Bibliography: #VFPXWE8F

key	VFPXWE8F
title	Baha'i Dissent Intensifies and Diversifies
item type	Journal article
publication year	2011
date	2011-08
publication title	Religion Watch (New York)
abstract note	Journal abstract: "Dissent continues over Baha'i teachings on homosexuality and the exclusion of women from the highest level of leadership, known as the Universal House of Justice. Since many dissenters are scholars, there are also clashes over revisionist views and research on Baha'i texts and history." Bibliographer: The article is about the research of Bei Dawei of Hsuan Chaung University in Taiwan. The synopsis indicates Mr. Bei's significant difficulty in understanding the Baha'i approach to unity in diversity; he has a large misunderstanding of the differences among covenant-breaking (none of the cases mentioned actually involve this action), withdrawing from membership, being disenrolled, questioning internally, being "marginal," and apostasy. Full text: A dissenting movement has mushroomed in the Baha'i religion thanks to the Internet and the way it disseminates "reformist" proposals, according to Bei Dawei of Hsuan Chaung University in Taiwan. In a paper presented at a June conference in Taiwan organized by CESNUR, a research center on new religious movements, Dawei noted that the Baha'i crackdown on the first wave of dissent in the 1990s, taking place in an Internet forum, resulted in the resignation and shunning of several prominent members, including historian and blogger Juan Cole. Although the Baha'i are known for their teachings on world unity and interreligious tolerance, dissenters have targeted the religion's strong leadership that tends to view those who question its decisions as "covenant breakers" who deserve to be expelled and shunned by members. In recent years, the leadership has to a degree softened its strictures against dissent, for instance, discarding the practice of shunning and calling such expulsion of members "disenrollment." Dissent continues over Baha'i teachings on homosexuality and the exclusion of women from the highest level of leadership, known as the Universal House of Justice. Since many dissenters are scholars, there are also clashes over revisionist views and research on Baha'i texts and history. The continuing conflict has led to a growing number of "disenrolled" and marginal Baha'is existing on the fringes of the movement. The growth of new Internet forums and blogs and even offshoots, with one leader writing a new Baha'i sacred text, is also leading to a more pluralistic situation. A major example of this is the recent formation of a Baha'i subgroup within Unitarian-Universalism (UU), which is not to be confused with the Unitarian Baha'i Federation. Whether mainstream Baha'is classify these groups as "covenant breakers" who must be shunned or as "dissident or apostate coalitions operating within an interfaith context (since there are Jewish, Pagan and Christian subgroups within the UU) . . . remains to be seen," concludes Dawei.
pages	4
issue	5
volume	26
language	English
manual tags	CONTROVERSIAL; DISSENT

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