We don’t have the actual question but from the reply we can infer that it juxtaposed the prominence that Shoghi Effendi placed upon it with the more recent exhortations from the UHJ and ITC on the “framework for growth”:

You indicate that some friends wonder whether the Guardian’s statement characterizing racial prejudice as “the most vital and challenging issue confronting the Bahá’í community at the present stage of its evolution” still applies to the racial situation in the United States, since it was written so long ago. The House of Justice has determined that it is not productive to approach the issue in this manner, as it gives rise to an implicit and false dichotomy that, either what the Guardian said is no longer important, or it is so important that it must be addressed before or apart from all other concerns

Ultimately the House sides with themselves on the issue, writing that the framework for growth takes precedence:

Only if the efforts to eradicate the bane of prejudice are coherent with the full range of the community’s affairs, only if they arise naturally within the systematic pattern of expansion, community building, and involvement with society, will the American believers expand their capacity, year after year and decade after decade, to make their mark on their community and society and contribute to the high aim set for the Bahá’ís by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to eliminate racial prejudice from the face of the earth.

I’m a bit puzzled by their claim that:

Even if such a community were to focus the entirety of its resources on the problem of racial prejudice, even if it were able to heal itself to some extent of that cancerous affliction, in the face of such a monumental social challenge the impact would be inconsequential.

Because one of the most famous quotes from Shoghi Effendi on teaching is this:

Not by the force of numbers, not by the mere exposition of a set of new and noble principles, not by an organized campaign of teaching – no matter how world-wide and elaborate in its character – not even by the staunchness of our faith or the exaltation of our enthusiasm, can we ultimately hope to vindicate in the eyes of a critical and skeptical age the supreme claim of the Abha Revelation. One thing, and only one thing, will unfailingly and alone secure the undoubted triumph of this sacred Cause, namely, the extent to which our own inner life and private character mirror forth in their manifold aspects the splendor of those eternal principles proclaimed by Bahá’u'lláh.
The Bahá’í Magazine – Star of the West, September 1925, Vol. 16 No. 6, page 538

Doesn’t that explicitly contradict the UHJ? Especially since Shoghi Effendi excludes “an organized campaign of teaching – no matter how world-wide and elaborate in its character” and posits that the extent to which we live the Baha’i principles in our lives is the key? wouldn’t a community that “mirrors forth” the principle of the unity of mankind, with no racial prejudice, ultimately “secure the undoubted triumph” of the Cause?

As always, I’d like to hear your thoughts. For your consideration, here’s the full letter:

There isn’t much remarkable about it but if you manage to hack through the thick underbrush of verbiage you’ll find that almost at the end Khan says:

The solution is childish simple; the solution is so simple, it [sic] hardly worth mentioning. The solution is no more and no less than unreserved acceptance of whatever the central authority of the Cause, in this case the Universal House of Justice decrees.

Unfortunately Khan doesn’t explain what he really means by ‘decrees’.

Does that mean anything the House decides? every word they write? every answer they give to a questioner? every letter of guidance to members or national administrative bodies? or does it mean what they decree as in their legislative authority within Baha’i administrative structure?

It would seem that Khan has a wide understanding of ‘decrees’ since he mentions the guidance for ‘direct teaching’, as well as the implementation of Ruhi courses as the only option within the institute process.

This obviously opens up the hornets nest of the infallibility of the Universal House of Justice.

Oy vey! Here we go again.

Brendan wrote a commentary: Second Thoughts on Peter Khan.

Karen is dispassionate.

Alison believes that Khan is overstepping.

As for your humble scribe, I’m not sure what else I can add to what has already been written before here and elsewhere on this topic. I’m not comfortable with the conviction that Khan has in an absolutist understanding of the decrees of the House of Justice and can’t help but think of this gem of a quip:

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
Bertrand Russell

No advancement in any field would be possible if at least one person did not doubt if there was a better way to do things. If one person didn’t doubt the dogma of their day. If one person did not have so much doubt that they investigated other potential answers and avenues.

This is true for scientific advancements of course. But it is equally valid in any field of human endeavor.

Do you think that anyone would have believed in the Bab if they first hadn’t a seed of doubt regarding the commonly accepted notion within Islam that Muhammad was the ‘last prophet of God’?

So I respectfully submit to you that believing that we can simply put away questions and do without further investigation of truth is the biggest mistake that Baha’is make.

To find out more about why this document is so important, you can read more about it here. Interestingly enough, there are many discrepancies between the contents of the Codex and what we consider as the Bible today. For example, it has no mention of a resurrected Jesus – a pivotal component of modern Christian doctrine.

I took the image you see above while playing around with the controls at the Codex Sinaiticus website. As the image shows, you can zoom in to see quiet a lot of detail.

Even you are not a librarian or a photographer or an archivist, it isn’t difficult to imagine the daunting task of digitizing a 1,600-year old manuscript that is literally falling apart.

This monumental achievement reminded me of the massive volumes of Baha’i texts which are hidden away in vaults and not accessible by scholars (or anyone else). To give you an idea of what a similar project for Baha’i texts would look like, here is a low resolution image of an excerpt from the Epistle to the Son of the Wolf by Baha’u'llah (written in the handwriting of Mirza Aqa Jan, Baha’u'llah’s amanuensis):

It is difficult to estimate the sheer magnitude of material that is locked away right now. But I would estimate that less than one percent of the total is currently published. Most are kept in special archival vaults under Mount Carmel but there is also an impressive collection in the Afnan Library in England.

Sadly, the website of the Afnan Library is merely a bookmark on the internet rather than the storehouse of information it could be if it were used as a portal to the contents of the documents held there.

The Baha’i Faith is the only world religion which has verified and authentic religious texts. As well we have an untold wealth of secondary documents. So it is frustrating that they are not shared freely with the world. After all, the documents are intended for all of humanity. So it would follow that they should be made available as widely as possible. Before, this meant either publishing the content as books in their original language – which had limited market and was an expensive undertaking – or translating them to English or other languages to open up a larger market – but this meant expensive and protracted translation projects.

With the advent of the internet, we have the solution. When texts are published online in digital format, as with the Codex Sinaiticus, they are available to as many people as possible for the least per unit cost. This opens up an incredible panorama of possibilities and advantages. Not only for scholars and others who are interested in the text but also for the dissemination and scholarly advancement of the content itself.

The Baha’i Reference Library is a good step towards this end but it is infinitesimally small compared to what could be done. For the price of one translation project, all Baha’i texts could be digitized and made available online in their original format.

Because the Baha’i texts are so young, they are in very good condition and could be digitized much easier than the Codex. As it stands now, a person would have to request permission (something that is not always given – especially if the person’s views vary at all with that of the UHJ/ITC) and then physically go to Haifa and London. This cumbersome and anachronistic process need not continue.

The Baha’i Faith is the youngest of the world religions and as such it is only natural that we should be at the vanguard of realizing the full potential of the internet. I hope to see this fulfilled in my lifetime.

Now that statement may seem ridiculous, especially when you consider that everything in our Western society demonstrates and magnifies the divide between the two sexes.

Boys are given toy trucks, girls? Barbies. Even if the politically correct parents of today have moved beyond such cliches, I’m willing to bet that they may have read books like, Men are from Mars, Women from Venus.

There are two sexes: men and women. But is it that clear cut?

Turns out… no.

Science is slowly beginning to come to grips with the question of gender and the discoveries are nothing short of astonishing. Whereas we once thought of the world divided between two halves, the new paradigm is one where there is a continuum.

Recently I stumbled on this article: We’re all intersex where Gerald N. Callahan, the author of Between XX and XY: Intersexuality and the Myth of Two Sexes is interviewed about his research:

In between what we call the ideal biological male or ideal biological female, there’s a whole range of other possibilities that don’t differ from our basic preconceptions to the extent that we have names for them or call them a disorder. Just like with every other human trait, there are an infinite number of possibilities.

Of course this is nothing really new. There are other books, like Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach, from 1978 which expound more or less the same ideas.

We’ve all heard of ‘hermaphrodites’ – persons which have both sexes. By the way, recently, intersexuality has replaced the more familiar, hermaphrodite, as the word of choice within the medical field. In any case, all of this made me think of an uncomfortable question:

Of what significant is the limitation of women’s capacity to serve on the House of Justice when the very definition of ‘woman’ is not black and white?

Can an intersex person be eligible? what if a person has both sets of genitalia? and biologically is both man and woman?

Would that mean that they are eligible? or ineligible? or both?

Huh?

If the Baha’i Faith didn’t have the principle of the unity of religion and science, we could easily brush this off; just like a fundamentalist Christian decrying the fossil records as ‘Satan’s trickery’. But, as Baha’is we have an incredibly high standard which requires us to abide by scientific truths, just as much as religious truths. They are, after all, twin paths to the same truth (or is it Truth?).

I’m not sure if this question has already been asked of the Universal House of Justice. If anyone knows, drop me a note so I don’t have to bother them by asking again. I’ve looked around the internet and haven’t been able to find anything substantial but that doesn’t mean something of significance isn’t out there somewhere floating about.

The only things I’ve found are others over the years wondering the same question and one Baha’i blogger who wrote such a bigoted tripe of an ‘essay’ that it deserves to not even be dignified with detailed mention.

For those that are new to this topic, currently, membership to the Universal House of Justice is restricted to male adults. But there is some disagreement with others believing that there is a sound theological basis for both women and men being eligible for membership to this institution.

But if science shows that gender isn’t that clearly defined into two subsections, doesn’t that make all this a moot point? that is, rendered irrelevant?

Let me know what you think about all this. I’m sure someone out there knows much more about this than I do.

This reminded me of the continuing court case between the NSA of the Baha’is of the United States and the Orthodox Baha’i group in the US. The NSA lost the case last year and has appealed the case – everyone is waiting for a decision any minute (day, month, etc.) now.

Similar to the Muslim Malaysians, the NSA is asking the Court to enforce a previous ruling which gave them the sole and exclusive rights of the word “Baha’i”.

I’m not making this up. How I wish I was!

They’ve gone after them in fine litigious style befitting Scientology. The NSA’s aim is to prevent a small group of people from using the word Baha’i – claiming in the presented evidence before the court that it would ‘confuse’ people.

The NSA has already lost once. And once the appeals court ruling arrives, they may very well lose again. But I’m not referring to an unfavorable verdict. Although by any sane stretch of the imagination, one wonders how in the world the term “Baha’i” can be the sole exclusive property and trademark of an organization when other words like Christian, Muslim, Jew, etc. are in the public domain.

No, what I mean is that the Baha’is of the US will lose the PR battle – as they already have. Take a look at this article from the Chicago Tribune (thanks to Baha’is Online for highlighting this article).

“The word Baha’i carries with it implications for a certain sets of beliefs — and we have to protect that,” said Robert Stockman

Can you imagine for one second the Roman Catholic Church suing the Protestant Church over their concern that they had the monopoly on what the word “Christian” means, and that this means it has to be protected?

For some strange reason the Office of Public Information from Wilmette refused to talk to the newspaper about this article. Instead they turned to Robert Stockman, a US Baha’i. For all his best intentions, Stockman comes across as loonie as a Scientologist. I can’t imagine he would have gone on the record unless he was given the approval from the NSA to talk to the press. Which makes his ramblings all the more odd.

If you’d like to know what this is all about, read this original post with detailed background information about the Orthodox Baha’i court case.

With that in mind, I hope the discussion continues from the previous location: The Challenge of Homosexuality.

As I explained, the reason for this change of venue is to rescue my poor, exhausted mySQL database from the non-stop barrage you have put it through. At around 650 comments I was afraid it would finally give way one of these days and take the whole blog with it. I’ve taken other measures to fortify the blog but won’t go into the boring technical details.

We leave the discussion with Steve requesting some clarification from Farhan. Masud suggesting that the UHJ has “self-executing” privileges and does not need to legislate on everything. And we hear that Ted Haggard is not gay! (he just keeps on having sex with men). Oh and Daniel brought to our attention a petition for LGBT rights.

If that isn’t enough to kick things off here, indulge me in sharing something I read recently on Baha’i LiveJournal; suivreletoile wrote…

homosexuality and the Faith
I pretty much know the Faith’s position on homosexuality, I’m just wondering more about the administration side of it.

If somebody is gay, the LSA or NSA can take their declaration card away? And therefor prohibit them from going to Feast, etc?

Someone anonymously wrote a reply which many approved of:

I do not speak for the Administration, but from more than half a century of Baha’i administrative experience, it is my understanding that this problem (if you want to call it a problem) is like any other problem in the Faith. That is, if one disobeys a Baha’i law, it is not of concern to the administration of the Faith UNLESS one does so publicly and in such a way as to bring criticism upon the Faith itself. No one escapes life without breaking some of God’s rules from time to time either deliberately or inadvertently. It is a paramount principle of the Faith that one’s adherence to Baha’i law is between the individual and God. It is no one else’s business. However, if that violation brings disrespect or criticism upon the Faith and the Baha’i community, it becomes the business of the community. In the last analysis, it is between the individual and God. But the Baha’i community has the right to expect those who call themselves “Baha’i” to behave in such a way as to not bring discredit on the Baha’i Faith and its community of believers. We all have our burdens to bear in trying to adhere to Baha’i principles and we should not criticize or judge others for their problems or struggles so as not to invite judgment on ourselves for our own failures. As individuals we need to concern ourselves without our own struggles. The community (through the administrative process) has the responsibility to maintain the public image of the Faith. Even when the community disenfranchises someone by removing their administrative rights, the final judgment rests with God and God alone.

Sadly I didn’t fall over myself in fawning adulation over this reply like some at that forum. My eyebrows wrinkled instead in confusion… I imagined a loving homosexual couple who are married according to the civil laws of the land they live in and who are raising a child or children in a stable and safe home environment. If they declare their faith in Baha’u'llah and join his community…

What Baha’i law have they broken exactly?

How would they be bringing “criticism upon the Faith itself” exactly?

How would they be besmirching the “public image of the Faith”?

I wrote as much to inquire from the “anonymous” contributor on LJ Baha’i. But as is usual with anything that doesn’t meet the hair trigger standards of the fanatical moderators on that forum my comment was censored.

While a scientific challenge may be off in the near or far future, this challenge is right here, right now.

I still wonder though. And my eyebrows remain wrinkled. Won’t you unwrinkle them?

While you’re at it… and I speak now to fellow Baha’is around the world who happen to be heterosexual, please tell me when and under what circumstances you chose to be heterosexual.

You see, if we say that homosexuality is a choice and that it is an “aberration” to be corrected with prayer, meditation, etc. then I can’t help but wonder when it was that you, a heterosexual made the decision to be… well, a heterosexual.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have an issue with you being a hetero nor asking you to justify it in any way. I’m just curious when and where you were when you made the conscious decision to be one.

You did make such a choice, right?

Yale has put quite a few of their world class lectures online for anyone to use. They have quite a few courses with more being added. You can see the complete list here.

I’ve always been interested in studying the Old Testament but have never had access to a quality source. With Open Yale courses, this is no longer a problem.

This course examines the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) as an expression of the religious life and thought of ancient Israel, and a foundational document of Western civilization. A wide range of methodologies, including source criticism and the historical-critical school, tradition criticism, redaction criticism, and literary and canonical approaches are applied to the study and interpretation of the Bible. Special emphasis is placed on the Bible against the backdrop of its historical and cultural setting in the Ancient Near East.

The course is taught by Prof. Christine Hayes:

Here is a comprehensive list of similar courses from some of the best universities around the world: free online courses

Isn’t the internet wonderful?

If you have not watched from the beginning, Part One and Part Two.

If you have not watched it already, part one is here.