Cultish: The Baha'i Faith: A Critical Examination, Pt. 2

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Jeff Durbin: Sola Scriptura & Rome Pt. 3 | Biblical Support

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This is part two exploring the Baha 'i faith. Back with Steve Mathis good to have you back man.

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Great to be here. Awesome so let's just jump right into it. So we kind of wrapped up the last episode talking about the history of Baha 'i which is just so fascinating and then also a lot of their beliefs and so let's just pick up where we started.

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I think you were about to talk about their what they believe about the afterlife. Yes life after death. Let's jump into it. So Baha 'is we talked about you know believes that Jesus one of nine great manifestations that God has sent to us you know and we get keep getting updates on like who the prophet who

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God says this to you know he's you know Buddha was for his age Jesus replaced him then

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Muhammad replaced Jesus then he had the Bab and now we're under Baha 'u'llah so we went through a lot of that so as far as life after death for the

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Baha 'i they believe the soul is eternal and there's no heaven or hell and it's a bit of bit vague they talk about after you're dead the soul will progress and of course

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Baha 'is do not believe in evil they believe in an absence of good we talked about that last week. So hell heaven and hell are not physical locations but more of like a spiritual state and after we die we don't get resurrected but we move to a new kind of existence as a non -physical being where the spirit continues to progress with eternity towards God and how we live in this life really according to our works right in our hearts that kind of determines you know how we live the

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Baha 'i message that kind of determines how close we're going to move towards God in the afterlife as we continue to progress.

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Yeah. So that's kind of finishing up on a lot of the doctrinal part we still wanted to hit a couple of areas uh their practices and their calendar which is kind of relevant but you had anything else on if you want to ask me anything on the life after death make any cool insights

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I'd love to hear. Yeah well just um what's really interesting is that that video of Rainn Wilson where he does talk about the distinction between soul and body that him saying that actually now makes sense when you explain what they believe about life after death.

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Is there any sense where like as Christians we look at the hope of life after death based off a historical account of the resurrection and that's a big point of focal home a focal point for us like how like how does their belief of life after death how does that play into the present with how they practice their faith?

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It's basically if you do the rituals which we're about to get into in Baha 'is and their practices and do your proper recitations and that kind of stuff it really affects your spiritual status in the life after death.

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Christianity is very different a lot of Christians get this wrong and it's kind of important I'm glad I get a chance to say this here a lot of people have this idea of almost like a

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Greek idea in even in churches that we're like a spirit trapped in a body yeah but that's not a biblical

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New Testament view the biblical view is God creates us as a spirit and a body we're not a ghost in the machine you know the

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Greeks we talk about the we're the same in the the Soma the Soma the same of the we're the tomb of the soul we're not just a ghost in the machine the biblical view is that God creates

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Jerry Steve as a whole whether it's with the physical and spiritual together that is our destiny after we die we'll have a resurrected perfected body and our spirit will also be fully redeemed at that point but the biblical view is definitely a view where who you are your identity is your spirit and your body is one thing not just like we're spirit trapped you're a lot of churches say this that's why

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I was concerned because they just make it sound like the spiritual is the higher good and the physical is the lower good almost like an agnostic view but the the proper informed

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Christian view is that that is our identity a gift from God our spirit our bodies are one which will be all resurrected in the new kingdom yeah and I think a lot and that makes sense too because a lot of times with that you'll see a lot of times

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Christians the sort of pendulum swing between you with all of a sudden there's an emphasis on the spear they're not Gnostic they're just an emphasis on spiritual spiritual things or sometimes they focus on everything that's like physical the material world around them and then they kind of ignore the spiritual side of it we're a physical special being that's what

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God made us yeah and usually that's a good way to kind of even navigate everything through life so yeah definitely good so what does the practice look like this would now this would also again correlate so again

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I live in Arizona so if I go down and I walk into a Baha 'i faith wouldn't they practice a

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Sunday a Saturday any day of the week they have all kinds of meetings they have uh Ruhi studies at home

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R -U -H -I they have deep Ruhi is when you're going there and you go through a set of it started in Colombia but it's a bunch of self -studies that you do in these circles these groups and you kind of go into the twin manifestation study and all the different studies about Baha 'i teaching to kind of get you into that so they'll do that they have other things called firesides where they'd you know try to invite people to come and learn about the

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Baha 'i faith and get recruited it's funny they they say we don't believe in having missionaries they just call them pioneers they're the same thing you know yeah so they kind of redefine things but they say they're not really missionary oriented religion but they kind of are yeah so what other practices would that entail so when you become a

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Baha 'i covered us last week you make this declaration on a pledge card now you're Baha 'i you're basically agreeing that Baha 'u'llah is the manifestation for today and you know

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Baha 'i faith authority so that makes you Baha 'i in the day -to -day life of Baha 'i you do these obligatory prayers and Baha 'i is 15 years and older they say one of these three different prayers every day the ones are short prayers made every day between noon and sunset you do a medium prayer like you know these are all recited let's talk about vain repetitions right so you do a medium if you're a

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Christian you know what that means Jesus said don't do them so a medium prayer you do it three times a day in the morning at noon in the evening and in a long prayer you can say anytime you want on top of that you have to recite repeat the words allahu abha and that means

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God is most glorious you got to repeat that 95 times a day so that's kind of like another ritual you got to do

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Baha 'ism interestingly you have to pray towards the shrine of Baha 'u'llah yeah so the hebrew you got to you got to keep the you got to that's the same way the muslims they pray towards a kabbah you got to pray now towards Baha 'u'llah shrine now muslims you know the technology technological age they have gps apps you can open that up and they'll point you right towards you know mecca or where you know you get they'll point right there this is all the technology so um they also have a belief called hukuklah uh it's called the right of god it's a wealth tax of 19 and it's very similar to kums in islam um they they no drugs no alcohol for Baha 'is no cremation for Baha 'is they do a pilgrimage so just like the muslims have uh you know that their pilgrimage the

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Baha 'is also have one where they do a 90 pilgrimage to northwestern israel where they visit the Baha 'i rural center and several other

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Baha 'i holy sites so just to kind of give you a feel for some of the interesting laws that Baha 'u'llah was about so and they as i said they don't do cremation but they have this ritual when you die you body you cannot move the body more than one hour's journey from the place of death okay the body has to be wrapped in a shroud of silk or cotton and put it only in a coffin a crystal and hardwood or a stone it's very specific these are

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Baha 'i laws according to Baha 'u'llah you have to do it this way and then the feet have to go to akka where Baha 'u'llah is resting places you have to point the feet in the tomb towards there so just like you pray towards Baha 'u'llah the feet in the tomb so it's it's very you can see this and and i'd like to talk for a minute just to give you a feel of how they revered these

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Baha 'i important figures we talked about the central figures Abdul Baha, the Bab, Baha 'u'llah and how they really fit into the life of Baha 'i so Baha 'is have a calendar it's called the

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Baha 'i calendar right now you're in the year 180 in the B .E. the Baha 'i era so this is just like Shin Chan Ji we talked on an earlier show we're in year 40 because you know

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Shin Chan Ji started in 1984 and now we're in year 40 well for Baha 'is we're in year 180 so a lot of cults will do that Scientology does it with L.

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Ron Hubbard they kind of you know recreate the dating according to the cult leader yeah so they they think they took this from the

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Bab their calendar they have 19 months consisting of 19 days and when you multiply that comes out to 361 and they have four intercalary days so they kind of make it and they have a leap one too so they kind of fit the calendar into 19 months they have they have festivals feast a fast and nine holy days where Baha 'is suspend work and school the festival

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Rizvan is a 12 -day festival commemorating the declaration of Baha 'u'llah in the Garden of Rizvan they have a 19 -day feast so on each of the 19 months on the first day they have a special feast and it's it's the

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Baha 'i on the Baha 'i calendar they have a Baha 'i 19 -day fast on March 2nd the 20th the festival

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Rizvan is Arabic for paradise so this is a 12 -day festival held from April 21st to May 2nd to celebrate the 12 days that Baha 'u'llah spelt in that spent in the

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Garden of Rizvan in Baghdad in 1863 and this is when he announced that he was

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God's messenger and the prophet that the Bab had foretold Baha 'u'llah said this is to be their most holy festival and the first ninth and twelfth days are special holy days in Rizvan Nowruz is the

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Baha 'i new year in March 21st some more of their holidays the declaration of the Bab the ascension of Baha 'u'llah the martyrdom of the

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Bab and the twin holy days they have birthdays basically celebrating for Baha 'u'llah and the

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Bab they're in sequential one day of another so it just shows how they make their days they miss work they miss school and they have all these days commemorating

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Abdu 'l -Baha the Bab and Baha 'u'llah so they kind of ingrain it into your system by doing that What's up everybody it's the

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have a great day guys that's it's so different i mean this is what's interesting is that most people who even are are appealed to the

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Baha 'i it's like they just want to get the experience and they just want to get just love peace and joy and all but then you're signing up for that's kind of why when it's been a little time on this because you're when you're buying in exactly like you said the carrot is like oh come be part of this giant you know peace movement of brotherhood and love in the world where we're going to make men and women equal and all eliminate prejudice and be happy human family yeah but what do you do when you're going in your calendar is full these

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Baha 'i feast days and fast and recognitions these Baha 'i leaders then you're chanting you know doing the recitations like so many times a day and these prayers obligatory prayers it's not something that can coexist with another faith it really takes you over to be part of this right well even this is that like i feel like i'd almost share a commonality with someone who's just wanting to get be part of something bigger than themselves and kind of go for the emotional experience brotherhood we are the world part of it but when you're you're going through all of these terms it seems to me that there probably would be a lot of people who would get into a movement like this not really looking at again going back to an iphone analogy it's like when you do the ios state update and you have to scroll through you know what did i sign up for two minutes of legal things just to get an update on your phone for this you're like what's what what in transhumanism is this like that's a whole nother conversation which kind of like you got to accept the terms on that level right right and so this is just interesting is that as you kind of unravel this you do sort of see this connection to it being a spin -off of islam because now you're having to do these specific rituals that they have their own calendar uh their own holy days and and every single religion also has their own holy days as well too so then you have again eventually something does have to butt heads eventually so the question is at what point something at some point something just has to give like you had sometimes you'll think regardless of what it is sometimes you'll think something's compatible but eventually it'll show up eventually yeah you know um yeah so do you think we've we've covered everything as far as uh yeah we're just ready to show why yeah so what's what's the response to all this because i would be very interested myself too i i only read the very beginning of soul boom i would really like later on to maybe read the book and now realize through new eyes so the question would be for anyone most people really don't know too much about the high but then they understand this so then the question is how do we respond to something like bahai from apologetic perspective so in the same way how you know rain wilson would view us as christians analyzing bahai he would see oh we're just really adhering to a manifestation of that a lot we would just see this as ultimately this is a incorrect false belief with a different jesus a different gospel a different way of salvation and in that sense it would fit into the walter marge classical definition of a cult because they do have to have they have they have jesus on their team they're trying to have it but again they're redefining who jesus is he's not god come in the flesh he's not the jesus who rose from the dead he's not the historical jesus martyred teacher who went and got himself killed yeah so jesus from them is only a historical figure to the extent that it fits into their mold they've molded jesus into their image but so how then that throat is miracles too oh yeah so what's so what's the starting point what's the starting apologetic to give an answer say from somebody who's in behind they kind of know this is a target so basically they the most obvious one is you know they try to think that this view all religions are from the same god they're all the same they've kind of been updated yeah that's a huge problem you got to live in a universe where squares are circles and circles are squares to say that all religions are the same yeah i mean come on there's such huge differences in across the board and within the religions right so you have christianity judaism and islam were basically monotheistic religions in buddhism which is basically agnostic there's no talk about god at all in zoroastrianism you have two divine deities uh constantly battling the good the bad one together in hinduism you have 388 million gods so they're polytheistic how can all these different you know views of god be reconciled the same way with life after death you have christianity you know which believes in a resurrection you have buddhism and hinduism leave reincarnation they're very very different baha 'is try to say well they're they're the same at the core but the the social issues some of those things are different and as ravi used to say you know some people say that all religions are fundamentally the same but superficially different the better way to understand it is that all religions are fundamentally different but superficially the same so instead of trying to say oh they're all oh i mean you can't reconcile how can they all be from the same god seriously is god can honestly speak in one era teach millions of gods come back in another area teach there's no god right come back in another cycle you know there's two gods or or one god i mean this sounds like a pretty confused god yeah well that's the path you go down to and again if you end up trying to be all -inclusive you end up excluding the exclusivists so eventually something does have to give right when it comes to that but this is like central to religion right it's like how many gods is there you know what is what is the view of life after death irreconcilable differences that's why they're different religions baha 'is try to have their cake and eat it yeah impossible bahá 'u'lláh says in greetings from the writings bahá 'u'lláh he goes know thou assuredly that the essence of the prophets of god is one and the same to prefer one in honor to another to exalt certain ones above the rest is in no wise to be permitted so basically all manifestation is all views are the same it's it's such a stretch to bahá 'í so i'd really i in talking to bahá 'ís i'd really pursue that question how can one god reveal the different manifestations internally contradictory things and we believe in non -contradiction and it just doesn't work with baha 'ism 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right now and use the code in all caps cultish to get a free bottle of beard oil when you spend over 50 thanks guys good then then uh what would you ask them say if you bring up jesus specifically like what that's something i always like at least for me when it comes to uh when it comes to even like i'd say i've had a lot of interactions with uh with uh my lds friends and neighbors and even with something like that i feel like that also when you're talking about the cultist there's always and walter marr will talk about this too there's so many different rabbit trills you can kind of go down like there are a lot of times people talk with mormons they'll i've seen people who are brand new they'll start going rabbit trills of like the polygamy or some weird aspect of church history sometimes it's something they may not even know it's so right and i like to just do this major on the majors not the minors when you talk to joe as witness don't get sidetracked by voting on birthdays going to war exactly stay on the trinity you can get lost on that stuff all day long you're 100 right so when it comes to behi then what what are areas the two kind of they're just rabbit trails but what are the focal points you should all the things like we said who is god who is christ those are huge ones so for the behi's like we covered last week he is just a teacher uh didn't perform miracles uh didn't race from the dead he was just a guy who went and got himself crucified and then is a martyr and then three days later it kind of popped up in the understanding his followers what he's been teaching all those three years um you know we want to basically talk biblically and show no who did jesus say he is he even asked that question who do men say that i am if he can ask that question we can ask that to behi yeah so who is jesus he asked himself in matthew chapter 16 um jesus is clearly god in the bible you know he receives prayer he receives worship he is called god blatantly um when thomas encountered the risen christ uh who is not well for behi's he wasn't even risen right so what what happens at the end of john chapter 20 right so when he when he beholds him he calls him his lord as god it's very clear and jesus accepts it the father calls son god and hebrews 180 says thy throne oh god is forever and ever yeah you see that across the board um biblically speaking also the behi's will call baha 'u'llah the spirit of truth and they go to john chapters 14 to 16 say see that spirit of truth will come that's baha 'u'llah he will give you things well for the christian the spirit of truth is clearly the holy spirit which was given a pentecost you know we didn't have to wait till you know the declaration of baha 'u'llah like 1800 years later right you know it was very clear from scripture yeah let me ask you this you may have addressed this early in the podcast but let me just maybe it would be good for us maybe re -clarify it would be good for me as well too so jesus is a manifestation of baha 'u'llah and and and so a manifestation of god manifestation of god but he was so for prophets ago right oh yes definitely but in relation he said could they they will sort of pay lip service and make cherry picker quote a verse from the bible how do they view the bible in relation to how they view jesus there's some sort of level of credibility this is a manifestation the bible is not a very accurate book and baha 'u'llah's writings will be taken as authoritative but there's still some attendees attack the bible yeah but some some level of credence like this is the blind man this is a there's still a portion of the elephant if you're a blind person that there's areas in which they still have adherence to it so there's some level of reverence or respect they pick and choose they proof text cherry pick whatever supports baha 'ism so they literally twist the verse they don't really want to know what the bible teaches they don't you know they do they don't want to go along with who jesus is if he says who he was you know right who jesus says he was is more important but they don't want to do that they just want to fit it into the mold yeah like i think you said last week like baha 'u'llah yeah so maybe my question would be this so like walter martin and thing i loved about him and every now and then i like to just just it's just like a palate cleanser it's like a just a clump of ginger is to listen to an old walter martin message and i've just started to re -listen to some of his lectures oh it's great and the one thing that wally was so brilliant on was just speaking to the audience and their native tongue so when he was lecturing on hari krishna and and he at the very end he talked about a relationship with jesus christ is the ultimate trip of the human soul amen so he's kind of utilizing you see contextually right contextually it's usually their vernacular so my question would be when it comes to given that we want to speak scale the language barrier we would want to talk with someone in the baha 'i how do we utilize because god also god's word doesn't return void how would we utilize scale lower the language barrier in a conversation utilizing scripture and talking to someone who's in the baha 'i how would what would be a start at focal starting point for that there's a few ways to do it i mean they do want to create this kind of utopia on earth through their love and their brotherhood and everything but the problem is you have to show the existential reality of wars of murder rape all the stuff that happens is part of the human condition the liberals um you know they talked about the brotherhood of man and everything in the 20s the modernists when they fought against the fundamentalists in in america and the world wars really shook a lot of people up it's like it's inarguable like you know now we have the nations of world fighting killing each other and this is man's nature this core it's it's it's my nature it's your nature it's the baha 'i's nature it's baha 'u'llah's nature they're gonna say no he was sinless but absolutely it's human nature to have that dark side and i think that's an amazing proof of the uniqueness of christianity that the bible is the only religion and worldview that gets it right on who man is and nails it that on one hand we got this beautiful amazing side created image of god who will die for a strange will put do the sistine chapel art and write symphony just a beautiful creative great side but then we got this evil wicked dark side that they deny they think man is basically good and you know we can do through through self -reformation but we got we do have a valuable beautiful side but we do have that dark side and there's no other religion no cult no psychological philosophy that nails it just like the bible nails identity man so i think that that's really important because you know we're trying to build this utopia why do we need to build utopia because it's fallen you know if it wasn't if it was already in a good place we would have to build a utopia right yeah the fact that something's broken to make us need to fix it that the fact that this prejudice that we need to eliminate shows that there's a deeply entrenched problem that's part of mankind i mean they want to get to the point when they say we want to eliminate greed it just kind of yeah you see where it's going this so it's kind of self -refuting in that sense well this would be like somebody running it would be as if i was trying to run a watch repair shot shop with a fundamental adamant belief that watches can never get broken you wouldn't have a watch store well i mean yeah why eliminate prejudice if if man is basically good why why no more they say we want to have peace why have peace if it's not man's nature to do war that's it's kind of a self -refuting thing and they talk about in the future they say they talk about the elimination of extremes of poverty and wealth how the heck are they going to do that with sinful man unless every single person somehow becomes a baha 'i as he would say and then all of a sudden their hearts are changed that we're going to want to give away all our money to have kind of the socialist utopia it really it's it's not realistic i mean yeah even the sense that like i could technically do that like having a we're running a watch repair shop and having that fundamental belief but there's only what there's two ways i'd have to address it i would have to i would have to have a very lack of self -awareness or i would have to redefine terms i would have to redefine what broken is well yeah and what they say is it's going to be the job of there's going to be an international force like almost like a military force they don't like to say that but it's basically it's going to be enforced by the universal house of justice this international force through the tribunals that will help legislate these things to make them in the past so if you don't want to give your money away to to create this more equality well we got somebody who can do that for you and that's kind of under the so that's kind of like a scary side too this kind of world task force that's under the universal justice to to regulate the laws of bahá 'u'lláh so you've got baha 'i f -16s that would make sure that we have a utopia pretty much it's scary it's scary yeah i mean history and that that is scary in the sense because i mean history is full of people that want to and have a utopia by way of the sword and it never alexander the great to hitler yep it's that's that's very interesting and that i would be curious as far as i really want to reassert them because i'm really wondering because like i said ring wilson i love that's one of my all -time favorite shows i mean dwight's one of the all -time great iconic characters in television ever i mean it's up there i mean i sent me a hundred years now people will still be watching the office it's sad that he doesn't know you know the reality of bahá 'ís i'm going to cover some other stuff in a minute that i wish i could sit down with rain and show him some of this stuff i wish i could show him some of their books that i brought today in some of the older versions that have been changed by the bahá 'ís that's one of the problems um another thing we might talk about biblically is that you know jesus bodily resurrected they don't believe that and when jesus said i will raise up this temple in john 2 19 to 21 yeah well he said he's going to and he was talking about the temple of his body right he is telling you he's going to do this who do men say i am so if you really have a good reading of the bible there's no way you're going to become a bahá 'í you know taking if jesus a true manifestation and take him in his word yeah and it's good i i'd really yeah i hope that i'm going to find a way to get myself in whether it's online or offline i want to find a way to just interact with some bahá 'ís in the field this has me really excited to do it because i mean it's one when you actually understand that now you can actually have sort of have a conversation at least to find terms because that's one of the things too when you're dealing with countercult ministries is that you want to have a general understanding of their beliefs that we are not speaking past each other and that way you can have an incorporated conversation which i appreciate so much because just having done this just this episode i already feel like i have a level of confidence that i i could at least carry a conversation versus two episodes ago when i'm like oh wait what uh what do we even start they're a lot of very kind people yeah a lot of very sensitive people and you gotta really talk to them gently um but you gotta make them think and challenge them they just want to just go through it very emotionally but you gotta challenge them confront them with christ i mean there's you don't get the good news of the gospel till you hear the bad news yeah and the bad news is we're rotten filthy stinking sinners yeah cut off from god and i mean you know jesus told the bad news and and you know we've got to present the truth and love but there's a lot of sweet souls or bahá 'ís but they just haven't thought of the implications of you know the differences between the different views of god and the implications of our guilt before god they don't have any concept of guilt before god they need to understand a lot of these things they look they're so busy it's almost like a bahá 'ís you know they wouldn't say this but i mean there's definitely almost like a real humanistic side to that religion it's like a humanist religion we're going to build our utopia here through education and and our self -reformation instead of god's transformation um god coming as the righteous judge to settle accounts as a day of judgment they don't have that kind of same concept they have this kind of kind of progressive kind of you know optimistic hopeful world where we just get better and better better and that's that's the carrot every every group has its reason for getting people in and that's most a lot of these sweet people get in for that yeah man so this has been so good so with all the way to cover is there anything else that we should be concerned about bahá 'ís or need to know uh given that this is a

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Aryan group that we need to engage they're not an honest organization a lot of bahá 'ís i think they are there has been a history of censorship a history of cover -ups in the bahá 'ís that you don't see in many other groups it's pretty wild um you can just google bahá 'í censorship and stuff's going to come up um as far as books as far as historical articles they love to suppress things um even their most holy book the kitab yaqtas you know this is supposed to be the words bahá 'u'lláh for this you know from for this manifestation um the book was written in 1873 we didn't even get an

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English copy to 1992 and when William Miller who was a Christian missionary who knew the language went and translated bahá 'ís were forbidden to read it you know there's i mean what are you trying to hide here what about the strange writings of the bab very few of those have been translated they didn't make those things readily available to bahá 'ís right um you know there's definitely an agenda for that um there's definitely suppression maybe it's because there's some violent and bizarre contents in the bayan and the writings of the bab why do bahá 'ís not open um one of the big things i want to talk about today and i want to bring something up that i don't think has been brought up before in the

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Christian response to bahá 'ís and i think it's a pretty powerful um illumination of who the bahá 'ís are um this is a very popular book written by John Esselstyn who is a

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Christian who left to become a bahá 'í bahá 'u'lláh in the new era it's not by one of their central figures it's not authoritative but it's a book that they you know give out often about baha 'ism there's a controversy came up because in the older editions of the book they made a false prophecy so just like the

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Jehovah's Witnesses have said 1914, 1915, 1918, 1925, 1941, 1975 were dates of Armageddon and the

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Mormons in 1892 wind up the scene well these guys have done it also they they put a date of 1957 it just didn't come to pass and i'll read the quote now i've got as i said a huge library of bahá 'í material but not only the editions i've got multiple editions i brought like only four of my copies of this book today of Bahá 'u'lláh in the new era and when you go back that you can really see how they lie and they deliberately they're dishonest organization um and here's a quote uh from the book here because in a table talk in which the writer was present that's john eslaman abdu 'l -baha said that these 1335 days these are the days in the book of daniel these 1335 days mean 1335 solar years from the hijrad that's the flight of muhammad when he went from mecca to medina marking the beginning of the muhammadan era so just like you know the christian calendar or sorry the baha 'i calendar starts uh we're in the year 180 well the muslim calendar had that okay as the hijrad occurred in 622 a .d