I was 20 years old. I was in France, in 1969, on a month’s immersion in the French language. Through a series of bizarre happenings, I ended up reading a book (in English), entitled “Thief in the Night”. The title came from Jesus’s prophecy that His next coming would happen just like a thief coming (and going!) in the night, effectively in secret, while everyone was “asleep”. The book itself detailed many Biblical prophecies, and ended up concluding that the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh - two luminous religious figures of the nineteenth century – had been the fulfilment of the promises of both the Old and the New Testament.
I weighed the book up as a Christian, thought carefully about the proofs in the
book, then about my own beliefs and goals, and decided that what Christ would
wish me to do now was move on from my current position and recognise Bahá'u'lláh
as the return of Christ. This also involved recognising the Báb as the One Who
prepared the way for the coming of Bahá’u’lláh. That is how I became a Bahá’í. The
Bahá’í Faith has the same spiritual foundation as Christianity, and it expands our
understanding of many of these spiritual truths. There are also new teachings
on how the world should be run – social principles for a new age, based on
eternal spiritual principles, and which are designed to bring unity to the
world. At the core of both religions is the fundamental belief that there is
a Creator, and that a series of different religious teachers has been sent by
God to help mankind develop an ever-advancing civilisation. Viewed from a
Bahá’í perspective, both are chapters in God’s eternal Faith.
Before each major step forward, mankind receives notification of the event. When
Jesus appeared, His coming was foretold by John the Baptist, who ended up dying
at the hands of the authorities. In the same way, Bahá’u’lláh was preceded by
the Báb, Who was likewise martyred for His teachings. Fundamental to the Báb’s
Message was that a very significant divine Messenger would soon appear. After
the Báb’s execution, Bahá’u’lláh claimed to be that Promised One.
Bahá'u'lláh was sent as a prisoner to the Holy Land, from where He proclaimed a
new Message: that all human beings are essentially One – evolving from one
original population, cared for by the same Creator - and that they should now see
themselves as one family, and build a world-wide civilisation. To that end, He
proclaimed that men and women should be treated equally, and that we should transcend
all divisions of class, colour, language and religion. Instead of conflict and
competition between different cultures and groups, we should cherish the
variety in humanity, while emphasising our essential oneness. In just the same
way that those who accepted the mission of Jesus were thereafter considered as
a new community, known as Christians, those who have accepted the mission of
Bahá’u’lláh are now considered as a new community, known as Bahá’ís.
It is now many years since I read the book which led to me becoming a Bahá’í. For
many of those years, my wife and I have been running the Warwick Bahá’í
Bookshop, which is not a physical shop, but a small enterprise providing Bahá’í
literature of various kinds, some of it produced by ourselves, which is sold at
events, or supplied by post. My wife suggested to me that it would be useful
for people to have available a book much shorter and less expensive than “Thief
in the Night” (the one which I originally read), but which similarly dealt with
Biblical prophecies and their possible fulfilment in the coming of first the
Báb and then Bahá’u’lláh. So I set out to write one! The biggest difficulty I
had was not in choosing which points to make. Nor was it finding evidence to
support my argument. It was finding out just how different the Bible translations
are from one another! This was a big surprise to me. When I was young, the
schools I attended all used the King James Version – very antiquated English, granted,
but then, the Bible is a very old book. However, it all sounded so definite and
authoritative. But since then, so many different people have had a go at
translating the Bible into English, using slightly different approaches, and
sometimes producing what seem to be very different results, that the implicit
certainty has evaporated! My wife and I compared some of these translations,
and eventually decided to use the New Revised Standard Version (Updated), as it
seems to have the flavour of the King James Version, but is more modern in its use
of English. However, in some cases, the meaning of a particular Biblical quote
I had been planning to use now seemed so different that I had to search for a
similar quote in which the meaning did not seem to have changed.
Undertaking the task of writing this book has confirmed my conviction that the
Bahá’í Faith is God’s religion for the new age. I hope that the book, which
is only 48 pages long, will be an easy read for most people, and introduce them
to what appears to be a new revelation of religion. I have received warm support
and encouragement for writing this book, mostly from other Bahá’ís but also
from people who have not yet found true satisfaction in religion. I hope I
still get the same level of support once they have read it! After prolonged
effort and a lot of work over several years, it has finally been published,
under our imprint: “Warwick Bahá’í Bookshop”.
The Biblical references to the return of Christ stress that there will be
clouds. The return will be “in clouds” or “on clouds” or “with clouds”. My book
deals in some detail with the various meanings of these “clouds”, as well as
with the details of the time and place of the second coming. This is why the
title is “Seeing Through the Clouds”.
I am hopeful that the book will lead some people to accept Bahá’u’lláh as the
return of Christ, but at the same time I am hoping that the book will do a
little bit towards helping Bahá’ís who were not previously Christians (possibly
atheists, Jews or Hindus, for example) to better understand the relationship
between Jesus and Bahá’u’lláh. My sincere hope is that it will help everyone to
see through all those clouds which have hindered us from recognising Christ
when He returned to Earth “like a thief in the night”…
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Publishing information:
Title: “Seeing Through the Clouds – the Return of Christ”
Author: Patrick Vickers
Publisher: Warwick Bahá’í Bookshop
ISBN: 078-1-7392613-2-0
48 pages
Price £1.50 in the U.K.
