Making the Crooked StraightUdo Schaefer

Making the Crooked Straight

Name: Making the Crooked Straight
ISBN: 9780853984436

Udo Schaefer, Nicola Towfigh, Ulrich Gollmer · 2002

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CONTENTS FOREWORD, by J.A. McLean xiii PREFACE TO THE GERMAN EDITION (1995) xxi PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION (2000) xxiii INTRODUCTION 1 PART I: METHODOLOGY CHAPTER 1 OVERVIEW 15 I. The limits of religious knowledge 15 II. ‘Critical literature’ 18 III. The renegade as researcher 27 IV. The origins of the conflict 30 CHAPTER 2 ON FICICCHIA’S METHODOLOGY 36 I. Opportunism—the supreme principle of the Bahá’í Faith? 37 II. Ficicchia’s standpoint 40 III. Ficicchia’s portraits of the founding figures 56 1. The Báb 56 2. Bahá’u’lláh 58 IV. Ficicchia’s portrait of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá 73 V. The portrait of Shoghi Effendi 90 VI. Ficicchia’s distorted image of the Bahá’í community 102 VII. Ficicchia’s semantics 119 VIII. The Bahá’ís—sectarian escapists and dangerous extremists?126 1. On the charge of ‘unworldly isolation’ 126 2. On the charge of subversion 135 PART II: COMMUNITY AND DOCTRINE CHAPTER 3 FICICCHIA’S PORTRAIT OF THE COMMUNITY AND ITS ORDER 141 I. The background: the Protestant concept of law 142 II. Ficicchia’s critique of the order of the Bahá’í community and its foundations 149 1. The Universal House of Justice — not foreseen by Bahá’u’lláh? 149 2. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s testament—disputed? 152 3. The Guardianship—a dictatorship? 154 4. On the alleged ‘doctrinal legislation’ by the Universal House of Justice 158 5. The community: a ‘steward of the grace’? 160 6. Shoghi Effendi charged with having prevented the establishment of the Universal House of Justice 164 7. On the subject of infallibility 166 8. Freedom to teach—teaching authority 194 9. Prepublication review—a censorship? 209 10. Forbidden books? 213 11. Freedom of expression prohibited? 214 12. Criticism prohibited? 219 13. Covenant-breaking and excommunication 224 14. ‘Tricks’ and ‘the pressure of the plan’ in missionary activities? 238 15. ‘Complete renunciation of Christian beliefs’? 243 16. The community—anti-democratic, centralist, secular? 245 17. Ficicchia’s (mis)judgement of the Bahá’í community 254 CHAPTER 4 FICICCHIA’S PRESENTATION OF BAHÁ’Í DOCTRINE 260 I. On the concept of revelation 260 II. On the station of Bahá’u’lláh 262 III. On the Bahá’í doctrine of grace 267 IV. On the Bahá’í concept of human nature 273 V. On claims to absoluteness and exclusiveness