William Jennings Bryan becomes a Baha'i in 1906/1907

[manav95]

As I was reading some history recently, I found out the William Jennings Bryan met with Abdul Baha in 1906 in Akka. This was part of his extensive travels in the Middle East and he felt very supportive of Abdul Baha and his supposed efforts to reform Islam. Of course by that point the Bahais had been a separate religion for 62 years and had begun to spread to the West. I wonder what would have happened if Brian took a greater interest in studying the faith and later wound up becoming a Baha'i. I feel this is plausible as Bryan was a devout Christian and devoted to theological matters. My question is what would happen afterwards, especially as Bryan is unlikely to run for President in 1908 given the Baha'i disdain for partisan politics. At this point it was not well established, but Abdul Baha encouraged his followers to remain largely aloof of the political matters of their day.

 

[overoceans]

Kinda mess up his arguments at the Scopes Trial.

 

[David T]

Any interest Bryan would show in it would simply be as a way to lead the peoples of the Muslim world to Christianity. There is absolutely no question of Bryan himself embracing any religion other than Christianity.

 

[overoceans]

Any interest Bryan would show in it would simply be as a way to lead the peoples of the Muslim world to Christianity. There is absolutely no question of Bryan himself embracing any religion other than Christianity.

At most, it could possibly be something like Henry R. Luce praising China by saying that the next best thing thing to a Presbyterian is a Confucian. And factoring in that, unlike Luce, Bryan was a fundamentalist who thought that the difference between Christians and everyone else was that everyone else was going to burn in hell forever.

 

[overoceans]

I admit it would be interesting to see a Bahai political wank, but I just don' t think Bryan is the guy to do it. Maybe Jimmy Carter could make their cause a distinct part of his human-rights agenda?