Last night I had some instruction with a local Baha’i.  Let’s call him Jack.  Jack is a 70-something retired high school teacher who converted to Baha’i when he was 18.  For the last twenty years he has been informally teaching people at his home who are interested in the Baha’i faith.  Since there is no clergy and no churches in Baha’i, this kind of thing is pretty common.  In order for the Baha’i message to spread, adherents volunteer their time and expertise to teaching the faith to the unenlightened.  Of all the people this very kind man has invited into his home, about half have converted to Baha’i.

His course is four weeks long and takes the form of an hour and a half informal lecture.  He expounds on different parts of the Baha’i faith, often referring to the source texts spread liberally throughout his large and comfortable living room.  He often pauses to make sure I’m following him as I madly scribble down notes, and seems open enough to questions and dissenting opinions.  This last part is good, because I’m already starting to bump up against some Baha’i doctrine.  But first let me make sure that we’re all on the same page, I’ll share the bits of Baha’i that I learned that night.

  • Adam was not the first human, rather he was the first human who became aware of God.  This is interesting, since I have often imagined something similar while working on my own religious fiction.  As far as I know, most monotheisms see Adam as the first man, full stop.  I suppose we’ll see if this is actually the case later in the year.
  • The only ones who could interpret the doctrines of Baha’i were the past heads of the religion (Baha’u'llah, Shoghi Effendi, etc).  The current council that leads the faith, the Universal House of Justice, can add certain laws in order to keep the faith current, but cannot reinterpret existing doctrine.  This means that there is no theology within Baha’i, people are not free to re-imagine the faith as they want- that has all been done, and all we can do is understand it as best we can, in our own way.  For me this raises an immediate red flag, but I need to have a  bit more time with the Baha’i texts for me to properly communicate this worry.
  • God is unknowable, and his message is only communicated through His various manifestations (Baha’u'llah, Jesus, Muhammad, etc.) who do not have any greater access to God than we do, they are just His conduit.  These manifestations help us to evolve our spirit so that we will be more prepared to exist as spiritual beings.
  • Baha’i does not give much credence to evolution.  Jack used the term “scientism” to refer to the standard biological understanding of evolution, implying that they see it as a kind of dogma.  Instead they see the creation of life as like a seed, planted by God at the beginning, and left to flourish in all forms of life.  So, evolution does take place, but in a very specific way.
  • The spirit that animates human beings and is the seat of creative thought and intelligence exists apart from our physical bodies.  Our spirits exist in a parallel, timeless and infinite realm.  The separation between that realm and our own is “but a hair” and what happens in one can affect the other.  When we die, our bodies cease to exist, and we being to live our spiritual side, using all the things we learned with our physical shells.  Therefore human beings, once created, exist forever.

I was extremely nervous at the beginning of the evening, but I really had no reason to be.  Jack is amiable and good natured and his genuine love of his religion is apparent in his lessons and character.  He has given me a lot to think about, and although I didn’t have a lot to ask him last night, next week I’ll probably talk his hear off.