic Games were Bahá'ís? I should think it was very few indeed. In which case, why should the Bahá'ís need chaplains more than, say, Sikhs or Transcendental Meditators (4,000,000 worldwide) or devotees of Santeria or Vodoun or Candoble, or lots of other groups? Merely, I imagine, because it's a status thing, and can be put in volumes of the Bahá'í World (or in pamphlets etc.) in order to impress people and enable the self-fulfilling prophecy to go a stage further.

To clarify further. For those of you coming very late to me and my controversies, my use of the term Bahá'ísm is an attempt to introduce to the widest possible use what I see as a neutral term. There is no reason to see it as pejorative, since analogues such as Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Judaism, or, increasingly, Mormonism are value-free. Bahá'í Faith, particularly with a capital 'F' is the official name for the religion, and should only be used in contexts where this is appropriate. This doesn't prevent use of Bahá'í faith, Bahá'í religion, and so on, but it does help avoid the awkwardness of always one phrase.

That makes me wonder if anyone knows what prompted the UHJ in 1966 to change the official name from Bahá'í World Faith to Bahá'í Faith. I seem to remember that the official explanation was that it avoided any confusion as to whether there was more than one BF: but on reflection that seems a very weak reason. Was something else going on then?
Sorry this has become a bit muddled. But it's an interesting topic and worth getting views on.

Denis MacEoin

January 7. On this date in 1979, Denis MacEoin wrote a "Letter on Bahá'í attitudes towards politics and scholarship" published in published in Los Angeles Bahá'í Study Class Newsletter, 34, pages 4-12.

January 7. On this date in 1979, Denis MacEoin wrote a "Letter on Bahá'í attitudes towards politics and scholarship" published in published in Los Angeles Bahá'í Study Class Newsletter, 34, pages 4-12.

Cambridge, England
7 January 1979
Dear Friends,
I have read your latest (November 1978) Newsletter [online here] with more than usual interest and sympathy, and feel that I would like to add a few words in its wake. I shall not try to expand on Tony’s account of our seminar here in Cambridge, much as it is tempting to do so — from the report in your Newsletter, he seems to have done a thorough job of leading you through a very complicated set of issues raised there. The full report, as stated, is available, and dwells more thoroughly on the major topics mentioned by Tony.
I was most interested by the discussion reported on pages 3-4 of your summary. As Tony knows, this is a topic about which I personally feel very strongly. In the simplest terms, I fear that the Baha’i faith as it stands today is in very real danger of becoming irrelevant to the problems faced by people in the world outside — if it has not already become so. As the faith has become more and more organised, with, as you so rightly point out, a growing obsession with figures, numbers, and statistics for their own sake, and a tendency to evaluate the significance of the faith as a religion in terms which have no bearing whatever on this (such as how many languages literature has been ‘translated’ into), we seem to have become more and more introspective and withdrawn, exclusive rather than all-embracing. As a result, most Baha’is appear to be completely ignorant of the issues facing modern man. And, what is worse, they don’t care — if you suggest that they read, say, Marcuse, most Baha’is react with a disdainful, slightly superior shrug: ‘we have the writings, we don’t need to waste our time on the book of false physicians’. As one friend, for some time an NSA secretary (not in the U.K.) put it to me: ‘nothing worth reading has ever been written in the twentieth century’. In fact, it is not even a case of whether people are up on Patti Smith or Malcolm Bradbury’s latest novel, they have yet to read Marx or early Koestler! Instead, the community is locked into an obsession with issues which were vital before or just after the first World War and, what is worse, are a lot less forthright now about issues such as war, poverty, race, and so forth that they were then. To speak about race integration in the States in the 20’s was genuinely progressive. Last year at a Youth Conference in the U.K. (facing a major race problem and the threat of growing fascism — the country’s fascist party is the fourth largest in the country), an NSA member told the youth that we should have nothing to do with the issue of race, since it is political!
In recent years, I feel, the situation has become even more serious (in this country at least). Whereas about ten or more years ago, the Baha’i community tried (in however outdated a fashion) to be involved with society around it, we now seem to think about and talk about and be told about nothing but goals, organization, conferences, and other purely internal matters — very few of them even of a spiritual or genuinely religious nature. Your phrase ’shopping list’ goals sums up very well indeed the utterly meaningless hole we seem to have dug ourselves into. The Five Year Plan in this country has been a mindless race after numbers, constant reshuffles, juggling with statistics, bombastic sermons which have passed beyond banality to the depths of uninspiration. Success is judged in the most material and sterile terms, important long-term tasks of the community have been shelved in order to win insignificant short-term goals, and above all, everybody knows that we will ‘win’ the Plan, whatever the real result. Beneath the surface, fairly large numbers of people are withdrawing, even larger numbers have become inactive, leaving things in the hands of thick-skinned administrators whom we could as well hire from an employment agency, the teaching work becomes more and more geared to attracting the less spiritual, and the circle becomes a spiral. Worst of all, I fear, is that the Baha’is are gradually gaining a reputation for hypocrisy and self-interestedness. To give one example, several years ago, when the troubles began in Northern Ireland, a few Baha’is gave help for some time at a refugee centre, along with other groups. Despite the fact that the Quakers, who ran the centre, had asked for no publicity, the Baha’is were the only group to seek and obtain newspaper publicity for their work with refugees. Since then, the Baha’is as a group, in Northern Ireland have done nothing to help anybody, have never even condemned the violence publicly, and have held numerous conferences and teaching activities which even the believers are beginning to avoid. To give just one other example: the Public Relations Officer of the U.K. Baha’i Community recently told a Mayor, in the course of a tree-planting (!) ceremony (which seems to be the most radical activity we engage in) that ‘Baha’is the world over were working hard in thousands of centres to help improve the environment and the quality of life of all the inhabitants of the earth. They were also involved in efforts to resist the spread of deserts which themselves resulted from the wholesale destruction of trees. At world level, through United Nations agencies, the Baha’i International Community was constantly involved in this work of improving the environment’. As any Baha’i should know, this is, quite simply, dishonest and unethical — but this type of exaggeration and distortion, coupled with the fact that we only ever become involved in any activity where there is a chance of publicity for ourselves, will, I feel, soon be regarded as the chief characteristic of the Baha’is, if it is not already in many quarters.
To a large degree, this lack of involvement in live issues is linked to the fact that many contemporary social issues (such as those mentioned in your Newsletter, and others, such as unemployment, prisoners of conscience, the union) have, or appear to have, a high political content. Since Baha’is have failed to define what they mean by politics in the context of ‘non-involvement in politics’, they are now taking the easiest course, which is to avoid anything which may be remotely political — which means, in effect, just about any relevant social or humanitarian issue today. By dealing with ’safe’ issues (such as tree-planting) and ‘pie in the sky’ policies, we manage to preserve intact our integrity on the principle of non-involvement in politics, even if to do so we have to sacrifice other basic principles regarding war, racialism, sex inequality, tyranny, freedom of conscience, economic adjustment, and so on. The non-involvement tag is our get-out pass from just about everything, and the more we use it the more out of touch and irrelevant we become. 

The simple fact is that, in a real sense, the Baha’i faith is one of the most political movements around. After all, principles such as the ending of absolute national sovereignty, world government, universal currency, universal language, sex equality, racial integration, disarmament, world tribunal, anti-communism, retention of constitutional monarchism, the abolition of non-Baha’i religious legal systems (such as the Islamic sharia), the retention of a class system, the abolition of tariffs, international police force, and so on are among the hottest political issues around. Do we just dismember the faith, trimming off any principle or concept that seems likely to offend the political susceptibilities of someone or some government somewhere, or do we accept that we have these principles and that we intend to establish them, destroying, in the process, any other system or ideology which seeks to oppose them? We should also bear in mind that the apparently non-political activity of just teaching the faith is highly political. Quite apart from problems such as teaching race unity, say, South Africa, it is obvious that they will be able to (in theory, at least) to exert pressure on society as a whole, particularly in a democracy. It is hardly enough to say that we are ‘non-political’ — after all, we do plan to bring into being a series of Baha’i states and, in the end, a Baha’i world — no less extreme than the aim of every Marxist. And, in the same way that not everyone jumps with joy at the thought of his country becoming Marxist, so we can hardly expect that there will be universal rejoicing at the news that the Baha’i faith is becoming a threat to the established political system. We may say that the old order is destroying itself and that we intend merely to step in when it collapses, not to actively work for its destruction — but take another look at Marx’s theory of the dialectic of history: capitalism destroys itself in order to give way to communism. Instead of engaging in violent revolution to speed up the process, we ‘teach the faith’.
Tragically, however, in order to pretend not to be concerned with politics, we have more and more adopted a line of expediency in our relationship with the outside world. This has reached such proportions that Baha’is cannot officially be involved with a totally non-aligned organisation such as Amnesty International because it might give rise to a false impression. As a result, we are totally uninvolved with one of the major evils of this century — political and religious oppression coupled with wrongful imprisonment, torture, and execution on the most appalling scale — despite the numerous statements in the writings about opposing injustice and tyranny. Baha’u'llah wrote directly to rulers to reprimand them for their brutality and repression, while we today pose for pictures with Pinochet and Amin (thank God for your reference to the Pinochet photograph — I thought I was the only person who had noticed it). Yet, the moment anyone lifts a finger to harm Baha’is, in however a minor way, there is a universal outcry and we appeal for aid to the UN and suchlike. The Iranian regime has been massacring its people for decades, and thousands are dying in the present troubles, but the only thing to excite protests from the Baha’is has been the threat of violence to themselves. No mention is made of the fact that Jews or Christians have been threatened or attacked. The fact is that we seem to judge the justice of a regime according to how well it treats the Baha’is. An unjust regime treating us well is tolerated or even extolled, while a popular regime which deprives us of certain freedoms (perhaps along with other religious groups) is regarded as evil. No one has asked, for example, what the people of Iran, as a whole, want, but what would ensure the safety of the Baha’is there; so if thousands of Shi’i Muslims are killed, who cares? — they deserve it anyway for having persecuted the Baha’is.
As you say in your Newsletter, the Shah’s ‘continued reign seems to be the only hope the Baha’is have of avoiding full-scale persecution’. There was a time when this need not have been so. The fact is that the Baha’is of Iran have done nothing to help their fellow countryman inside or outside of the country. They have been content to benefit economically and in other ways from the present regime and have gained a real reputation as an inward-looking community which would sacrifice the country for its own ends. Baha’is actually hate the Muslims and try to have as little as possible to do with them. And they seem unable to understand the impression they create. Many years ago, when some Baha’i villages in Adhirbayjan [Azerbaijan] were suffering from a boycott, a well-known and ... [last line cut off].
No one could understand when I pointed out that this would only worsen the situation in the long term. Not only this, but there is a serious level of class distinction between the Baha’is in Iran, a fact which has not escaped the rest of the population, especially the intellectuals. I have lived in a reasonably wealthy Baha’i home in Tihran while, in a room underneath, another Baha’i family with two children lived on bread and yogurt with no furniture — and this is not abnormal. There are many Baha’i meetings in Iran at which a 400 dollar suit would be more of a passport than Baha’i credentials. I don’t wish to be mistaken — some of the most wonderful Baha’is in the world (and some of my dearest friends) live in Iran but the community is known for its wealth, inequality, and exclusiveness.
In general, a deradicalization of the Baha’i faith has occurred over recent years. Like many other originally radical religious movements, the faith has moved from a position of active hostility to the existing order (under the Babis) to non-violent condemnation of abuses in politics and religion, to a passive acceptance of the establishment and, of late, a positive attempt to become integrated with the establishment. This latter development is typical of an originally sectarian movement which becomes a denomination, and is generally a consequence (as has taken place in Iran) of second and third generation prosperity, the removal of charisma, and the growth of organisational elements. Baha’is in many places now show considerable eagerness to become respectable. Being a member of a quaint, exotic religious movement is usually acceptable in the first generation, but it can become an embarrassment to later believers who are successful in society and derive benefits from it. We have now reached that stage in several places. To give one example: almost two years ago, the LSA here suggested to the NSA that every LSA in this country should have 5 pounds (about 9 dollars) to the Venezuela earthquake disaster fund; the suggestion was dismissed on the grounds that we were not concerned with such matters. Not long after, Assemblies and groups throughout the country were asked to give their assistance to government bodies organising the Queen’s Jubilee Fund, collecting money for British youth clubs and organisations. The reason? It was a ‘door to proclamation’. A pamphlet was even produced and widely distributed by one Assembly detailing the links of the Baha’i faith with the British monarchy and our support for it. When our Assembly pointed out to the NSA that this kind of activity could be construed in many quarters as political, and that, in areas such as Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales (where there is strong anti-monarchical feeling), the faith would be identified with political views of wide unpopularity, the reply made by the secretary was simply that he could not understand the point we were making. Nor could he understand our making a distinction between loyalty to one’s government and active support for the establishment.
It is a tragic situation when, as seems to be happening more and more often, Baha’is show themselves to be proud of the fact that they have gained some form of recognition from the old order. Something subtle is wrong, I think, when, for example, such publicity is given to the fact that Baha’is have been asked to join in an inter-faith service in Westminster Abbey. We now think it a wonderful thing when the very churches which we used to describe as defunct and despiritualised patronize us in this way, and do what we can to ingratiate ourselves with clerics, bishops, and ‘respectable’ religious organisations. It seems curious too that we appear to be increasingly favourable to establishment, right-wing, and conservative religions and government bodies; we have very little do to with groups which advocate social change, such as Amnesty, race harmony bodies, sex discrimination groups, anti-war movements, and so on, and more and more with bodies advocating stability, order, law, and respectable social behaviour. It is not surprising that Pinochet and others show such favour towards the Baha’is — we are the ideal religious fringe group for repressive regimes: the offer of outward radicalism with absolute acceptance of the status quo in return for toleration. In Marcusan terms, we are an acceptable alternative to genuine radicalism which may threaten to actually change society. And, as you so well point out in your Newsletter and I have shown above, we are politically naive.
Here again, we are faced with a vicious circle. The faith, as it stands, is predominantly middle-class and conservative (in the West, at least): students, radicals, the ... [last line cut off] ... as presented and the community as met unattractive and irrelevant to their concerns (to the extent that anybody actually tries to teach such socially unacceptable people), and so the only converts are won among middle class quasi-liberals — and the circle repeats itself. The faith seems to be going through a severe crisis — without being aware of it. I have personally little doubt that, if a trenchant radicalisation of the community does not take place within the next decade or sooner, it will stagnate and collapse inwards. Exaggerated news items of mass teaching successes and ‘unprecedented’ campaigns in some areas should not make us lose sight of the fact that, in the longer established communities, there is a growing disillusion, retrogression, routinization, and apathy — highlighted by the increasingly frenetic pronouncements that ‘things have never been better’. The administration, particularly, the mobile, distant, and woolly appointed side (which is rapidly acquiring many of the characteristics of a clergy), seems to have lost all touch with the mass of believers. At meetings and conferences in this country, it is increasingly rare to find someone not an NSA member, Board Member, Counsellor, or, recently, Assistant, to speak formally — and most of the best-informed and stimulating people belong to none of these bodies. As you write, ‘...now, more often than not, the body of the believers are expected to only carry out policies, rather than help form them.’
To find a solution to any problems I have outlined above is hardly an easy task. But it is an urgent one — most of all because it is little recognised and even less admitted. Clearly fresh Baha’i scholarship in all fields, with considerably greater freedom of expression than is at present permitted, is a priority, as we discussed at Cambridge. But it is not only scholarship, but any fresh thinking, whether scholarly or not, which is being suppressed by those who are convinced that their version of the Baha’i faith is the one and only true version and anything else is heresy. If greater latitude in such matters is not very soon permitted, I fear that the faith will lose at increasing speed its most intelligent, sensitive, and creative believers — and we will be in the hands of civil servants and clergy. The Baha’is must make the decision to allow the faith to develop naturally as a universal religion or to prematurely ossify as an establishment ‘church’. New ideas are needed — and new actions. It is rubbish to say that, in view of our size and poverty we cannot do anything to help the sufferings of mankind. Single individuals, poor, humble, and dedicated, have, before this, become major forces for good among mankind. The Baha’i community could become a great force for the betterment of the world if, instead of planting trees and talking about the wonderful society of centuries hence, we were to take positive action on the principles for which we claim to stand, if we were to become known as a people for whom expediency and compromise were anathema, if we were to fight, in however a small and restricted an arena, against injustice, tyranny, oppression, corruption, exploitation, and other social evils — without ever taking sides. Perhaps we would be persecuted in some places, perhaps a few Baha’is would die, perhaps we would be misunderstood by some people — but the faith has always been richer for that. It has been well said that to sit on the fence is to take sides — is it not time to we came off the fence and showed our true commitment to the cause of good and humanity?
With warmest wishes,
Denis MacEoin

May 9. On this date in 2003, David Hofman, who served on the Universal House of Justice from 1963 until 1988 and before that on the National Spiritual Assembly of the British Isles for 27 years, died.

 

May 9. On this date in 2003, David Hofman, who served on the Universal House of Justice from 1963 until 1988 and before that on the National Spiritual Assembly of the British Isles for 27 years, died.

 

David George Ronald Hofman was born in 1908 in Poona, India where his father served in the British Army. Educated in England, as a young man he set out to see the world. While in Canada during the 1930s, he encountered the Bahá’í Faith at the home of May and William Sutherland Maxwell in Montreal. He became a Bahá’í and continued his travels, living for a time in Hollywood, California, and appearing in a number of silent movies. Back in England he earned several acting roles in the West End of London and in 1937 became the world's only television announcer on the BBC's first television transmissions. His voice was also heard on the radio, on the BBC's Empire Service.

 

Following World War II he married former US Olympic athlete Marion Holley, who predeceased him. They had two children. The Hofmans were very active members of the Bahá’í community, establishing Bahá’í communities in Northampton, Birmingham, Oxford, Cardiff, and Watford. Mr. Hofman served for 27 years as a member of the National Spiritual Assembly of the British Isles. To promote books of religious interest, including titles on the Bahá’í Faith, he established the publishing firm George Ronald, whose first title was The Renewal of Civilization, a book he wrote as an introduction to the Bahá’í Faith. Years later he authored a biography of Hand of the Cause George Townshend.

 

David Hofman was elected to the inaugural Universal House of Justice at the first International Convention in 1963 and served on that body for 25 years, until retiring in 1988. As a member of the Universal House of Justice, David Hoffman was instrumental in applying pressure on the academic Denis MacEoin.

 

In 2003, Juan Cole described in a message on the Talisman mail list the pressure placed on Denis MacEoin by the Bahá'í Administrative Order...

Denis MacEoin did not withdraw from the faith, he was chased out by powerful Baha'i fundamentalists who were deeply threatened by the implications of his historical work. Denis became a Baha'i in North Ireland around 1965 and quickly emerged as a Baha'i youth leader. He was chosen to come to Haifa to commemorate the 1968 anniversary of Baha'u'llah's Letters to the Kings.

He then wrote the House saying he did not know whether to serve the Faith by becoming an academic scholar of the Middle East or by going pioneering. They wrote back that either path would be praiseworthy. (They later stabbed him in the back about this). He therefore entered graduate school at Edinburgh in Middle East Studies, then went on to Cambridge University for his Ph.D. He was the first academic to study the Babi movement with all the tools of modern scholarship, and his findings were groundbreaking.

Denis made the mistake of continuing to be an active Baha'i. Since the community is so heavily dominated by aggressive fundamentalist fanatics, if a genuine academic wants to be a Baha'i s/he has to keep a low profile. Denis did not. He gave summer school talks. He was once viciously attacked by Abu al-Qasim Faizi. His new ideas were upsetting the conservative British community. He objected when the Baha'i authorities supported dictators like Pinochet and Bokassa. He corresponded with the Los Angeles Study Class and some of his letters were published in their newsletter (a newsletter that the Baha'i authorities later closed down, for all the world like Tehran ayatollahs pulling a publishing license).

Around 1980, fundamentalist UHJ members Ian Semple and David Hofman called Denis to a meeting and told him he would have to fall silent (rather as the Vatican did to Leonardo Boff). Hoffman was especially harsh. Denis declined to fall silent, and ultimately withdrew from the Faith. He was pushed out by anti-intellectual bigots who had risen high in the Baha'ihierarchy and become Infallible. Denis's works on the Babi and Baha'i movements are some of the few pieces of solid scholarship that exist. Instead of being grateful to him for sacrificing all those years living in penury as a graduate student, studying Arabic and Persian, traveling to a dangerous Middle East, all for the service of Baha'u'llah, the community could think of nothing better to do than viciously attack him and throw him in the gutter of infamy.

Denis's story is the story of most thinking people who have anything serious to do with the Baha'i faith. Either they adopt a cult-like mindset of true believers and covenant breakers, in which case they gradually cease being thinking persons, or they get chased out by the wild-eyed. A few people manage to avoid either fate by not drawing attention to themselves. The Baha'i Extreme Orthodox are like the Borg in Star Trek. They want to assimilate you, but might leave you alone if you stay quiet.

cheers

Juan Cole

https://www.juancole.com/

Juan Cole would continue on subsequent posts...

He wasn't saying anything polemic. He was just discovering who the Babis really were from solid historical sources. The powerful Baha'is, who have all the open-mindedness of Wahhabis, did not like it. It did not look like the fireside talks everyone grew up with, so they shoved Denis out of the community with threats of sanctions echoing about his ears.

cheers Juan

and later

Denis's works were mostly published in Middle East or Religion journals or as academic books, and most could be gotten on interlibrary loan. There may be some things at www.bahai-library.org, and there certainly is a bibliography there.

I apologize that I am off to a conference, so cannot go into depth but there are others here who can discuss Denis's findings.

As to why they should have angered anyone, I suppose you'd have to pass them by a Baha'i fundamentalist and they would tell you. You could just ask about MacEoin at e.g. soc.religion.bahai or about his ideas on Babis. Or at beliefnet. I presume you will get an earful. One of them once more or less threatened to cut my head off with a sword, so they can be an irritable bunch.

cheers Juan

https://www.juancole.com/