What happened to Jeffrey Goldberg when he declared his acceptence of the Guardianship?
While I have a different view from either the Haifan branch or the Orthodox Baha'i Faith, I also found Jeffrey Goldberg's personal story poignant and hope others will take the time to read and reflect on it, especially paragraphs 26 through 33. They reveal a great deal about what the Haifan denomination has become.
Declaration Under Penalty of Perjury of Jeffrey Alan Goldberg
EXCERPT:
"26. On May 27, 1997, my wife and I were declared to be covenant-breakers and all of my friends in the Faith were instructed to shun me entirely and never to have any contact with me or face the same expulsion themselves. A true and correct copy of the NSA's letter of May 27, 1997, and the front page of The American Bahá'í for June 24, 1997, are attached as Exhibit 5).
27. My wife did not join the OBF at that time but she was also expelled and shunned because she refused to take my children and divorce me as they had insisted she must.
28. The NSA organization claims that shunning us as covenant-breakers is required to maintain the unity of the Faith. The OBF believe, on the other hand, that unity in the Faith is achieved and maintained by obedience to the Center of the Cause, the living Guardian, and that a covenant-breaker is one who rejects the authority of the Guardian.
29. Only one member of my former community, the Bahá'ís of Barrington, Illinois, was willing to speak with me (Janice Franco). At first, I was reluctant to tell Ms. Franco what I had learned because I did not want her to face the same dilemma that I now faced. She insisted, however, that I explain to her what I discovered. I then carefully explained the situation using only materials officially accepted by the NSA to show her my belief that the Hands wrongfully usurped authority and that their Universal House of Justice should have the Guardian as its head. Ms. Franco was declared to be a covenant-breaker and shunned after she dared to share these arguments with the rest of the community. The other community members rejected these arguments after they were threatened by a representative of the NSA's organization that they too would be shunned and cut off forever from many of their friends and family unless they rejected these ideas and shunned my family and I, and Ms. Franco.
30. Just before I had declared my acceptance of the Guardianship, my brother, who was not a Bahá'í at all, coincidentally became engaged to marry a believer under the NSA's organization.
31. I was not permitted to attend my brother's wedding, and my family thereafter had to hold separate family functions so that I would not be present at the same time as brother's wife who literally held the belief that I was satanic and my breath was poisonous so that mere contact with me would be dangerous.
32. After the birth of my nephew, I was not allowed to see him at all, nor does he even know of the existence of his uncle and the rest of my family.
33. My story is by no means unique. Many of my fellow believers within the OBF report similar experiences. Juan Cole, a professor of modern Middle East and Southeastern Asian history for the History department of the University of Michigan has written about the fanatical shunning behavior exhibited by the NSA and its organization, characterizing it as "cultlike." Attached as Exhibit 6 are emails written by Dr. Cole. Attached as Exhibit 7 is an article by Dr Cole detailing the shunning practices."
Source : https://fglaysher.com/bahaicensorship/shunning3.htm
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Popular Posts
-
by Ravian Bilani 06-Aug-2009 Baha'is arrested in Uzbekistan for deceptively preaching and converting the children and Junior Youths Tas...
-
Mirza Yahya Subh i Azal (The real successor of Bab) and his three sons.
-
..... I will be stepping on a few people's toes here. Your Christians are really unaware of where their concept of the millenium came fr...
-
I hope you don't mind me telling you a little bit about myself, and asking some questions. I have read some of your articles about mysti...
-
Mr. Esfandiari from the Ministry of Finance evaluated one of Shoghi Effendi's properties, the third leader of the Baha'is. According...
-
Photo of 'Ayn ul-Mulk (son of Mirza Reza Qannad Shírází), who was a companion of Shoghi Effendi and the father of former Iranian Prime M...
-
I used to think that Baha'u'llah's ideas were revolutionary in the context of religious dispensations. But over the years, some ...
-
by Ravian Bilani 22-Aug-2009 The Government of Uzbekistan deported a number of Baha’is from the neighboring countries as they were secretly ...
-
January 23. On this date in 1946, Shoghi Effendi wrote , "HEARTILY APPROVE NATIONWIDE OBSERVANCE FOR DAUNTLESS LYDIA ZAMENHOF. ...
-
This dream was posted by Larry Rowe on TRB, Click for the original article - here DREAM STARTS HERE : Peter Khan is greeted at the pearly ga...
Shunning fellow Baha'is who happen to disagree with you about the Baha'i leadership is a form of spiritual abuse.
ReplyDelete