In 1980, I began taking guitar lessons from Rick,[1] a bright young musician who showed little interest whenever my Christian faith came up in conversation, usually when learning a song or discussing contemporary music. He earned an undergraduate degree in anthropology, considered himself an atheist then, and remains an accomplished guitarist, composer, and musician. One day, I was paying for my new guitar strings when he enthusiastically announced, “You’ll be happy to know I finally got religion: I’m a Bahá’í!” I was taken aback by his new-found enthusiasm for theism but managed to keep my composure long enough to ask him about this exotic-sounding religion. He began with the story of the Báb (the Gate), a nineteenth-century Persian prophet whose devotion and extraordinary life spawned a new religious movement. The Báb claimed to be the herald of God’s most recent manifestation, Baha’u’llah, whose followers, the Bahá’ís, seek to spiritually revolutionize the world and usher in the Most Great Peace, a utopian age of universal equality, enlightenment, and goodwill.
I knew something of the Bahá’í faith through my good friend, Art Johnston. Art was one of the most inquisitive people I’ve ever known, and he had been meeting with several local Bahá’ís. They were more of a curiosity to Art than a serious religious movement, but he enjoyed discussing religion with them. I learned later that at least a few of the local Baha’is had been Pioneers,[2] and there were enough members in our area to constitute a Local Spiritual Assembly.[3]
Rick’s brief historical sketch aroused my interest and piqued my curiosity. I attended a few firesides, the Bahá’í equivalent of an informal Evangelical home Bible study. I was given two of their standard evangelistic books: Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era by J.E. Esselmont[4] and A Thief in the Night by William Sears.[5] At about the same time, Art showed me his copy of the only book-length treatment of Bahá’í history by a Christian author available at the time, William McElwee Miller’s polemical work, The Bahá’í Faith: Its History and Teachings.[6] I purchased my own copy to pour over and mark up. While reading these books and searching for other sources, it became apparent that there were widely divergent and often antagonistic accounts of the history and development of the Bahá’í faith. Finding objective sources seemed surprisingly tricky for someone from an Evangelical background who had looked into various world religions and their major streams, as well as dozens of religious movements, sects, and cults.[7]
Even today, purely objective or dispassionate sources are few. This may be attributed to the relatively short time the Bahá’í Faith has been in existence, along with its relatively diminutive presence and influence in a world in which people identifying as Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and atheists number in the billions. But, I came to find out that the materials available then, and more so today, provide enough information to reach some concrete conclusions about the faith, practices, and history of the Bahá’í Faith for those willing to expend a bit more effort than they would for any of the major religions in the world.
My first offering in this series about the Bahá’í is a paper I wrote and presented to a symposium over thirty years ago.
[1] This is a pseudonym to guard his identity.
[2] A Pioneer is a “believer who arises and leaves his home to journey to another country for the purpose of teaching the Cause.” Wendi Momen citing a letter from the Universal House of Justice in A Basic Baha’i Dictionary (Oxford: George Ronald, 1989) 179
[3] Ibid., 139-140
[4] John E. Esselmont, Baha’u’llah and the New Era, 5th rev. ed. (Wilmette: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1980)
[5] William Sears, Thief in the Night: The Case of the Missing Millennium, (Oxford: George Ronald, 1981)
[6] William McElwee Miller. The Bahá’í Faith: Its History and Teachings (Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1974)
[7] A good place to start on your journey into the history and teachings of the Baha’i faith is “Bahá’ísm” by Denis MacEoin, ed. John R. Hinnells,” A Handbook of Living Religions (Viking Press, 1984) 475-498
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