Nice article; I would, however, like to note that we do not believe Baha'u'llah is the last in a line of messengers, rather the most recent. We do not believe in the finality of revelation from God. In 1,000 years more or less, we feel that a new messenger of God will come and bring a new message to further humanity's social and spiritual growth.
Thanks for the informative article! Could you do more on different topics in the Baha'i Faith?
Ms. Capponi or her editors may be interested in the media style guide I found at http://news.bahai.org/media-information/style-guide/ which includes part of speech information and a glossary for terms such as "Baha'i", "Baha'i Faith", and "local Spiritual Assembly".
The "absence of ministers" or clergy does not mean there is no structural administration in place. It does not mean that "no higher authority can tell what of the holy texts to believe" as Bahais believe all holy scriptures including their own. When any member interprets these scriptures, he may not thrust or force his own interpretation on others as being the sole or "correct" version. Thus, when we author books on Bahai (or other) scriptural content, we write a disclaimer in the forward that these are our own opinions.
Yet while the parallels between Esperanto and the Baha?i Faith are numerous, some linguists doubt the viability of Esperanto as the religion?s lingua franca. Esperanto, they claim, lacks the underlying structure inherent in a natural language. Tonkin disagrees. ?Esperanto is in many respects very similar to other languages,? he said. ?People have been speaking it for over a century, and it has had the chance to evolve and develop internal consistency in that process.?
Spring Break
Adib
posted 10/03/08 @ 7:49 AM EST