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To many observers the Bahá'í religion is best known for its universal outlook, its Houses of Worship, and the persecution of its adherents in Iran. This chapter is focussed on one of these dimensions, and to a small extent considers the other two. It focuses on the concept of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár in Bahá'í thought and practice, and explores the interplay between the universal specifications for this particular architectural form and its enculturation in regional settings: European, African, Oceanic, Asian, and American. The first section of the chapter reviews the conception, design, and construction of Houses of Worship; whilst a second section focuses on matters of use and receptivity.
A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices. 2nd edition.
“Baha’i Temples” Religions of the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices (2010)2010 •
Christopher Buck, “Baha’i Temples.” Religions of the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices. 2nd edition. Edited by J. Gordon Melton and Martin Baumann. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2010. Vol. 6, pp. 2817–2821.
Paradise & Paradigm: Key Symbols in Persian Christianity and the Baha’i Faith
Paradise & Paradigm: Key Symbols in Persian Christianity and the Baha’i Faith (SUNY Press, 1999)1999 •
Christopher Buck, Paradise and Paradigm: Key Symbols in Persian Christianity and the Baha’i Faith. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999. ISBN-10: 0791440613. ISBN-13: 978-0791440612. (Release date: May 13, 1999.) NOTE This is the first formal (academic) comparison of the Baha’i Faith and Christianity, notwithstanding a wealth of apologetic literature on this topic. OPENING PARAGRAPH Religions enshrine symbols, the stained-glass windows of faith. Sacred symbols present an explorable treasury of religious thought—an information-rich, condensed language of spirituality. Symbols are the prisms of ideals and of other religious concerns. Symbols are susceptible of analysis and are proper objects of study. As symbols encode ideas, they require interpretation to be both understood and meaningfully compared. “We can see that an essential ingredient of the modern study of religion,” writes Ninian Smart, “is symbolic analysis, which tries to throw light on the various themes which can be discovered cross-culturally through the exploration of various worldviews” (1985, 33). Symbolic analysis involves not only the exploration of religious worldviews intrinsically, but comparatively as well. – Paradise & Paradigm, p. 1. CONCLUSION Symbols ensoul ideas. In the Abrahamic faiths generally, the most important symbol complex is eschatological imagery, the positive focus of which is Paradise. Visions of the empyreal realm have, historically, had an extraordinary power to inspire. Paradise is iconoplastic. The beatific panorama, the symbolic landscape, the ideals and imagery that inform Paradise in the religious imagination are grounded in root metaphors and are animated by key scenarios reflecting a theology of activity, in a dynamic interplay of belief and behavior, myth and ritual, within the religious grasp of totality. Paradise allegorizes ideals. These ideals are projected onto heaven. There, in the wish-images of the communal dream, ideals are reified and beatified. In a Bergeresque process of paradisical world building, Heaven functions as the impressionistic blueprint of the ideal faith-community. Paradise imagery is then dislocated from the speculative and refocused on Earth. When once the heart is transformed and society reformed, Paradise is realized. In the intersection of eschatology and ethics, in the interplay of ideas and imagery, and as a function of an organizing principle, an overarching paradigm, Paradise becomes utopia. – Paradise & Paradigm, p. 329. REVIEWS • Kathleen McVey. International Journal of Middle East Studies 35.3 (Aug. 2003): 494–496. Will C. van den Hoonaard. Studies in Religion. Sciences Religieuses 31.3–4 (2002): 501–502. • Brannon Wheeler. Religious Studies Review 28.3 (July 2002): 293: “Buck’s theoretically innovative analysis of ‘paradigmatic differences’ in East Syrian (or Nestorian) Christianity and the early Baha’i faith is a fascinating and intellectually challenging book. … In all, a forceful and clearly argued book which should be read by scholars interested in questions of religious symbolism and the comparative method.” • Andrew Rippin. University of Toronto Quarterly 71.1 (Winter 2001/2002): 170–172. • William Collins. Baha’i Studies Review 10 (2001/2002): 157–160. • Edward G. Farrugia, S.J. Orientalia Christiana Periodica 66.2 (2000): 480–483. • John Renard. Middle East Studies Association Bulletin 34.2 (2000): 212–213. • Daniel Grolin. H-Net Reviews in the Humanities and Social Sciences (July 2000). Harold Coward. (Unpublished) (2000). POST-PUBLICATION SCHOLARSHIP Paola Orsatti, “Syro-Persian Formulas In Poetic Form In Baptism Liturgy,” Persian Origins – Early Judaeo-Persian and the Emergence of New Persian. Collected Papers of the Symposium, Göttingen 1999. Edited by Ludwig Paul (Iranica Vol. 6, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2003), pp. 147–176. LIBRARIES WORLDWIDE Total (print & ebook editions): 1,886. [WorldCat, July 11, 2019.] Also available as a Nook Book.
Bahá’í Faith: The Basics
Bahá’í Faith: The Basics (Routledge, 2021) Preview2021 •
Released by publisher online: eBook Preview PDF (front matter, Chapter 1, and References), https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780429023088 Baha’i Faith: The Basics By: Christopher Buck Edition: 1st Edition First Published: 2021 eBook Published: 27 November 2020 Pub. location: London Imprint: Routledge DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429023088 Pages: 262 pages eBook: ISBN9780429023088 Subjects: Humanities Bahá’í Faith: The Basics provides a thorough and accessible introduction to a fascinating, independent world religion. Examining its historical development, current “community-building” efforts and the social contributions of the Bahá’í Faith in the world today, this introduction covers: • Beliefs: Bahá’í spiritual teachings. • Principles: Bahá’í social teachings. • History: Bahá’u’lláh and his covenant. • Scripture: Bahá’í sacred texts and inspired guidance. • Institutions: The Bahá’í Administrative Order. • Building community: What Bahá’ís do. • Social action: Bahá’í social and economic development projects. • Public discourse: The Bahá’í International Community. • Vision: Foundations for a future golden age. With features including a glossary of terms, and references to the Bahá’í writings throughout, this is the ideal text for students and interested readers wanting to familiarize themselves with the Bahá’í Faith. Reviews "This excellent, beautifully organized introduction provides an accurate and unusually rich entré into a relatively new and still somehow frequently misunderstood religion. The author, Christopher Buck, is a leading scholar of the Baha'i religion. His book is richly enhanced with quotations from official translations of the Baha'i sacred writings, insights into the formation of distinctive Baha'i institutions and rare glimpses of key moments in Baha'i intellectual history from an introduction to the influential African-American Baha'i philosopher, Alain Locke (d. 1954) known as 'the father of the Harlem Renaissance', to a discussion of the more recent development of the Ruhi Institute process. This introduction goes beyond existing textbooks in both scope and detail. It will be warmly welcomed by researchers and students of the Baha'i Faith." Todd Lawson, University of Toronto, Canada Christopher Buck is an independent scholar and former professor at Michigan State University, USA; Quincy University, USA; Millikin University, USA; and Carleton University, Canada.
2008 •
História: Questões & Debates, vol. 43, p. 13-32
Changing Reality: the Baha'i Community and the Creation of a New Reality2005 •
It is now well accepted by social scientists that human beings create reality socially and communally. The culture or world-view that is created is particularly stable in that it is taken for granted and is usually not therefore questioned. This paper looks at the attempts being made by the Bahá’í community throughout the world to change this socially created reality. In particular, this paper looks at the hierarchically organized social structure that has been the norm for human beings ever since we started to live in cities. The Bahá’í teachings criticize this norm, hold it to be responsible for the competitiveness and aggression that currently afflicts the world with such ills as warfare (through national competitiveness), environmental degradation (through business competitiveness) and the social elite’s domination over and aggression towards women, the lower social classes and ethnic minorities. The Bahá’í teachings speak of the need to see the world in a different way: as one country with all human beings as the citizens of that country and equally valuable components of it. But it is above all in the structure and functioning of the Bahá’í community that this change of reality is slowly being put into effect. Power and authority are taken away from individuals in the Bahá’í community structure. Authority is vested in institutions that are elected without electioneering or nomination of candidates. Decisions are taken on the basis of a participative consultation process. Power is decentralized as much as is practical and ultimately resides in the individual Bahá’í, since the institutions have no power to coerce the cooperation of Bahá’ís in their plans. The aim of the current plans that are being effected in the Bahá’í community is to increase human resources within the community by motivating every individual Bahá’í to take a full part in the processes of consultative study of the scriptures, devotional meetings and children’s classes, thus changing the individual Bahá’ís from the passivity of being a member of a congregation to active participation in the community. It is only through such mobilization of the individual that power can effectively be devolved down to that level.
Christopher Buck, “A Symbolic Profile of the Baha’i Faith.” Journal of Baha’i Studies 8.4 (1998): 1–48. ABSTRACT Advanced study of the Bahá’í Faith must still deal with basics. While considerable progress has been made in historical research on Bábí and Bahá’í origins, much foundational work in Bahá’í Studies remains to be done at the level of text. Based on primary sources, this study will present a “symbolic profile” of Bahá’í consciousness, to the extent that it is shaped by the writings of Bahá’u’lláh and ancillary texts. To order and classify the symbols, this profile will employ Ninian Smart’s dimensional model of religion, using the present writer’s acronym, DREEMS (Doctrinal, Ritual, Ethical, Experiential, Mythic, Social). Sherry Ortner’s key symbols paradigm, consisting of thought-orientating “root metaphors” and action-inciting “key scenarios,” completes the profile, while John Wansbrough provides insight into the formation of a new religious ethos through a process of symbolic transformation. This study will highlight some of the predominant Bahá’í symbols, to which others will surely be added. In his analysis of the Bahá’í symbolic vision, Alessandro Bausani writes: __________________ An expression like: ‘the dove of eternity sings on the branches of the Túbá tree’ (the name of a tree symbolic of Muslim paradise) is susceptible of three levels of interpretation: (a) realistic level: in a pretty garden on a verdant tree a dove sings fascinating melodies; (b) mystic-symbolic level: in the Gardens of Paradise, outside of this lowly world, saints and blessed ones sing the praises of God; (c) realistic-symbolic level: Bahá’u’lláh at an exact moment in our time sends forth into the world a renewing spirit that will recreate it and give it form again in unitary visible forms, revealing his Writings in a definite place in the earth (the vicinity of Mt. Carmel). The spatial and temporal concreteness therefore, remains but makes itself translucent with eternity. (Bausani, “Some Aspects of the Bahá’í Expressive Style” 43) __________________ This expression, “translucent with eternity,” is instructive, particularly with respect to the symbol’s opacity. A symbol is opaque until it is understood. It need not even be explicable. It is sufficient for it to be intuited. For the one to whom the symbol makes inspirational sense, the symbol is translucent, at once a way of looking at present reality, and at the same time affording a glimpse of the potential future, of a possible collective scenario, of the ideal real, the translucent shadows of the spiritual world to which a Bahá’í is ontologically and morally committed. These symbols take on a life of their own. In the inner world of spiritual consciousness, Bahá’u’lláh speaks of “subtle mysteries.” These are described as the “fruits of communion” with God in the garden of the heart. “By My life, O friend,” Bahá’u’lláh writes, “wert thou to taste of these fruits, from the green garden of these blossoms which grow in the lands of knowledge, beside the orient lights of the Essence in the mirrors of names and attributes—yearning would seize the reins of patience and reserve from out thy hand, and make thy soul to shake with the flashing light, and draw thee from the earthly homeland to the first, heavenly abode in the Center of Realities, and lift thee to a plane wherein thou wouldst soar in the air even as thou walkest upon the earth, and move over the water as thou rushest on the land.” (Bahá’u’lláh, The Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys 3–4) A series of potent images impels the believer to recreate waking life. Like dream-logic, Bahá’í symbolism is the logic of a vision of the world at peace, given its initial moral and spiritual impetus by Bahá’u’lláh. This poetic vision is a resource. It instills faith. If such faith is creative, it expresses itself in action. In this way, faith shapes social reality.
2013 •
1999 •
Christopher Buck, Paradise & Paradigm: Key Symbols in Persian Christianity and the Baha’i Faith (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999). Opening paragraph: Religions enshrine symbols, the stained-glass windows of faith. Sacred symbols present an explorable treasury of religious thought—an information-rich, condensed language of spirituality. Symbols are the prisms of ideals and of other religious concerns. Symbols are susceptible of analysis and are proper objects of study. As symbols encode ideas, they require interpretation to be both understood and meaningfully compared. “We can see that an essential ingredient of the modern study of religion,” writes Ninian Smart, “is symbolic analysis, which tries to throw light on the various themes which can be discovered cross-culturally through the exploration of various worldviews” (1985, 33). Symbolic analysis involves not only the exploration of religious worldviews intrinsically, but comparatively as well. Closing paragraphs: Symbols ensoul ideas. In the Abrahamic faiths generally, the most important symbol-complex is eschatological imagery, the positive focus of which is Paradise. Visions of the empyreal realm have, historically, had an extraordinary power to inspire. Paradise is iconoplastic. The beatific panorama, the symbolic landscape, the ideals and imagery that inform Paradise in the religious imagination are grounded in root metaphors and are animated by key scenarios reflecting a theology of activity, in a dynamic interplay of belief and behavior, myth and ritual, within the religious grasp of totality. Paradise allegorizes ideals. These ideals are projected onto heaven. There, in the wish-images of the communal dream, ideals are reified and beatified. In a Berger-esque process of paradisical world-building, Heaven functions as the impressionistic blueprint of the ideal faith-community. Paradise imagery is then dislocated from the speculative and refocused on earth. When once the heart is transformed and society reformed, Paradise is realized. In the intersection of eschatology and ethics, in the interplay of ideas and imagery, and as a function of an organizing principle, an overarching paradigm, Paradise becomes utopia.
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