# The Baha'i Cause Today: Review

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-19 — 1 clipping.*

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Marzieh Gail, The Baha'i Cause Today: Review, bahai-library.com.
> ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
> 
> The Bahá'í Cause Today:
> 
> Review
> 
> Marzieh Gail
> 
> published in World Order pp. 46-63
> 
> 1941-05
> 
> Review of: The Baha'i Cause Today
> 
> Written by: William McE. Miller
> 
> Publisher: Moslem World vol. 30, 1940 October
> 
> Review by: Marzieh Gail
> 
> Review published in: World Order (1941 May)
> 
> 1. PDF (see text below)
> 
> Download: gail_miller_bahai_cause.pdf.
> 
> 2. Text (from bahai.works)
> 
> [p. 46]
> 
> A FEW months ago (October, 1940) an article called “The
> Bahai (sic) Cause Today” by William McElwee Miller, appeared
> in The Moslem World. That it was not intended as
> an ordinary report is shown by this: a reprint was made and
> copies sent to a number of Bahá’ís, and doubtless to many other
> persons, throughout the country. Why the reprint was made
> and gratuitously circulated, and who supplied the mailing list,
> I do not know.
> 
> As for The Moslem World, it describes itself as “A Christian
> quarterly review of current events, literature and thought
> among Mohammedans.” Its editor is among other things a
> missionary, an ordained minister, and the author of such books
> as “Islam—A Challenge to Faith,” and “Mohammed or
> Christ.” Of ten associate editors, five bear the title of “Reverend,”
> a sixth having the degree of D.D.
> 
> The author of this article, himself a missionary, explains
> at the outset why he has written it. He says, “There are a
> number of centers in America where Bahais (sic) have been
> conducting meetings and working for their cause for a number
> of years, and it sometimes happens that people who come in
> touch with them wish to know more about the movement.”
> (A most encouraging remark, incidentally.) After recommending
> a study of our literature he says that the editors of
> The Moslem World have requested the writing of this article
> “to meet the need of those who wish to consider the movement
> from a different point of view.”
> 
> [p. 47]
> 
> INACCURATE HISTORICAL SUMMARY
> 
> Under the circumstances, I should think one would hardly
> need to read the article to find out what this “different point
> of view” might be—surely anyone of average intelligence
> would know it beforehand. With no surprise, then, we find
> that the historical summary of our Faith as supplied by Mr.
> Miller repeats all the old misinformation as if it were Gospel
> truth. Such a figure as Azal is cordially espoused. (It is interesting,
> the popularity which that pitifully weak, warped
> man enjoys with those who seek to deny our Faith. How
> they like to insinuate that Bahá’u’lláh was opposed to Azal
> and attempted his life, whereas through all those years
> Bahá’u’lláh showed him nothing but kindness; and this was
> continued by the Family of Bahá’u’lláh; in 1924 I met Azal’s
> granddaughter, well cared-for as a guest in the Master’s Household.
> For an eye-witness account of Azal, and of his behavior
> in Baghdád, the reader is referred to Lady Blomfield’s The
> Chosen Highway. Even when Bahá’u’lláh went away into
> the wilderness for two years, and Azal was left entirely alone
> and free to seize any station he wished, he could do nothing
> but cower behind locked doors. Even in the Book of Aqdas,
> Bahá’u’lláh offers to forgive him, forgive the man who had
> worked only in darkness, whose methods were poison and
> treachery and safe hiding-places.) Mr. Miller complains that
> Azal is “ignored” in modern Bahá’í histories. Well, there is
> not much to say about him.
> 
> Mr. Miller also says, without giving his source, that Dr.
> Cormick and “other doctors also” were of the opinion that
> the mind of the Báb was “unbalanced.” We must remember
> that the Báb, a lone Prisoner who had been bastinadoed, told
> Dr. Cormick that in time all people would obey Him and embrace
> 
> [p. 48]
> 
> His teaching. I am sure the Dr. Cormicks of Jesus’
> time would have expressed a similar opinion, when they heard
> the poor Carpenter speak of Himself as King of the Jews.
> Those who wish to judge for themselves of the Báb’s mind
> have only to refer to His writings—writings to the translation
> of which such a scholar as A. L. M. Nicolas devoted much
> of his life.
> 
> I would suggest, for the benefit of those seekers for whom
> Mr. Miller says he has written this article, that they should
> be careful of terminological pitfalls along the way. After five
> or ten such expressions as “propaganda” for “teaching”;
> “busily engaged in” for “engaged in”; “secretly preparing to
> advance the claim” for “had not yet declared Himself”;
> “totalitarian” for “united”—the reader will be influenced in
> the direction the writer intends without even knowing it.
> 
> Mr. Miller fires off his cannon very quietly, as the Persians
> say. He gives it as a Bahá’í teaching that Bahá’u’lláh “will
> found a Church-State which will become dominant in the
> World, and this will be done, not by the sword, . . . but by
> peaceful means.” This is most misleading. For there is no
> such thing as a Bahá’í church, and the concept of state as we
> have known it heretofore does not express the World State
> of the Future, the World Federation; what Victor Hugo
> referred to as the “United States of the World” and H. G.
> Wells as a “comprehensive collectivization of human affairs.”
> We stand for the unity of the entire human race. There is
> no precedent for what we represent. Attempted labels from
> the past are mere anachronisms.
> 
> I shall not dwell here on Mr. Miller’s summary of the
> Book of Aqdas, a summary obviously meant to be ridiculous.
> I have studied the beautiful original of this Most Holy Book,
> in Ṭihrán, with the well-known scholar Jináb-i-Fáḍil-i-Mázindarání,
> 
> [p. 49]
> 
> and therefore do not understand what Mr.
> Miller means when he says that it is “almost as unintelligible
> in Írán as it is in America.” Mr. Miller ought perhaps to
> brush up on his Arabic.
> 
> Many excerpts from the Aqdas are already translated into
> English and available in the Gleanings. That the entire volume
> has not yet been introduced in the West is due to the fact
> that other Bahá’í works are an essential preliminary to its study;
> these are being supplied in rapid succession, and through the
> Guardian’s unremitting labor. They include such titles as the
> Íqán, The Dawn-Breakers, the Gleanings, the Prayers and
> Meditations; such writings as The Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh
> and The Advent of Divine Justice.
> 
> DENIAL OF THE MANIFESTATION
> 
> Mr. Miller then makes the interesting statement that
> Bahá’u’lláh owed much to the “reading of books and newspapers
> published in Syria.” This, of course, is the old attempt
> of man to explain away the Prophet. Whatever wonderful
> publications may have been available in that remote country
> in the 60’s and 70’s, the reading of books and newspapers
> never produced a Prophet of God; you cannot acquire from
> books and newspapers what they do not contain: the innate
> power that characterizes the Manifestation. Mr. Miller also
> says “there is little in his teachings that is original. . . . ” I
> am glad that Mr. Miller goes so true to form; he satisfies
> perfectly my sense of history; for this remark is invariably
> made of the new Prophet by followers of previous ones. For
> two thousand years the Jews have been saying it of Jesus;
> see the idea as currently expressed by Ludwig Lewisohn (The
> Island Within, 1928, p. 119) when he refers to “the ethical
> or purely spiritual aspects of the teachings of Jesus, who said
> 
> [p. 50]
> 
> nothing of this kind which had not previously been said by
> sage and prophet and duly embodied as law or Jewish aspiration
> in some sacred book or accepted tradition.” For thirteen
> hundred years the Christians have been saying that Muḥammad
> collected bits of Jewish and Christian lore and so fabricated a
> religion—whereas anyone can gather bits of religion together,
> but that does not make him a Prophet, the animater of millions
> of men. Just as anyone can collect poems into an anthology,
> but that does not make him a poet.
> 
> Mr. Miller’s remarks on ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Who only yesterday
> was still on earth with us, Whom thousands now living
> carry always in their hearts, I find especially difficult to forgive:
> “Abdu’l-Bahá, who had been appointed by his father
> the leader of the movement, began to make claims for himself,
> which to many Bahais seemed blasphemous . . . he so
> associated himself with his father that he led the Bahais to
> give him the same honor which they gave the Manifestation. . . .”
> To mention only one man, my father was privileged
> to be with the Master in the prison city for almost a
> year and half. To mention only one man among thousands,
> my father can indignantly refute such a statement as this. The
> reader is referred to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s emphatic teachings on
> this subject, and to His name—“Servant of Bahá.”
> 
> Mr. Miller is obviously much annoyed that the Master
> sent someone to America to teach the Faith. He puts it in
> this way: “Not content with having the allegiance of the
> Bahais of the East, Abdul-Baha in 1893 sent a missionary
> . . . to America. . . .” This is an odd comment from one who
> was himself for twenty years a missionary in a foreign land.
> 
> On page 10 of the reprint Mr. Miller uses, unannounced,
> a long quotation from himself. Wondering who his quoted
> authority was, I realized that the passage was vaguely familiar;
> 
> [p. 51]
> 
> I then remembered and checked its source—another of Mr.
> Miller’s own writings. A good way, this, to make one writer
> sound like several. The purport of the section on page 10
> is that in the Bahá’í plan, world unity, according to Mr.
> Miller, “is to be achieved by complete submission on the part
> of all men to the word and will of . . . one man.”
> 
> Well, the relationship of Bahá’ís to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and today
> to the Guardian, is not submission as Mr. Miller intends
> it. It is love. It is a spiritual bond involving no compulsion.
> It could not be established by force. It is like the concentration
> of members of a symphony orchestra on the conductor
> of the symphony; it grows out of our insistent desire for unity
> and our knowledge that without a focal point of concentration
> there can be no unity.
> 
> The passage from the Master’s Will: “To none is given
> the right to put forth his own opinion or express his particular
> convictions. All must seek guidance and turn unto the Center
> of the Cause and the House of Justice,” means simply this:
> no member of the orchestra can desert the pattern of the music.
> This passage does not refer to scientific research, philosophical
> exploration, creative activity; it simply expresses the plan of
> Bahá’u’lláh for world unity: the concentration of the hearts
> of His followers on an established and designated Point.
> 
> Mr. Miller next proceeds to wonder when our Faith will
> get out of its infancy and “grow up.” Christianity was some
> three hundred years becoming established, and the Bahá’í
> Cause synchronizes with a much greater change in human
> affairs than took place then. A wise observer would certainly
> take no stock in a World Cause which reached maturity, developed
> all its potentialities, in less than a hundred years.
> Incidentally, Tertullian (died ca. 230 A. D.) said in his time
> of Christianity, “We were only born yesterday. . . .”
> 
> [p. 52]
> 
> As to Mr. Miller’s statistical figures on our Faith, quoted
> from the United States Census of Religious Bodies (1936):
> whatever their accuracy, our Faith has grown so much since
> 1936, with the development in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin,
> and Southern California, to mention only some areas—and to
> say nothing of its increasing spread throughout this hemisphere
> by Bahá’í settlers and travelers from Alaska to Argentina
> —that the membership and distribution as quoted are no
> longer representative. Nevertheless our membership in the
> United States is admittedly small, and this is one of the strongest
> proofs of our spiritual confirmation: that a few thousand
> people should have built the great House of Worship, established
> four summer schools, brought out books which authorities
> throughout the nation consider of the first rank, won the
> respectful attention of educators and government officials, and
> carried their Faith as far away as India and Australia and
> Japan. And this has been accomplished with Bahá’í funds
> only, since money is not accepted by us from non-Bahá’ís.
> Speaking of numbers, it must be remembered that one cannot
> become a Bahá’í by birth—the means by which most church
> memberships are recruited; that our teachings conflict with
> some of the public’s most cherished prejudices and desires;
> that every Bahá’í is the result of a long selective process imposed
> by the very nature of the Faith.
> 
> THE ONLY SAVIOUR
> 
> As for the figure quoted for charity gifts, this is of course
> inaccurate, since many keep no record of what they give. Nevertheless
> it is obvious that the Bahá’í gives first to his own Faith;
> for we believe that once the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh are established
> in the world, the present ugly system of producing
> poverty and then nursing it along, will be no more.
> 
> [p. 53]
> 
> Mr. Miller then proceeds to write favorably of our literature
> and tells where it may be purchased. He especially
> praises a very fine presentation of the Bahá’í Teachings, Stanwood
> Cobb’s “Security for a Failing World.” He agrees with
> us that the world is unable to save itself, but adds that at this
> point the Bahá’ís “part company with followers of Christ.”
> Because, he says, the Christian believes that “Christ is the only
> Saviour of the world,” and that “Christ’s spiritual presence
> everywhere is better for the Church today than would be His
> physical presence in Palestine or in America.” As a distinguished
> namesake of Mr. Miller once said, when he urgently
> announced to the Christians of his time the Return of Christ
> on or about the year 1844, “To my astonishment I found very
> few who listened with any interest. . . .” Those people, too,
> were not anxious for the physical presence of Jesus. Apparently
> Mr. Miller does not believe in such Christian doctrines as the
> Word made Flesh—the physical presence of the Manifestation
> —and His establishment of the Kingdom of God “on earth
> as it is in heaven.”
> 
> On page 18 we find Mr. Miller misusing a statement of
> Stanwood Cobb’s, regarding the “practice of collective turning
> to the Divine Ruler of the universe for guidance”; Mr. Cobb
> is speaking of Almighty God, whereas Mr. Miller comments:
> “The Bahais feel the need of a Divine Ruler who sits on
> Caesar’s throne, and that ruler they believe to be Shoghi
> Effendi.” On page 25 he says again, “The Bahai dream is
> of a totalitarian world order, in which the successor of
> Baha’ullah rules supreme.” This strange “totalitarian order”
> exists only in Mr. Miller’s mind, as any one may discover for
> himself by referring to our books. Not for a moment would
> free, twentieth-century adults labor away the best years of
> their lives to further such a fantastic, such an impossible and
> 
> [p. 54]
> 
> indeed such an undesirable aim. For Bahá’u’lláh teaches that
> the human race is achieving maturity, that its centuries of subjugation
> and irresponsibility are forever vanished, that the
> burden of the conduct of human affairs is now to be borne by
> all human beings through their representatives, functioning in
> world institutions and chosen indirectly by universal suffrage.
> 
> “The unity of the human race, as envisaged by Bahá’u’lláh,
> implies the establishment of a world commonwealth in which
> all nations, creeds and classes are closely and permanently
> united, and in which the autonomy of its state members and
> the personal freedom and initiative of the individuals that
> compose them are definitely and completely safeguarded. . . .
> This commonwealth must, as far as we can visualize it, consist
> of a world legislature, whose members will, as the trustees
> of the whole of mankind, ultimately control the entire resources
> of all the component nations, and will enact such laws
> as shall be required to regulate the life, satisfy the needs and
> adjust the relationships of all races and peoples. A world
> executive, backed by an international Force, will carry out the
> decisions arrived at, and apply the laws enacted by, this world
> legislature, and will safeguard the organic unity of the whole
> commonwealth. A world tribunal will adjudicate and deliver
> its compulsory and final verdict in all and any disputes that
> may arise between the various elements constituting this universal
> system. . . . A mechanism of world inter-communication
> will be devised. . . . A world metropolis will act as the
> nerve center of a world civilization. . . . A world language
> will either be invented or chosen from the existing languages
> and will be taught in the schools of all the federated nations
> as an auxiliary to their mother tongue. A world script, a world
> literature, a uniform and universal system of currency, of
> weights and measures, will simplify and facilitate . . . understanding
> 
> [p. 55]
> 
> . . . . In such a world society, science and religion,
> the two most potent forces in human life, will be reconciled,
> will cooperate, and will harmoniously develop . . . such is the
> goal towards which humanity, impelled by the unifying forces
> of life, is moving.” (Shoghi Effendi, The Unfoldment of
> World Civilization.)
> 
> As for the institution of the Guardianship, although writing
> on it at length, Mr. Miller seems to have accorded it only
> the most cursory attention. The Guardian of the Faith is its
> Interpreter. That is, he is the ultimate authority, the final
> court of appeal as to the meaning of a Bahá’í teaching; if
> there were no such authorized, ultimate authority, the teachings
> themselves would cease to have available meaning; they
> could no longer be used as a basis for legislation; for they
> would have one meaning for this man, another for that man,
> until hundreds and thousands of schools would spring up, a
> hodge-podge of hostile institutions would attack one another,
> and instead of world order we would have a world devastation,
> brought about by perverted religious zeal acting on a world
> scale, that could exterminate the human race.
> 
> Mr. Miller has also failed to understand that in the Bahá’í
> plan the Guardian does not legislate “except in his capacity as
> member of the Universal of Justice.” “. . . he can never
> assume the right of exclusive legislation. He cannot
> override the decision of the majority of his fellow-members,
> but is bound to insist upon a reconsideration by them of any
> enactment he conscientiously believes to conflict with the meaning
> and to depart from the spirit of Bahá’u’lláh’s revealed
> utterances. He interprets what has been specifically revealed.
> . . . He is debarred from laying down independently the constitution
> that must govern the organized activities of his
> fellow-members, and from exercising his influence in a manner
> 
> [p. 56]
> 
> that would encroach upon the liberty of those whose sacred
> right is to elect the body of his collaborators.” (Shoghi Effendi,
> The Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh.) Moreover it is the international
> elected representatives who have, in this plan, “the
> exclusive right of legislating on matters not expressly revealed
> in the Bahá’í writings.” (Shoghi Effendi, ibid.)
> 
> This last should also alter Mr. Miller’s assumption that
> in our view the world is to be ruled for a thousand years by
> the laws of the Book of Aqdas and no others. Furthermore,
> this world institution, the Universal House of Justice, can
> abrogate “according to the exigencies of the time, its own enactments,
> as well as those of a preceding House of Justice.”
> (Shoghi Effendi, ibid.)
> 
> We Bahá’ís are not working to establish a new political
> set-up; we are simply carrying out the administrative plan of
> Bahá’u’lláh as to the conduct of our Faith. We believe that
> following this present war there will appear “The Lesser
> Peace,” which will mark the final abandonment of war—a
> hitherto valued human practice. But “The Most Great Peace,”
> the world commonwealth of the future, will not come until
> after we who are now living will have passed; our present
> generations will not see it. It will be a gradual development,
> this peace on peace of the future. The Universal House of
> Justice may be elected within a relatively short time; Bahá’ís
> now living may be elected to serve on it. But, like our other
> administrative institutions, it will be a non-political body, its
> aim the administration of the affairs of the Cause. It is our
> belief that gradually, for its excellence, the Bahá’í plan for
> coordinating human affairs will be voluntarily adopted by one
> country after another, and put to the service of all mankind.
> 
> As to the following statement of Mr. Miller: “If Shoghi
> Effendi claims to be divine, as did Bahá’u’lláh, he might be
> 
> [p. 57]
> 
> justified in requiring such submission, and in that case, he
> would be a new Manifestation. But if he is man, and not God,
> how can he rightly demand absolute obedience and submission
> from other men?” Leaving aside the fact that the Guardian
> demands no obedience—that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá required of all His
> followers obedience to Shoghi Effendi, just as Bahá’u’lláh
> required of them all, obedience to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá—we will
> answer Mr. Miller with Shoghi Effendi’s own words, in The
> Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh: “The Guardian of the Faith must
> not under any circumstances . . . be exalted to the rank that
> will make him a co-sharer with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in the unique
> position which the Center of the Covenant occupies—much
> less to the station exclusively ordained for the Manifestation
> of God. So grave a departure from the established tenets of
> our Faith is nothing short of open blasphemy.”
> 
> Following precedent, Mr. Miller attempts to make out
> that our early history had its “full share of internal as well as
> external strife.” What he refers to are schemings, not within,
> but against our Faith, by those who had abandoned it. And
> what happens to those who desert the Cause, after once claiming
> allegiance? This, that they do not take with them that
> power to unite human beings, that dynamic power which lies
> only within the Faith and which characterizes every religion
> in its days of vigor. The humblest Bahá’í has time and again
> entered a city and, using the power of Bahá’u’lláh, established
> there a united community of human beings; of persons hitherto
> hostile to one another because of racial, religious, or class differences.
> The one who has left the Cause is unable to do this;
> not Azal, not Muḥammad-‘Alí, not any other of their kind
> has been able to create a group of united human beings. That
> a few persons have on occasion left the Faith is undeniable;
> this Cause is a living organism—it has its waste products.
> 
> [p. 58]
> 
> THE RETURN OF CHRIST
> 
> Mr. Miller goes on to say that a Christian accepting
> Bahá’u’lláh “must give up his allegiance to Jesus Christ as
> Saviour and Lord.” Leaving names aside, I would ask every
> Christian where he would place his allegiance on the occasion
> of the return of Christ; would he add the new loyalty, the
> new allegiance, to the glorious, returned Saviour, or would
> he reject the returned Manifestation and maintain only his
> allegiance to the Christ of 2,000 years ago? Mr. Miller would
> not be troubled by this question because he apparently does not
> believe in the return of Christ; but those Christians who do
> believe in it, will listen to Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings that the
> Spirit has returned again, in the new Name.
> 
> Mr. Miller also maintains, in his own words, that
> Bahá’u’lláh “has not brought peace on earth any more than
> Christ did.” He asks where is the Most Great Peace. He
> has only to remember that Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá foretold
> terrible chaos which would precede the establishment of
> world peace. Here is the chaos, not yet at climax; and well
> before the end of this century, we await the peace.
> 
> Some of the other comments made by Mr. Miller seemed
> to me amusing and deserve to be passed on. For example this
> one, given as proof that our Faith is not “adequate to meet
> the world’s need”; “Bahá’ísm Fails to Take Sin Seriously.”
> No doubt Mr. Miller has read neither the Gleanings nor
> Prayers and Meditations nor the Hidden Words. I will admit
> that there is in our Faith no class of persons paid to use sin
> as a weapon against us once a week; I will add that we do not
> believe in the theory of original sin. Nevertheless every
> Bahá’í is conscious of his human sinfulness, is constant in prayer
> and keeps the yearly fast, and begs forgiveness at all times.
> 
> [p. 59]
> 
> Mr. Miller has only to refer to our writings to learn this; for
> instance, to the daily prayer in Prayers and Meditations, p. 322:
> “O God, my God! My back is bowed with the burden of my
> sins, and my heedlessness hath destroyed me. Whenever I
> ponder my evil doings and Thy benevolence, my heart melteth
> within me. . . . By Thy Beauty . . . I blush to lift up my face
> to Thee . . .”
> 
> He then says that our Cause “fails to provide a Saviour”
> and asks, “What would a Bahá’í preacher say in a downtown
> mission?” I will suggest that he read what ‘Abdu’l-Bahá did
> say in the Bowery Mission, and also to what He did—pressed
> money into the hand of each man. Mr. Miller forgets that
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was knighted by the British Government for His
> services to the Palestine poor.
> 
> Incidentally, Mr. Miller’s economics seem to be on the old-fashioned
> side, because he speaks of poor people as “slaves of
> sin.” These are his words: “So far as I know, Bahá’ís have
> never opened a Mission for the down-and-outs, and the reason
> is clear—they have no Saviour to offer to the slaves of
> sin.” (Once the economic order is properly adjusted, these
> slums will vanish, Mr. Miller. But no singing of hymns on
> street corners and passing out of tracts will make the slightest
> change in them now.) As for the Saviour, the Saviour is the
> Manifestation of God.
> 
> Mr. Miller also complains that our Faith “Keeps Men in
> Bondage to the Law,” saying further that “the Christian keeps
> God’s laws, not in order to save himself, but because he has
> been saved!” No Bahá’í knows whether he has been saved or
> not; for we believe that our salvation depends on the operation
> of the Will of God; our works are as nothing unless they
> prove acceptable to Him. Nevertheless we are required to
> demonstrate our belief in God by obedience to His commands;
> 
> [p. 60]
> 
> lawlessness, anarchy, would defeat our purpose, which is to
> establish world order.
> 
> Mr. Miller also maintains that our Faith “Lacks the Power
> to Produce Fruit.” He admits that there is some fruit on our
> tree, but says it has been “artificially attached to the Bahá’í
> branches.” “To speak clearly, I find that the best things in
> Bahá’ísm are taken directly from Christianity, or are brought
> into the new faith by Christian converts.” This, of course, is
> exactly what, mutatis mutandis, Jews, Buddhists, etc., say of
> Christianity. Were the statement true, no one would become a
> Bahá’í.
> 
> He wonders why we do not go to Central Africa or Tibet
> (a Freudian wish, perhaps) forgetting that like the early disciples
> of Jesus, we must go first to the centers of population,
> then to the remote districts. (Paul went to Athens, to Corinth,
> to Rome.) He apparently does not know that Bahá’ís have
> already gone to such faraway places as Cochin-China, Ethiopia
> and Tahiti, and that the second century of the Bahá’í era will
> see us penetrating the darkest corners of the earth. He also
> wishes that the Bahá’ís had built a “medical mission in India or
> Tibet” rather than the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár, forgetting that
> there are thousands of hospitals in the world, but no building
> where Negro and white, Muslim and Jew, Buddhist and Christian,
> can kneel together as one people before one God. Certainly
> it is the Kingdom of God which must be sought first; the
> worship of God which must be provided for first. Mr. Miller
> also forgets that the House of Worship is the heart of a great
> cultural institution, which will include not only hospitals, but
> colleges, laboratories, homes for the aged, and the like.
> 
> Mr. Miller also says that we Bahá’ís are not allowed freely
> to investigate truth. He speaks of “books” which “disappeared
> from Persia,” the implication being that we destroyed them.
> 
> [p. 61]
> 
> Incidentally, although Mr. Miller generously uses “books” in
> the plural, he gives only one title, the Nuqtatu’l-Káf. Well,
> the reason we do not use that book is that it is valueless as history,
> and not because it sets forth the claims of Azal; proof of
> which is this, that we use and list in our bibliographies the
> Táríkh-i-Jadíd, which sets forth the claims of Azal. Indeed,
> the edition available to me bears his photograph as frontispiece.
> Does Mr. Miller really believe the Bahá’ís could have
> hidden any facts in the case? Mr. Miller’s constantly-quoted
> authority, E. G. Browne, spent a long visit with Azal. If Azal
> had had any evidence to support any claims, he would surely
> have given it to Browne, who would then have spread it broadcast.
> 
> Bahá’u’lláh is His own proof. The Manifestation of God
> needs no document. Just as a Shakespeare, a Beethoven, needs
> no testimonial . . . Even if Jesus had never existed, no one
> would follow Iscariot.
> 
> THE LIGHT OF UNFADING GLORY
> 
> Another charge, the last one Mr. Miller makes here, is that
> our Faith “Dishonors Jesus Christ.” He adds “. . . Bahá’ísm
> has attempted to push Him off the throne of the universe, and
> to put in His place in succession three others, all of whom, it is
> said, are greater than He.” Mr. Miller has apparently not
> studied the Bahá’í teaching of the oneness of the Prophets:
> that all are mirrors facing the one sun—the unknowable God.
> That none is essentially greater than another, because the sun
> is not greater than the sun; that the circumstances of their
> world mission vary, but that they are all one. “These Tabernacles
> of Holiness, these Primal Mirrors which reflect the light
> of unfading glory, are but expressions of Him Who is the Invisible
> of the Invisibles . . .” (Gleanings, p. 47)
> 
> [p. 62]
> 
> “That Bahá’u’lláh should, notwithstanding the overwhelming
> intensity of His Revelation, be regarded as essentially one
> of these Manifestations of God, never to be identified with that
> invisible Reality, the Essence of Divinity itself, is one of the
> major beliefs of our Faith . . .” (Shoghi Effendi, The Dispensation
> of Bahá’u’lláh)
> 
> Mr. Miller continues: “The Christian cannot for a moment
> tolerate this disloyalty . . .” But what greater disloyalty could
> the Christian show to Christ than to reject the Spirit of Truth,
> Whose coming the Christ so clearly foretold:—
> 
> “Watch therefore; for ye know neither the day nor the
> hour wherein the Son of Man cometh . . . Watch therefore;
> for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come . . . when He,
> the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth:
> for He shall not speak of Himself but whatsoever He shall
> hear, that shall He speak. . .”
> 
> (This certainly does not sound like that vague suffusion of
> feeling which Mr. Miller seems to understand by the Return
> of Christ.)
> 
> If Bahá’u’lláh is what He proclaims, His Cause will establish
> the millennium. If on the other hand our Faith is not true,
> it will pass and die and be forgotten. “Verily, falsehood is a
> thing that vanisheth” (Qur’án, 17:83). If human beings desire
> this Faith, they will adopt it in increasing numbers until it embraces
> the whole world. If they do not desire it, they will reject
> it, since they are free to choose. As you say yourself, we can use
> no compulsion in our teaching; unlike Islam and Christianity,
> our Faith can never be spread by force. We simply tell others
> that Bahá’u’lláh has come; we simply show them His writings;
> and as a result more and more people are becoming Bahá’ís,
> our Faith has circled the globe, we already have international,
> national and local institutions, two great Houses of Worship,
> 
> [p. 63]
> 
> and a wealth of books in many languages. People have been
> urgently longing for this renewal of faith in the world, and
> that is why they are accepting it.
> 
> I shall close by reminding you of Bahá’u’lláh’s promise of
> ultimate victory: “When the victory arriveth, every man shall
> profess himself as believer and shall hasten to the shelter of
> God’s faith. Happy are they who 1n the days of world-encompassing
> trials have stood fast in the cause and refused to
> swerve from its truth.” (Gleanings, p. 319)
> 
> And by way of postscript, I shall add that attacks on the
> Faith of God are among those things that perish. Who today
> remembers Celsus, who said of the early Christians that they
> were like quacks who warn men against the doctor; and of their
> Lord that He was the son of a soldier named Panthera, and
> His teachings were garbled quotations from Greek literature,
> and His miracles tricks learned in Egypt. Who remembers?
> 
> I often wonder why, Mr. Miller, if you and those like you
> really believe we are unimportant, you spend so much time
> trying to prove it.
> 
> We should also bear in mind that the distinguishing character
> of the Bahá’í Revelation does not solely consist in the completeness
> and unquestionable validity of the Dispensation which the
> teachings of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá have established. Its
> excellence lies also in the fact that those elements which in past
> Dispensations have, without the least authority from their
> Founders, been a source of corruption and of incalculable harm
> to the Faith of God, have been strictly excluded by the clear text
> of Bahá’u’lláh’s writings.—Shoghi Effendi.
> 
> METADATA
> 
> Views1433 views since posted 2024-10-13; last edit 2025-02-15 10:21 UTC;
> 
> previous at archive.org.../gail_miller_bahai_cause
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