On Religious Adherents That Remain a Challenge for Christian Witness: Among them, Baha'i
It has been interesting to watch the number of sites that picked up the story today of a Baha'i woman who emmigrated from Iran, met a Christian man and married him, converting to Christianity herself. People do leave the Faith. The individual is entirely free to come and go, the "independent investigation of truth" being a core value of the Baha'i Faith.
My guess is that many of the sites that chose to re-post this particular article did so precisely because, while it's not especially surprising if a Christian becomes a Baha'i, it is something of a surprise when Baha'i becomes a Christian. To Christians who worry about the general appeal and the rapid growth of the Baha'i Faith, to have at least some examples of movement in the other direction is a comfort.
This evening I read a post here on the challenges for Christians in reaching the remaining "unreached people" in the world. Below are a few paragraphs that caught my eye, but click over and read the post in its entirety.
Christianity has become the most global of religions. There is no country without a Christian witness and only 10 without a visible congregation of indigenous believers (8 in Asia, 2 in Africa). There are 18 countries with a resident Christian population of less than 1%, and a further 22 with less than 5%. Over the 20th Century, Christianity declined slightly from 34.5% in 1900 to 32.5% in 2000. The precipitous decline of the past 30 years in Europe has been balanced by the growth in Asia and Africa. ...Sectarianism. The term 'sect' is loaded and misused. Many genuine believers in Christ are persecuted or harassed because of being so described. Yet there are millions of 'Christians' who define their own church or group as the sole possessors of Truth — some such are the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and many other smaller groups. They need to be freed from the teachings that have ensnared them. ...Numerous other religions remain a challenge for Christian witness — the 6 million Baha'i worldwide, 4 million Jains in India and the 3.5 million Parsees. Very few Jains or Parsees have ever come to faith in Christ.
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