Christian rejection of Baha'u'llah and the Baha'i Faith
Editorial introduction
The Pharisees took Christ for an enemy of Moses; ‘Abdu’l-Bahá observes that many Christians have taken Bahá’u’lláh for an enemy of Christ, though He proclaimed Christ’s glory far and wide and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá proved it in a synagogue. Devotion to a promise, it seems, can make its fulfilment harder to see. Expecting stars to fall and a Christ to descend from a heaven that is not a place, the heirs of a revelation may miss the One who, like Jesus born of Mary, comes from heaven by appearing on earth. The deeper contrast is between a name and a living spirit: missionaries with hospitals and schools may have the machine without the power that moved the first apostles. In John, Jesus asks whether the scriptures people trust are leading them to the life those scriptures promise [1]. These are arguments from within a particular faith, not verdicts on Christians or Jews, and they end in reverence: souls and hearts offered in devotion to Christ and Muhammad. The way leads on to Christ and Christianity themselves, to the trap of literal interpretation, and to the proclamation addressed to Christians.
Yet, notwithstanding this, the Pharisees fancied that Christ was an enemy of Moses, that He destroyed His Law and overthrew the edifice thereof. Ponder and reflect, how unjust they were, how grievously they misjudged Him!
Now, too, His Holiness Baha'u'llah, hath far and wide proclaimed the Splendor, the Glory, the Majesty of Christ, and yet the unjust still believe it not!
Consider thou that Abdul Baha is proving the validity of Christ through divine argument, brilliant traces and infinite outpouring, so that the Christians may attain to the Truth of His Highness Christ, and other nations likewise may realize His greatness. Nevertheless these Christians dislike me very much and turn away from me. How heedless are they, and how submerged are they in worldly vanities.
Of Christ they know nothing but a name, and His teachings they realize not even a trace. They worship His Name and not His Spirit.
It is this: it is unjust and unfair to the wonderful Nazarene to ever 'correspond' the deeds and actions of these Christians with His celestial Teachings. They must correspond his Teaching with His own life and the lives of those who truly walked in his footsteps and they will find that one is the embodiment of another.
Just what the Jews did in the time of Jesus, the Christians are doing now. They are looking for the prophecies of Jesus to be fulfilled according to the letter, and are expecting the stars to fall from the heavens, before His coming, - yet their own men of science have proved that the sun is infinitely larger than the earth, and also many of the stars. … Jesus who said, "I came from heaven", appeared from a place called Nazareth, and from His mother, Mary, - in such wise, then, must we expect His second appearance to be.
Although Christ explicitly states in the Gospel "I have come from heaven," while outwardly His physical form was born of Mary, yet Christians still await His physical body to descend from the literal heaven in His second coming.
Behold again, the Christians are expecting the stars to fall and Christ to appear in the clouds, yet these are but symbols. They are awaiting a Christ from a heaven that does not exist.
It is clearly shown from the thirteenth verse of this chapter that the Christians are mistaken in believing that these promises speak of the descent of the Holy Spirit. Only a man can be indicated by the thirteenth verse, and from the fifteenth we see that He is to be a Manifestation of the Spirit from the same source.
When his holiness Christ appeared, the Jews said: 'We have enough water in our vases. We do not need the fountain of Christ. We have been blessed with many prophets during the Jewish history. These prophets have been the divine Cup-bearers. We have quaffed the pure water from their hands. Are we going to run after this new spring?'
Express my utmost longing to Mr. Bojador in New York and say: All monks and priests, indeed all Christians, were supplicating and lamenting in their churches, awaiting the appearance of the Kingdom of God and yearning for the Day of Dawning. Yet when the promised Beauty shed His radiance upon the horizons, they remained deprived. Like the Pharisees who awaited the appearance of Christ but remained deprived when He appeared, and even arose to extinguish that Lamp.
Likewise in this age of the dawning of the Light of horizons, the Christian priests have closed their eyes and remained deprived of witnessing the lights of the incomparable Beauty. Like the Pharisees, they seek pretexts and raise objections, desiring to increase people's veils.
Dr. Wilson, a priest in Iran who is heedless and hostile to the Cause of God, has authored a book to mislead people, similar to books written against Christ during and after Christ's time by the Pharisees and Roman scholars.
Concerning what you wrote about certain followers of Christ - may the spirit of the worlds be sacrificed for Him - after it was presented before the Most Holy Court, He said: "Today Christ is hastening and speaking in the desert of longing, yet His followers are seen to be deprived, save whom God willeth. It is very difficult for those souls to turn to the Most Exalted Horizon and to be detached from what they possess in favor of what God possesseth. Most of those souls are observed to be like the people of the Qur'an, manifesting vain imaginings, speaking of vain imaginings, and returning to vain imaginings.
Behold the signs of God's power: A group of Christian missionaries turned toward that remote area for successive years and persisted in their call, clinging to great means such as schools, educational institutions and hospitals, and fulfilled the hopes of those with influence through the expenditure of funds. Yet until now they have not succeeded in spreading their message, and not a single Muslim man or woman has entered their fold.
But for this mighty Cause and momentous matter, despite storms and tempests, hurricanes and thunderbolts of tests and trials, people are entering into it in troops throughout all regions - east and west, south and north.
For the last ninety years the Western missionaries have gone to Orumieh. They have built schools, hospitals and other charitable institutions in order to convert people to so-called Christianity but during all this time they have not been able to attract one soul. This is because they have the machine but not the spirit.
… The most efficient capital of the Baha'i teacher is the divine power. Through that alone he can conquer the cities of the hearts.
O thou maid-servant of God!
What thou hast written was perused and its contents became manifest. Thou hast questioned how thou canst accept this divine cause, for thou art a member of the Church: (Know thou) in the day of the Manifestation of Christ, many souls became portionless and deprived (from the favor of God) because thy were members of the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem. According to that membership, they became veiled from that brilliant Beauty.
The spirituality of Jesus adorned the world of the Gospel, yet its people are heedless, walking in the wilderness of error and sleeping on the couch of negligence. They have not awakened from the trumpet blast, nor have they risen from the graves of their desires.
Our souls, our hearts, our spirits are sacrificed in devotion to Christ's station and Muhammad's station. We long to give our lives in Their path, while these souls flee at the slightest adversity and become utterly averse if they encounter the least restriction.
For thought and discussion