I’m familiar with Juan Cole’s ideas about the Baha’i Faith and have no issue with reading and studying any of his papers to provide a critique. My understanding is he was attracted to the Baha’i Faith because of the values that aligned to Western secular values. He wanted to see the Baha’i Faith move in that direction. However, the Baha’i Faith as we all know is a religion with theocratic elements. His efforts to promote a community more aligned with Western secularism and less religious and theocratic didn’t work out. He became disaffected and left.
Yes that's the summary conclusion I came to too. I think though, that most ex-________ s, just leave quietly with no need to fill the air with their personal reasons. So those who do are a small subset of all those who leave, and not representative at all.