Trust Like a Spider's Web

Trust Like a Spider's Web

By John Taylor; 2006 May 16

My sister Patricia became a Jehovah's Witness around 1980, as did her husband and two sons, Daniel and Jason. She even converted her niece, my brother's daughter Rachelle, causing no end of disruption in that wing of the family. My brother will not hear the words "Jehovah's Witness" spoken in his presence, and I must say some of his dislike of that contentious congregation has rubbed off on me too. If you value unity and fellowship you cannot look with approval upon their attitude to non-JW family members as "heathen" and their practice of "disfellowshipping," which is the equivalent of being declared a covenant breaker in the Baha'i Faith -- the big difference being that disfellowshipping is done casually to any member who disagrees or disobeys, not just to those who oppose, disrupt and attempt to split up their unity.

Patty had been into pretty much every substance, controlled or not, in her youth not too long before converting; at one point when our father remonstrated her for entering such a simple minded sect -- the service consists in a long exercise in spoon-feeding data to the congregation -- she confided in him that this religion was the only thing that kept her off the dope. Sadly, her son Jason followed her in her earlier addictions, became a junkie and last anyone heard was on the streets of Hamilton; he is presumed dead. Daniel, to everyone's surprise, turned out better, became a physicist, and is now a grad student at McMaster. Unfortunately, getting an "edumuckation" is not a good thing in that faith because it forces uncomfortable questions upon them. Daniel was having doubts and decided to get himself "disfellowshipped" rather than just resign. He documented his ejection with photos, mp3 recordings, and the following website:

<http://www.quad-central.com/~dan2007/>

You can read his story "sick of lies" in his own words there, but I found it interesting that he knew just how to get himself booted out. All you do is ask questions. That is what he did, he phoned up several elders and asked about evolution and a few other touchy subjects and within days they were on his back and the process began. One question nephew Dan asked during the process was, "Do you take any responsibility when people, cut off from family and friends by disfellowshipping, commit suicide or otherwise fall into harm?" No, they told him, it is like failing a test, a teacher cannot be responsible for the failure of a student in an exam.

Those who know me will know that I have an irrational fear of getting a notice in the mail from the House of Justice that I have been declared a covenant breaker. There is no reason that I should, I just am afraid of Kafka-esq events, like waking up one morning and finding that I have turned into a giant cockroach. Anyway, I had just read the above information about the ejection of my nephew from his faith when I looked into my electronic mailbox and found a communication from the Universal House of Justice. It was a reply to my question last month about whether there are any Baha'i "blooks" published (a blook is a book arising from a blog). Here is their reply:

8 May 2006

Transmitted by email: badijet@gmail.com

Mr. John Taylor

Canada

Dear Baha'i Friend,

Your email letter dated 14 April 2006 regarding your Weblog has been received at the Baha'i World Centre, and your efforts in using it as a venue to share your thoughts about certain Baha'i teachings are appreciated. With respect to your query, no information has been received to date at the World Centre pertaining to the publication of Baha'i "blooks."

With loving Baha'i greetings,

Department of the Secretariat

So I need not fear being declared a covenant breaker, at least not for now. Not only that, now if I publish my blook (almost certainly I won't but it is fun to dream) I will be able to put on the cover a reliable claim that this is the first Baha'i Blook in the world. Isn't that just blovely?

One Badi' list member sent me a copy of an article published against the Baha'is in a newspaper in Egypt. I had seen it before but here it was again, like a boomerang, and I had to look again. Now I know where the expression "tissue of lies" comes from, because the whole article does not contain a number of lies that anybody could count, it lays lies upon lies until they become a patchwork quilt of layered untruths, half-truths and veiled and half-veiled insinuations. Anyone who tried to refute such a screed would be hard pressed to know where to start. My prayer from the Writings for this morning says it all about the nest of vipers in which our Lord was forced to dwell:

"Glorified art Thou, O Lord my God! Thou beholdest my low estate and the habitation wherein I dwell, and bearest witness unto my perplexity, my crying needs, my troubles, and the afflictions I suffer among Thy servants who recite Thy verses and repudiate their Revealer, who call on Thy names and cavil at their Creator, who seek to draw nigh unto Him Who is Thy Friend and put to death Him Who is the Best-Beloved of the worlds." (Baha'u'llah, Prayers and Meditations, CXX, p. 204)

I felt sad for Islam defended by mendacious betrayers of their own Faith. These are words that spill the blood of the innocent, the precondition of holocausts. How can any Muslim expect anything but the vilification of the world and divine wrath when God's Faith, their own Faith, not necessarily Baha'i, is besmirched by such liars in the guise of shepherds? The Qu'ran says it all and offers hope:

"The false gods which the idolaters serve besides God may be compared to the spider's cobweb. Surely the spider's is the frailest of all dwellings, if they but knew it." (Q29:41)

The spider's web is also the only dwelling made from its own body. When leaders lie like this they show that their own substance is a lie, they claim to believe in God but prove their own idolatry in word and deed. Lies are their home and what they are made of. As it says in Job (8:14), those who forget God have "trust (that) shall be a spider's web."

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com