I don't agree. The actions and beliefs that a person adopts when they are twenty informs the type of person that they will be at forty; when they run a family, or a company, or a country. While a person can and and may change dramatically over the course of their life, that is the exception, not the rule. And organizations, being solely comprised of people, follow the same model. What we see from Baha'i in the here and now of early adulthood is what we would expect to see even more deeply ingrained in its middle-age, or its seniority.
I do not know why you keep saying that. In a theocracy of any type, only adherents can hold policy-making positions. And those policy-makers are constrained to laws that conform to the theocratic doctrine. That alone makes it an unequal and unjust society.
To a limited and precarious extent. Yesterday's passing of Ginsberg has a lot of people worried about SCOTUS and if all of that promotion and implementation is going to be reversed over the coming years.
Thru the abolition of de jure and de facto laws and policies that are based on religious doctrines or cultural traditions. By normalizing marginalized communities. By educating people to be more literate in reason, statistics, and large numbers. Not advanced math or philosophy. Practically literate, so as to help people avoid predation through those avenues.
We are dealing with complex issues.
It is worth considering the term was first used by the Jewish historian Josephus in the first century AD in reference to types of government and distinguishing the Jewish government as theocratic compared to other types of government at the time that could loosely be considered as monarchy, oligarchy or democracy.
Theocracy - Wikipedia
The theocracies we are most familiar with are associated with the Catholic Church in Europe that was eventually upended by the Protestant reformation. There have also been various incarnations of Islamic theocracies since its inception under the Prophet Muhammad's bringing together disparate tribes under the Constitution of Medina. Even at that stage there was religious pluralism rather than rule under Islamic law.
Examples of theocracies today would include the Catholic rule in the Vatican City, Sha'i Islam in Iran, and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The conditions in the world and religion suggest to most of us that theocracies do more harm than good and there should be a good degree of separation between the state and ecclesiastical organisations.
There are certainly a plethora of statements within the Baha'i writings that support the separation of church and state as being best for humanity for now.
Looking through history of Islam and Europe when the Roman Catholic Church was at the peak of its powers, conditions were very different from today. Obvious examples were the lack of democracy, slavery was normative, society was male dominated and levels of general education were poor. Theocracies, whether Islamic or Christian were only partially theocratic and the institutions used for governance within faith communities and the wider community were generally not derived from the explicit Revelations of either Muhammad or Jesus.
Its worth considering in the USA today that the imposition of a theocracy would be disastrous despite a majority of Christians and indeed the attempts of some religious organisations to impose Christian values appears to be causing much more harm than good.
The Baha'i community has no desire to become enmeshed in the various machinations of such competing societal forces and deliberately remains aloof from partisan politics.
It is certainly envisaged in the distant future that a Baha'i state or superstate will emerge. However the arrangements will be very different from anything that has gone before, just as the conditions of the community will be vastly different from what there has been in the past.
Another useful letter from the Universal House of Justice explores the concepts of separation of Church and State and theocracy as appears in the writings.
Theocracy and Separation of Church and State
From that letter we have:
The Bahá'í Commonwealth of the future, of which this vast Administrative Order is the sole framework, is, both in theory and practice, not only unique in the entire history of political institutions, but can find no parallel in the annals of any of the world s recognized religious systems No form of democratic government; no system of autocracy or of dictatorship, whether monarchical or republican; no intermediary scheme of a purely aristocratic order; nor even any of the recognized types of theocracy, whether it be the Hebrew Commonwealth, or the various Christian ecclesiastical organizations, or the Imamate or the Caliphate in Islam none of these can be identified or be said to conform with the Administrative Order which the master hand of its perfect Architect has fashioned.
It is clear from the same letter that any Baha'i State will come about through democratic means.
In regards homosexual behaviour, the Abrahamic Prophets whether Moses, Christ, Muhammad or more recently Baha'u'llah are opposed. The existence of a God who sends Prophets and laws is a key difference between our worldviews and what has led you to post your OP on RF. That difference will not be resolved through this discussion and we will need to agree to disagree. Its been an interesting post that has captured our attention and its good to challenge our thinking about the future and government. As you can appreciate the Baha'is won't be overthrowing any government anytime soon.
Let them refrain from associating themselves, whether by word or by deed, with the political pursuits of their respective nations, with the policies of their governments and the schemes and programmes of parties and factions .... Let them affirm their unyielding determination to stand, firmly and unreservedly, for the way of Bahá'u'lláh, to avoid the entanglements and bickerings inseparable from the pursuits of the politician, and to become worthy agencies of that Divine Polity which incarnates God's immutable Purpose for all men....
