English (UK)
فارسی 
“efforts, spanning over twenty-five years, to promote erroneous and misleading perspectives on the Baha’i teachings.” (NSA of New Zealand, June 17, 2016) This is positive in one sense, since the assertion that I was claiming some authority for my views has been dropped. I never claimed any authority, and state specifically that my views are simply my views. However what my “erroneous perspectives” are has apparently not been specified. Baha’is may ask themselves whether their own perspectives might include something erroneous and misleading. Many Baha’is have found some part of my research useful, some have claimed that my views are erroneous, but they diverge among themselves as to the topic and where my error lies. Probably there is no stance that I have outlined in my writing that is not held by at least one member of the House of Justice or the International Teaching Centre. So whether my error is left unspecified, or an attempt is made to reach agreement among the leaders of the community to specify what is an error, the result of this approach can only be more confusion, and even disunity.
On August 6 this year, in response to one of the friends who objected to my explanation of the Seven Candles of Unity and wanted it removed from my blog, I wrote to the Universal House of Justice asking “whether there is anything on my Baha’i Studies blog that you would prefer me to remove?” If there are erroneous perspectives that warrant my exclusion from the membership rolls, this query will both reveal what they are, and solve the problem: I will remove them.
I have in the past (1997, 2007 and 2010) invited the Universal House of Justice and the International Teaching Centre to request explanations from me if they have any specific concerns. They have not responded, which suggests that my “erroneous and misleading perspectives” are not really a question of concern for those institutions — or that they found they could not reach agreement among themselves as to what was a question of concern. If an individual member of these institutions feels strongly that my perspective on some point is erroneous, he can write a paper or make a recorded presentation on the topic, and drop me an email to draw my attention to it.
