The Need for Bahá'ís of Capacity and Expertise

(This is a slightly edited transcript of a talk given by Dr. Peter Khan at a meeting of a group of Bahá’ís in Sydney on 14 August 2002.  Headings have been added.)

I want to talk about what I see to be the role and the needs in the Bahá’í community around the world—including of course Australia—concerning Bahá’ís who have particular expertise or unusual capacity or training. I want to make 3 fairly general points and 3 very specific ones and then I want to say a little bit about what I see to be some of the specialised needs at the World Centre.  

 1.  Need for Bahá’ís of Capacity

Let me make my 3 general points first. The first point I want to make is very specifically that I see from my perspective as a member of the House of Justice that the Faith as it develops now has a growing need for Bahá’ís of capacity and of specialised training. These may be mutually exclusive in some cases but nevertheless we do need both.  We need Bahá’ís who have capacity, who have specialised training in the professions and other areas.

We need this for several reasons. One is the fact that the needs of the Faith are becoming much more complex than in the days of the 10 year Crusade when basically we needed people who could go off and open up Tahiti and Vanuatu and all kinds of other places.  Now it’s much more complicated. It’s complicated for several reasons.

One is the fact that we have much larger Bahá’í communities to deal with. I was a Bahá’í youth when there were 145 Bahá’ís in the whole of Australia from one end to the other. The youngest Bahá’í in Tasmania was 47 years old.  That was the kind of background that I can still remember. Now we have 500 odd in Brisbane and heaven knows how many thousand Bahá’ís in New South Wales and so on. So all over the world Bahá’í communities are becoming much larger and more complex.

Second reason is the fact that the world is in a bigger mess than it was some years ago, which means our administrative bodies have to deal with far more complex problems than ever before.  It’s not for me to sit here and tell you secrets about your National Spiritual Assembly. But the kinds of things your National Assembly deals with, we would not have dreamt of when I was on the National Assembly. It is stunning the degree of complexity, the degree of danger, the degree of subtlety that is required of the Faith because of the disorder in society. That disorder affecting those who enter the Faith, those who are influenced by it from within the Faith, as well as the Faith having to do things it did not have to do before, because society was in better shape.

And thirdly, the growing opposition to the Faith. The Faith is subject as you know from the 7 stages that Shoghi Effendi talked about. Obscurity and then persecution, we’re entering the stage of persecution, there is more antagonism, more tension, more challenge to the Faith. For all these reasons we need more and more Bahá’ís who have a high level of expertise and training. People of capacity to help us carry out the work of the Faith.

Beyond that is a larger reason, that any organisation that focuses on its present needs is bound to go out of business. You know from looking at industrial development or management or the like that a company that focuses on what is its present market, is going to go down the drain.  It should be rather anticipating the future, looking at trends and developments and planning for the market of the future.

Well, we are not a marketing organisation but we are an organisation. And the best way to hold the Faith back would be to assume that the needs we have today are the needs that we will have in 10 or 20 years time. All kinds of needs will emerge at some time in the future which we are presently unaware of.

We could not have envisaged 10 or 15 years ago, the demands made on the Faith with the constitutional development in South Africa. When a new regime, Mandela, came to power, they decided to revise the South African constitution, and they were open to input from the Bahá’í community.  It was a challenge. We met it reasonably well. In terms of the input that the Bahá’ís made in South Africa to that.

When South-west Africa became the independent nation of Namibia, it was wide open. To a large extent, it still is open to Bahá’í influence and as you may know, the United Nations report on the governance of Namibia when it became independent spent some time discussing the Bahá’í approach to elections and regarded it as the most democratic means that had been developed, although it didn’t say it should be used in Namibia at that time. One could not have anticipated several years before hand, the prospects for the Faith to make an informed input to constitutional development in Namibia, South Africa and other countries. And there are all kinds of other things that are emerging down the line that one can see in Central Asia, Mongolia, and other places which could not have been envisaged readily some years ago.

So one of the reasons we need Bahá’ís of expertise and capacity is to help us meet the needs of the Faith at this time and in the future. Already we have wonderful Bahá’ís who have helped us enormously. For example in Uzbekistan, we’re doing well because there are some eminent Bahá’ís who’ve been involved as advisors to the government of Uzbekistan in one aspect of its industrial development.  We are in the situation where Bahá’ís get to know people like the President of Uzbekistan and the like through their professional capacity and are able to use that to introduce the National Assembly of Uzbekistan to people who can be influenced, to know what the Faith really is about, not to lump us in with all kinds of weird things that have been spread in Uzbekistan at this time.

So these are some of the reasons why we need Bahá’ís of capacity at this time and in the future. Obviously, the Bahá’ís of such capacity and training bring credibility and prestige to the Faith and also help us overcome the false dichotomy which has plagued religion for thousands of years, the false dichotomy between spiritual and intellectual.

In so many instances, what is regarded as either one or the other.  If you’re a spiritual person it means you’re impractical, you’re illogical, you’re irrational. By that definition you are spiritual.  If you’re intellectual, it means you have no time for the spirit, it’s all imaginary, you don’t believe any of it, for that reason these are antagonists. You find that this false dichotomy still exists in our society, consciously and unconsciously. And we need Bahá’ís who have demonstrated their intellectual credibility by their positions of eminence in the professions, having also demonstrated a spiritual commitment, as manifest in their daily life, in their attitude and the like, to show that that is a false dichotomy.

If you look at the history of religions, you find that they go through certain phases. And one of those phases is when a religion is about 100-200 years old. By that time it is somewhat less defensive. It’s not going to get wiped out, it feels as if it’ll probably survive and make it. Yet it’s not going to sweep the world.  If you look at Christianity, the second and third centuries AD, it had survived the intense persecutions of the time after the crucifixion.  It had not triumphed in the world.  Jesus had said that a generation shall not pass away before I return. They had passed away and He hadn’t returned.  So it was to some extent disappointed that the Mediterranean and Roman world had not instantly become Christian, yet it was plugging away.

If you look at Christianity at that point, that was the time where it was very vulnerable to superstitious ideas, to all kinds of weird interpretations of the Christian message. You find that was the time of people who lived on top of poles and went off into caves and flagellated their flesh in order to become more spiritual. Things that we regard as plain crazy today.

The Faith doesn’t go to those extremes and obviously the Covenant provides a protection to us.  Nevertheless, the Faith is subject to disproportionate influence due to superstitions, to pilgrim notes, to various fads and ideas, to the mixing of particular cultures with the basic teachings, and we need to avoid that. It’s difficult but it is a challenge to us.

The spread of ideas is amplified by the Internet. All kinds of people get all kinds of crazy ideas.  Next thing you know, they whisper it to their friend on the Internet and the thing is all over the world.  And then the House of Justice gets 50 letters saying, you know, did somebody build a building over where the House of the Bab was and so on.  And these things are not true but they are spread all over the earth.

We need Bahá’ís who are very involved in the work of the Faith, who are also rationalistic, who are capable of good solid logical thinking; who are not sceptics but are also are not naïve, to help to avoid the Faith falling into a variety of traps due to pilgrim notes, due to catastrophes supposedly coming next week, and all this kind of stuff. All kinds of ideas which are superstitious and which are part of the challenge to a religion at this stage in its growth.  And that is one of the other reasons why we need Bahá’ís of training and capacity to help us avoid those dangers. 

2.  The Dangers of A Sense of Superiority

That’s the first of my 3 general ideas. The second one is I want to mention to you is what I see to be some of the challenges facing people such as yourselves.  And I am talking to you not because you are the be-all and the end-all of the universe but rather that I am hoping that those ideas which you find useful, you will share with others.  There are several challenges which I think you face.

One is that, like it or not, a lot of Bahá’í activity has to appeal to the mass of the population of the Bahá’í community.  What this means is that those who have particular training and expertise, will find that a lot of Bahá’í activities may tend to be repetitious or even boring.  And sometimes one becomes sour on this, “It is the same old thing, I’m not going, I’ve already heard that 20 times, I don’t want to go again.”  Now this comes with the territory.

There’s not a lot you can do about it, because we are committed to bringing up the entire Bahá’í community.  We can’t have every meeting highly elite, fancy and intellectual, just for the sake of the 3% of the population that would find it fascinating and lose the other 97%.  We are stuck with having to address the mean, the median population.  And that means that those who have special training in their mind will find it repetitious and sometimes a little dull and they’ve heard this stuff before.  But I think one needs to recognise that this is one of the challenges one faces and one needs to go with it.

If you wish, you can sort of put your mind in idle, or count the number of squares on the ceiling, or do whatever you like.  But far more dangerous is the danger of unconsciously developing a sense of superiority to the other friends in the community.

We have believers who have pretty much memorised the Advent of Divine Justice.  We have people who have mastered certain books of the Faith, and we have other friends who wouldn’t know it if they tripped over it.  They have never read Advent of Divine Justice and don’t even know that it exists. Fine. The danger is that type A will look down on type B. They will say that that person is a dummy. That person does not know anything about the Faith. ‘I’ve read all this stuff. I know a whole lot more.’ And they will develop a sense of superiority and that is so dangerous, because we cannot confuse the spiritual condition of an individual with what they know about the Faith or how administratively adept they are.  The spiritual condition, we have messages of the House of Justice, one of which says that spiritual condition is known to nobody but God.  And that’s great.  That’s beautiful poetry. That’s lovely for us to say it to each other but it is really true.

And the challenge of any believer who develops any expertise or arises to any position of eminence in their education, or their job or their profession or their whatever, is that believer, he or she faces the danger of subtly or unconsciously developing a sense of superiority, of feeling themselves spiritually superior to the rank and file of the believers, to Bahá’ís who may be illiterate or they be functionally semi-literate or barely know what’s what and can’t remember whether it is Bahá'u'lláh who is the Manifestation and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá the Son or other way around. You know these kinds of things.  This is one danger that we all face from this particular capacity.

Another danger is that one can become so drawn into one’s professional or intellectual activity that one weakens in one’s devotion to the Faith. Our batting record is not tremendously good worldwide. We have a number of Bahá’ís who’ve come to the very top of their profession but found it so fascinating, so absorbing, and so stimulating compared to their 19 day Feast with 8 other people who are of a far different social, intellectual, financial level, that they got drawn off into the other activities and became weakened in their devotion and their activity level, and ultimately in their commitment to the Faith.

I had a friend when I was living in Michigan and he was the chief engineer for the truck division of one of the big 3 Auto Makers; you know GM, Ford, and Chrysler in those days. He was a very active and very devoted Bahá’í and he functioned at a high professional level as chief engineer, and he was part of a small Bahá’í community and they were rank and file run-of-the-mill friends who were part of it.  I noticed over the 12 years that I was in Michigan that this process of alienation from the community happened to him. He would meet with very high level people who were high in government or in the financial world and the like every day, and then he’d come home and there’s the Feast tonight and it’s at a whole different intellectual level and social level in homes that are very rudimentary. And gradually it got to him, and he drifted away from the Faith, ultimately becoming totally inactive.  His kids did not become Bahá’í, and the whole family just vanished into the wild blue yonder as far as Bahá’í activity occurs. And I’ve seen it with people like him and with others that I have known who’ve reached positions of high capability and eminence, but the price they paid was the loss of their devotion and commitment to the Faith.  I’m sure at this stage in your lives, you will agree it’s too high a price. I don’t need you to agree with that now, I need you to agree with that in 20 years time, when you’ve reached positions of eminence, influence and wealth and so on.  Today you’re just starting out, we all agree with it, it’s self evident.  The challenge is to maintain that level of agreement with this principle in the years to come. Otherwise, it’s not worth it.  It really would have been better not to go to university, not to have got involved in a profession, to save your devotion. Yet, when you do have believers who combine the two, then you’re really cooking with gas. It’s something wonderful. 

One of my friends from the United States, who has recently retired from the National Spiritual Assembly, became Professor of History at Yale University and well known for the intellectual integrity of his classes and his scholarly works on Russian history.  He is a very active Bahá’í, fully involved in the work of the Faith, in its functioning in whatever he was called upon to do. Where you have someone like that who has combined the two, then the kind of influence one has is incredible.  What he contributed to the work of the Faith in External Affairs in Washington DC is unbelievable.  Because he is so well known in government circles in Washington for his professional eminence and yet he is a very dedicated believer, he could have impressive credibility.  Whenever he went to the White House or the State Department, he would be immediately accepted because people there know his professional reputation, they know what he’s done.

So when you combine the two, it’s tremendous. We have another Bahá’í friend of ours who is the manager of a major division of Deutsche Bank, which is a large international bank.  And he’s a very dedicated believer. Totally committed to the work of the Faith and I have seen the influence he’s had with Bahá’í activities, because of his professional eminence combined with his total dedication to the Faith.

These are just 2 examples.  I could think of at least 20 more if I really tried. This is very wonderful for the Faith, but it does require one to learn to retain one’s devotion even though the activity in one’s profession grows.

There’s also a challenge to avoid the kinds of things that the Kitáb-i-Aqdas warns us about.  The Kitáb-i-Aqdas has some really funny passages, and I find I laugh whenever I read them. There is one verse where Bahá'u'lláh speaks about the person who has great desire for leadership. He describes that person walking and hearing the tread of sandals of the devotees following in his footsteps, and Bahá'u'lláh then says something very nasty about him. I forget what it was but he obviously, he says to him this is nothing, you’re just consumed by your own ego in your desire for leadership.

And there is a delightful passage where Bahá'u'lláh speaks about the character with false humility who turns up in the room and sits with the sandals. We don’t have a lot of sandals around here tonight.  Normally, from my understanding in Eastern homes, you leave your shoes at the door, the place of honour is deep in the room, and the person sitting by the sandals is in the cheap seats, where the hoi-polloi sit.  This person comes and deliberately sits by the sandals saying: ‘I’m just nothing’ ‘I’m just sitting by the sandals’ but Bahá'u'lláh describes him as thinking: ‘I should be up there with the big guys.’ ‘I really belong up there in the seat of honour.  But I’m just down here so people will see me and say: ‘look how humble he is, sitting down by the sandals.  Let’s whistle him up here.’ And Bahá'u'lláh again condemns this person.  

And the third one I remember from the Kitáb-i-Aqdas is where Bahá'u'lláh refers to the person who feels he has esoteric knowledge.  He knows what the stuff really means, the real secret depths that you and I have no idea about.  He really understands it. Bahá'u'lláh refers to this person who feels he has a level of insight that no one else has. And He says,  what you have is just the ‘husks left to dogs’. You know when you have a pet dog that bites away at the bone and if he doesn’t bury it, there is a dead bone lying around; Bahá'u'lláh is saying that that is what you have, you don’t have fancy secret deep insights that no-one else has.

So Bahá’ís of expertise have those 3 dangers that Bahá'u'lláh speaks off. The danger of becoming a guru and feeling that you should be a guru and everyone else should hang on your every word.  The danger of false humility, where you come in and say you’re no more than everyone else, but in fact you really think you are.  And the third one, the danger of you believing that you have deep insights that the hoi-polloi don’t have and therefore you are in some way superior to them.

That is the second of the 3 general ideas of the dangers one faces.

3. The Need for Intensive Study of The Guardian’s Writings

The third is general but it’s also somewhat specific.  Of all the needs that the Bahá’í community has around the world, there is one that is very pressing.  And it’s simply this. We need more Bahá’ís who have mastered the writings of Shoghi Effendi. It’s as simple as that.

We need more Bahá’ís who really have cracked those books; who have a deep understanding of, and a deep awareness of, what Shoghi Effendi wrote about in his major books; in The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh; Advent of Divine Justice; Promised Day is Come; Citadel of Faith – I think it is back in print, and there is another book coming out, This Decisive Hour, which is just revised Messages to America and was out of print for a number of years; and Bahá’í Administration.  Apart from God Passes By, which is in a separate category of importance. We need people who have studied these books so well that they know them very well. We don’t have this enough in the Bahá’í world. We have a few Bahá’ís who have this level of expertise in those books but not nearly enough. So many of the problems we have in administering the Cause throughout the world could be solved by the insights the believers would get from a deep and sustained study of the writings of the Guardian.

There are all kinds of things there, pertinent to the development of the Bahá’í community today and tomorrow.  I remember about 35 years ago, the National Assembly of the United States got me to prepare a study guide on Promised Day is Come.  I read it and read it about 15 times, and then I started making the study guide. But as I read it, each time I learnt more and more about it.  I eventually came to the conclusion that the Promised Day is Come is a book by the Guardian about organic change.  Ostensibly, it’s about organic change in the world:  these kings lose their thrones and the Faith triumphs over difficulties.  But it is also about other kinds of organic change, it is in a sense (and this is just my own understanding) also a book of psychology, about how individuals change.  Because the processes that are described macroscopically in Promised Day is Come also occur within the individual as he or she is transformed after coming into contact with the writings, with processes of decline and growth occurring simultaneously in outlook, values, and orientation.  So I realise that there were many levels at which the Promised Day is Come should be examined and considered, macroscopically and also microscopically in terms of individuals.

Advent of Divine Justice – The early part of Advent of Divine Justice discusses the seven stages in the development of the Faith: obscurity, persecution, emancipation, recognition and so forth.  One needs to understand what they are.  Beyond that is the question: Why does obscurity lead to the second stage of persecution or oppression? Why does that lead to the third stage of emancipation? Why does that come before recognition? And so on.  They become almost psychological questions. Questions of social psychology.  How it is that people in the mass many of them initially ignore the Faith as being obscure but then as they become aware of it, many of them want to repress it or persecute. Why should it be? Why should that stage ultimately lead to the others? 

The latter part of Advent of Divine Justice has some of the most mysterious things the Guardian has ever written. There is a place towards the end of Advent of Divine Justice where Shoghi Effendi refers to America and he refers to the American nation being moved by forces it can neither comprehend nor control, to fulfil its destiny. Ok, take you’re dyed-in-the-wool right wing activist and say to him: ‘you know, your country is being moved by forces it can neither comprehend nor control.’ He’s not going to be very happy. He’s not going to be particularly pleased about this. Yet this is what the Guardian says. What does it mean? What is the spiritual effect of ‘Abdu’l-Baha having come to the North American continent? Of Bahá'u'lláh having addressed the rulers of America in the Aqdás?  Why is it that this nation of all is chosen for the role that he describes in Advent of Divine Justice?

I raise these issues for you because I think it’s important to be aware of the degree of anti-Americanism which there is in the world; the degree of resentment that America with all its noise, brashness and goodness and Coca-Cola, TV and all the rest. The degree of resentment there is in relation to the spiritual role of America described in the writings, and particularly Advent of Divine Justice and some of the letters of World Order. 

We need Bahá’ís to put a major effort into study of the books of the Guardian, the World Order letters particularly. Probably the highest priority is the World Order letters and then Advent of Divine Justice and then the others after that.  It’s very important and that is the first point I want to make.

Let me fairly quickly make 3 fairly specific points and then I’ll make some brief comments about the needs at the World Centre. Then we’ll have supper and we’ll all go home.

Three specific issues that I notice from travelling around the world and seeing the perspective of the world that I see from the World Centre.  These are 3 things of a specific nature that I think would be good for Bahá’ís of awareness and capacity to give more attention to than they do at the present time.

4.  Study of World Events

The first is to study world events from a Bahá’í perspective. What I suggest to be useful is for more Bahá’ís to be au courant with what’s happening in the world today. But from the perspective of the spiritual forces that the Guardian describes rather than from the perspective of the Sydney Morning Herald or The Australian or CNN or BBC or Sky TV or whatever.  We need not get caught up in the turmoil of present day political or partisan political accusations, and counter accusations, yelling and screaming at each other, but look at current events from the perspective, as much as we can, of the Faith.

Social breakdown, we all know it’s occurring. We all know that there are dreadful things happening. Look at the greed inherent in Enron and World Com and, since I’m a polite visitor to this country, I’m not mentioning HIH or One Tel or anything like that.  What does it say about the breakdown of society and the spiritual forces of which the Guardian spoke?  One can discuss such matters at the level of people around us. What a terrible thing it is that this man is buying all these $10,000 watches and sending his secretary around the world.  Alternatively, one can look at it at a far deeper level. What does it tell us about society if there has been this level of greed and this degree of breakdown of what was held to be trust and honour and integrity and the like?  In other words to look at these things from the perspective of the spiritual forces at work in the world today, rather than all the juicy gossip about who did what and how he got away with it, and who should have controlled him and the like.

Another current issue is the refugee problem, which is of course of great concern to Australia.  One can get involved in the partisan element of it and whether a particular person is an Afghan or a Pakistani, or whether they should have sunk their ship or brought it in, or whether the refugees should have sent to Nauru or whatever. One can look from the level at which the newspapers are debating and discussing it. But the far deeper level is, what does it mean from a Bahá’í perspective in terms of the fact that there are these masses of people being dislocated around the world?  Kurdish, Iraqi, Afghan, Bosnians, Herzo-govinians, and so on in various other countries.  And who knows what will happen in South America now with the Argentineans and the Columbians?  There are deeper issues of the movements of people or the breakdown of cultures, the social dislocation, which are relevant to the spiritual forces which the Faith mentions. 

The whole question of Islam and the west. What is our response to Francis Fukuyama? Or Samuel Huntington and various others, with this end of history that Fukuyama goes on about, and the clash of cultures and civilisations that Huntington and others write about? What do we say from a Bahá’í perspective?  It seems to me there are certain things we agree with and certain things we don’t agree with. But we need Bahá’ís not simply to be caught up in the news of Islam in relation to the west or of civilisations in turmoil, but to look at these from the deeper level of what the Faith has to offer.

The same applies to the discussions about modernism and Islam. We have a lot to say at a deeper level. Not at the level of the policies of present-day Muslim politicians or anything like that, but rather at the level of what does it mean for a religion with the tightness of structure of orthodox Islam?  How can such a rigid intellectual structure deal with modernism without giving the whole shop away.  Can it do it?  Can it afford not to do it?  What does it mean for the Faith?  What is the response of the Faith to the challenges of modernism?  How do the unique provisions of the Covenant help us to avoid getting caught in the same trap in 800 years time?

This is the kind of thing I mean, and I could go on and on.

Another issue is the whole question of  paedophilia with clerics in various Christian denominations.  One can deal with that at the juicy level of what the priest did, and what the bishop knew, and this kind of thing.  But one can also deal with it at the deeper level of what it says about the relationship of religious institutions to the laity and the role of clergy and the debasement of their role in present day society.  In other words, from a Bahá’í perspective.

Consider also the future of the Pacific mini-states. Given the present turmoil in PNG and the Solomon Islands and the bleak prospects for Tuvalu with global warming and the rise in the sea level, what do we think as a Bahá’ís? What does this mean in terms of the viability of Pacific mini states in a future world order?  How does it relate? What do we see as being required to rectify the so-called failed states of the world?  At present, Somalia, Cambodia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo in the future seems to be heading that way. What do we feel about social reconstruction? It doesn’t mean we’re now called upon to go to Somalia and reconstruct the place, but we should be stretching our muscles in terms of thinking about a Bahá’í perspective to such issue.

We need to encourage in that way ourselves and others to find legitimate ways of relating the Faith to issues of concern to people in our society without getting drawn into partisan politics.  I suspect if you raise the refugee issue today, it is partisan. I don’t know, but I imagine that it is so polarised at this moment. Whereas, we need to develop ways of getting people to think about what it means for the future in relation to the oneness of mankind; in relation to the various complex issues associated with refugees and people making money out of them, and the conflict and turmoil in their home countries giving rise to their decision to leave.

The question of Zimbabwe and its famine raise a number of issues that can be addressed at a political level in terms of that government’s policies and the confiscation of farms, or at a far deeper level in terms of the emergence of cultures and the development of a multi-racial society. We need to find ways of relating the Faith to the issues of concern to people in the world today at the non-partisan level.  Because otherwise we’ll find ourselves presenting the Faith in terms of what were the issues of the 1950s.  And people move on to other issues and we keep talking about those old issues.  People will say: ‘That’s interesting. That’s very good.  Goodbye.  I’ve got a train to catch.’

5.  Relating Professional Expertise to the Bahá’í Teachings

That’s one of the specific points I wanted to make.  The second one I wanted to make was about Bahá’ís, particularly those in professional activity, endeavouring to find ways to relate their professional expertise to the teachings.

It is very unusual for a Bahá’í who is in some kind of professional activity not to be able to find something in their professional scope which relates to the Bahá’í teachings.  If you’re in business that is easy because business ethics is such a hot topic, with all the agitation going on around the world, and we need to be able to relate the Faith to those issues without coming through as two-bit Southern Baptist evangelists.  It needs to be at a credible level, not at a narrow fundamentalist level, in terms of a realistic understanding of what the hard-core realities are in the business world but related to business ethics.

The same of course with medical ethics, which has become a very prominent issue.  Questions of human rights, political science issues. Bahá’ís who are in political science have a lot of work that they should be helping us with, to relate the insights of political science to the structure of the administrative order. There are zillions of questions unanswered. We don’t have to answer them for ourselves because we have accepted Bahá'u'lláh.  But what is it about our tri-level administrative order that facilitates our presenting it to non-Bahá’ís as the nucleus and the pattern for the future?  For Bahá’ís no problem, since Shoghi Effendi said it.  But to non-Bahá’ís, how do we present it?

And if you want a really big issue, how do you relate the institution of the Counsellors, the Auxiliary Board Members and the Assistants to conventional views of democracy? How do you justify on a rational rather than faith basis, the statements of the House of Justice that that arm of the Administrative Order is indispensable?  Useful is a different question, certainly it’s useful, they’re nice, they don’t get in the way and so on.  The question is not that of useful, the question is that of indispensable. You and I can readily conceive of local Assemblies, national Assemblies, Universal House of Justice, working away without any role for Counsellors, Auxiliary Board members and their Assistants but such a conception is clearly invalid because the House of Justice has said that that arm of the Administrative Order is indispensable.  Ok how come?  What is the indispensability?  We need political scientist Bahá’ís to help clarify issues like this.  It is, in fact, a most interesting issue, and much useful insight can be drawn from political science, history, sociology, and organizational psychology.

Basically we need each Bahá’í who is involved in professional activity to think:  how can I find a way?  How can I develop a theme whereby I can relate this to the Faith? Someone asked me before or during dinner about Bahá’í societies and how to keep people plugged into Bahá’í societies. Where I’ve found successful has been where Bahá’í societies take these fresh-faced undergraduates and say:  Ok you’re studying whatever subject, for example psychology.  Think about ways of relating the Faith to some of the insights of present day psychology without becoming a fundamentalist.  Because it’s easy to do it if you become a fundamentalist.  But without becoming a fundamentalist, think about what you’re learning in school without becoming some know-all who keeps disagreeing with the instructor.  But think about how it relates to the concepts of the Faith. These students may not do the world’s greatest job.  They may not be another Isaac Newton. But at least that will stretch their intellectual muscles in relating the Faith to their professional disciplines. So we don’t have the dichotomy between the intellectual and spiritual elements of life.

I remember when I first went to the USA, I worked for a brilliant scientist, my supervisor for a while, who was a Jehovah’s Witness.  He believed the earth was created in 4004 BC and it was an instantaneous thing.  He and I became good friends and I asked him: “ How in the world can you believe that stuff when you have such eminence in your professional field of science and engineering?”  He and I would discuss it very openly and very warmly with each other, as very good friends.  I realised he had compartmentalised his mind.  He had one set of thinking for religious things that had said 4004 BC, and another set of thinking for scientific things for which he was professionally very competent.  I learnt from the danger of that approach, and how important it is for us as Bahá’ís not to compartmentalise our thinking.

6.  Preparing for Opposition to the Faith

The third point that I wanted to make is about opposition to the Faith.  We need to be anticipating present-day and future opposition.  And we need Bahá’ís of expertise and capacity to help us in doing that.

There are 3 elements to that.  One area is the present day, where we have several miniscule Covenant-breaking groups which have access to Internet.  Groups which are a handful of people.  One group is 4 or 5 people, but it has several Web sites and spreads a lot of views about future and present Guardians and all the rest.  We need Bahá’ís to know what the logical flaw is in what they say.  It does not mean that you have to read that material; you’ll get yourself spiritually contaminated if you do so, and you don’t need that.  But you need to be very familiar with the subtleties of the Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, to be fully aware of it, to have studied closely the letter called “Dispensation of Bahá'u'lláh” in the book “World Order of Bahá'u'lláh”, to be very familiar with the arguments of the Covenant for defence against that.

The spread of Internet means that these obscure Covenant-breaking groups that no one has ever heard of, and people have ignored for decades, suddenly are revived.  Now all they need is an attractive Web site and they’re back in business.  Deepening in the Covenant has become a survival need which it wasn’t before to the same extent, and we need Bahá’ís of expertise in the deepening process.

The second area is that of Bahá’ís who’ve become turned off from the Faith, who’ve either resigned from the Faith or they are totally disaffected.  They are also on Internet and there are some things we need to know about them.  One thing we need to know is that it is not forbidden to read their material.  They’re not declared Covenant-breakers. We are enjoined not to read Covenant-breaking literature, it is not forbidden but we are told it’s dangerous.

The House of Justice has described some of the material written by these disaffected people as “spiritually corrosive”.  And so one needs to be aware of that.  Every so often I travel around, and I meet some Bahá’í who is very anxious to prove something or other and they say “you know I’ve studied whatever (name one of these disaffected ex-Bahá’ís) writings on the Internet”. And I can see they are challenging me to read a disapproving lecture to them; of course one doesn’t do that but one tries to politely point out to them: “It’s your funeral, baby.” That is spiritually corrosive material. You want to have spiritually corrosive things, go for it. You want to rot your teeth with Coca-Cola, go for it.  It’s up to you.

The third area is given this kind of movement outside the Bahá’í community, how do we avoid the creation of a counter-reaction which would give us some kind of a police state? How do we avoid reacting to these kind of nasty statements and criticism from these ex-Bahá’ís or turned off Bahá’ís or whatever, by becoming so tough and so tight that nobody dares say a word because of fear that they will get their head chopped off?

You find that that has occurred in history.  You may find it interesting to study the history of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the 17^th century.  From what I understand, free settlers came over from England and settled in Massachusetts and they were very liberal and full of ideas.  They got away from the constriction of the church in England. And then, lo and behold, their extreme ideas and creativity led to a counter reaction, and that counter reaction led to a puritanical tone in Massachusetts in those days:  the scarlet letter and the Salem witch trials of 1692 and all the rest of it.  I found the study of that period fascinating as an indication of how a vibrant dynamic society which aims to foster creativity finds that the creativity can get so far out of control that the only thing to do is to slam on the brakes hard, and you end up with the Salem witch trials and the scarlet letter and all the rest of it, a very rigid puritanical, tightly controlled society.  How do we avoid that happening in the Bahá’í community, in reaction to the nasty things said by some of these so-called dissidents outside the Bahá’í community?

What is freedom within a Covenantal framework?  What kind of freedom does the Covenant allow us?  Janet wrote an article in the Journal of Bahá’í Studies in North America in March 2000, in which she relates the principles of the Covenant to the equality of the sexes.  She makes an interesting point that the Covenant has a liberating effect upon creativity of thought, which is the very opposite from what you’d expect. You’d expect the Covenant to be intrinsically inhibiting to creativity of thought because of its “restrictions”.

Her argument, if I understand it correctly, was towards the fact that the Covenant is liberating because it allows us to be as creative as we want to be, knowing that one of the functions of the House of Justice is to clarify matters which are causing difference.  So we can feel free to say all these ideas knowing that there is a safety net right there, so we don’t fall off and break our neck. I think that’s an idea that merits further development and further thought, the creativity - fostering dimension of the Covenant rather than its creativity-inhibiting element.

We need more discussion amongst Bahá’ís of what are legitimate forms of disagreement in a Bahá’í community?  How do you disagree without creating disaster, contention, disorder?  What does it mean?  What can you say at the Feast? What can you say about the National Assembly?  What can you say about the Institutions of the Faith without getting into hot water.  What is the legitimate limit on disagreement?  If you say there is none, then I’ll say you have conceptualised a police state.  There has to be disagreement, there has to be creativity of thought, there has to be the legitimacy of the expression of a diversity of views for there to be growth and development.  How do you have this without creating havoc and factions and tensions and people throwing chairs at each other and the like?

Finally on this point, how do you politely but legitimately disagree with a figure of eminence in the Bahá’í community?  The only Hands of the Cause remaining are Dr. Varqá and Mr. Furutan who are both very elderly, but say a Counsellor comes here and makes a presentation to us and he or she speaks from their own perspective.  We all know that they’re not infallible, authoritative and the like, but how do you disagree with what he or she said?  What are the legitimate forms, given the fact that we should show respect for rank in the Bahá’í community. How do you express a different point of view within the limits of Bahá’í courtesy?  If you say you can’t do it, then I say you’ve got a big problem.  Because we’ve got to distinguish between the authoritative statements of the Universal House of Justice and the views of individuals – including House of Justice members – who are no more than individuals in their degree of authority in the expression of views.

How can we create a Bahá’í community in which respect does not inhibit creativity of thought and diversity of viewpoint?  I submit to you that this is a difficult question.  It’s great in theory.  On this point also, I think one needs to anticipate and have more work going on by Bahá’ís such as yourself and others on what are the future opposition to the Faith.  Let me give you a few examples.

One example concerns possible false accusations of homophobia, because of our stand on homosexuality.  This is minor at this stage.  At present some people get hot and bothered when they see what it says in the writings about homosexuality and they don’t like it.  It may well become a more controversial issue when the Bahá’ís are highly ridiculed or condemned on the principles of human rights because of our teachings about homosexuality and the lack of appropriateness of homosexual conduct within a Bahá’í community.  We’ll be accused of homophobia, we’ll be falsely accused of violating the human rights we keep calling for in Iran and elsewhere.

What about the death penalty?  We all know that it’s in the Aqdás and it’s one of a range of penalties.  But how do we respond when Amnesty International gets onto our case? When the Bahá’ís are condemned for the fact that we are one of the few populations in the world who still believe in the legitimacy of the death penalty under certain circumstances?

What do we do about accusations of restrictions on freedom of speech in the Administrative Order?  What do we do about restrictions on getting up and saying that a particular individual should not be on the National Spiritual Assembly and that we should chase him out of town?  This kind of statement is not permissible in the Administrative Order.  We do not allow it.  Are we not restricting freedom of speech?  Are not the Bahá’ís people who, on the one hand, appeal for freedom, human rights, liberation, yet, on the other hand, restrict what you can say?  These are very good answers to such questions, and we need to identify and discuss them.

These are the kind of things we need to be thinking about and developing thoughts about this. Of course the question of the composition of the Universal House of Justice.  We do need further thought on this subject, Janet and I devoted about 20 pages to that in our book on Advancement of Women, but we need more people to develop other ideas and to think further how can we can present our teachings on the subject of the male membership of the Universal House of Justice.

We need also to prepare to respond to the future when people will accuse us of using psychological pressure to raise money.  It’ll be no use trying to avoid it by saying contributions are confidential and you can give whatever you like and there is a box for contributions.  They’ll say you require 19% of whatever’s left over and you specify it mathematically in the Law of Huqúqu'lláh, and you induce spiritual guilt in those who don’t do it.  So you rely on spiritual pressures to get the 19% out of people in the Huqúqu'lláh.  It is an erroneous line of thinking, and we need to be clear about it.

These are all very interesting issues and there are very good answers to them all in the Bahá’í Writings.  We should welcome such questions, since they provide a wonderful opportunity to show the distinction and consistency of our teachings and their contrast to the deficient systems of thought now prevalent in the world.

7.  Needs of the Bahá’í World Centre at the Current Time

Finally I’m going to say a few words to you to indicate some of the pressing needs at the Bahá'í World Centre (BWC). This is not a recruiting meeting. I don’t expect any of you to come to serve there. None of you seem qualified for any of these positions, but I want you to know so you can talk to others about some of the things we need.

One of the pressing needs at the BWC, is for people with expertise in the science of conservation.  How best to conserve documents and artefacts?  For example the shoes of Bahá'u'lláh. What happens to them after 500 years? Conservation is a science that is concerned with things like slow-rate chemical processes that can occur over hundreds of years.

How do we conserve the texts, the ink and the paper upon which the original texts are written? This is the science of conservation. Bahá’ís who have done a degree in chemistry and don’t know what to do with it, can go on and do a graduate program in conservation.  For example, the University of Canberra has a good program.  They can then serve at the Bahá’í World Centre, we need them there and in a number of other places as time goes by.

One of our greatest needs is for archivists, experts in archival science. We have a pressing need for more Bahá’ís who have archival experience to help us in running our own archives at the World Centre, and in future the archives in major places such as Wilmette, here in Sydney, and in Frankfurt. If you want to have nightmares, start thinking about the records of the National Assemblies in the Pacific Islands. Because the National Spiritual Assemblies (NSAs) in the Pacific Islands don’t have the facilities to maintain their minute books and basic correspondence of what happened.  For example, how was the NSA of Fiji formed and what happened over the years?  So we have pressing needs for archival skills, and as there are good programs in Australia so you might encourage people going in that direction to think about it.

We need Bahá’ís with library science skills. We are scouring the world for qualified librarians. Our BWC library has a number of authorised positions and it’s about half filled at the moment because we cannot find qualified Bahá’í librarians.

There is an on going need for accountants and financial analysts and, in some cases, people with investment skills.

There is a great need at the BWC for executive secretaries, better described as Executive Aides. Typically, the direction in which we are going is that each member of the House of Justice and each member of the International Teaching Centre has and will have an Executive Aide who will, in turn, direct 1 or 2 more staff.  At present I have a Secretary Aide who is a high level person and she has an Assistant Secretary. And I can see that expanding a little bit in the future. So we need people who are executive secretaries, somewhat like a company secretary. Someone who has a level of maturity in decision-making and good understanding and that’s probably something we will need more and more.

We need people in property management because we have over 100 apartments where we keep our staff, because it is cheaper for us to own these properties than rent them.  Also we will have property acquisitions as the BWC expands and develops in time to come.

Lawyers are always a need. We have a small legal office of 2 lawyers, both of whom happen to be from Australia. We will need to expand that. It defends us when we are sued, which is reasonably common because everyone has the idea that we must be incredibly rich from having beautiful marble buildings. In addition, occasionally someone says something in the newspaper that they shouldn’t say, and we need to do something about it.

We also have very complex legal issues to negotiate with the State of Israel with our Status Agreement which gives us various rights in terms of taxation and importation and visas and the like.  More and more, our legal office at the BWC is called upon to give advice to the House of Justice in response to National Assemblies.  The NSAs write to us about Privacy Acts and matters like that and we have to respond to various issues that they raise.  So our legal office has a range of things to deal with and that will require lawyers. Particularly lawyers who are not only smart but also are devoted believers with the degree of discipline to work with the House of Justice.

I have pretty much finished what I wanted to say and if you’re still alive I’m willing to take any questions or any discussion you may want to raise.

8. Questions and Answers

1.   As professionals, we’re all striving for excellence in our various fields and so spiritually we’re bound to do that, and we want to do that. Then comes the responsibility of a family and the need of the partner to interact.  The children need their parents to be with them, to be examples and be reasonably sane after a hard day of work to devote to them the time and the attention that is needed. And then comes our responsibilities to the Faith and being involved in the community. My challenge with children, is how does one strike the balance and not neglect the children and still progress in our career and give to the Faith as well?

It is a problem that a lot of Bahá’í families have had, and in many instances it has been solved disastrously. Generally, it is the kids that get the short end of the stick. If you don’t want to have nightmares over Pacific Island archives, you can have nightmares over kids of Bahá’í families who grow up non-Bahá’í. Our batting record is pretty miserable in this regard.

We can identify Bahá’í families where generation after generation has remained committed to the Faith, but they are not as common as they should be. What is common is that we have super busy and active parents where the kids grow up burdened with resentment at the Faith at what it did to their family life, so when they’re old enough they get as far away from it as possible.

So we can easily see what not to do. The difficulty is to determine what to do. I think it centres around several things. One is the equality of the relationship of the couple in terms of their cooperative willingness; generally it depends on the willingness of the male to do mundane things to help out. If the male is willing to help with some of the cooking, the sweeping, to run the dishwasher and to help with the ironing. That sort of thing is a part of it, in resolving this issue.

There is also the consultation of the couple about what are their realistic goals professionally, and there is going to have to be some flexibility and adjustment because nobody is Superman. There is going to be some adjustment in terms of professional goals.  It may be that she’s a real high-flyer and he’s not of that same level, so he’s content to downsize his involvement for her to go to the top of the profession.

There’s also the question of what Bahá’í activities they should engage in, consistent with the time available and their talents. It may not be what every other Bahá’í is doing. There are some things that are not negotiable, like serving on the Assembly and going to Feast.  But there are other things that are negotiable. You can ask not to be an officer of the Assembly or not to be on committees, and this may have to be explored more fully. Then there is the involvement of the kids in the work of the Faith, so that they don’t feel that this is something that takes Mummy and Daddy away all the time, but rather it is something that they do as well as their Mum and Dad do.

But this is no more than the beginning of the discussion. I’m not giving you a solution. I’m just communicating that it’s a difficult and unsolved problem. I would start with these avenues and see what works out. It will work out as a different thing for every person, given their difference in lifestyle, position, skills and opportunities. But it’s certainly a central question.

2.   I was wondering if you could talk a bit (you have already spoken a bit about this) about the role of external affairs and government relations in both the protection and promotion of the Faith especially where you have media-savvy or Internet-savvy Covenant-breakers, and how that matches in terms of the resources of the Faith in Australia?

Clearly, all of the National Assemblies are going to have to get involved more and more in External Affairs. There are a small group of 7 or 8, of which Australia is one, which are leading, so we would characterise Australia in that group which are really doing well in External Affairs. It’s really the calibre of the people more than the amount of resources.

In Germany we have one sole individual who is involved in the external affairs work. And the German National Assembly has far less resources than the Australian National Assembly but they do a very good job because he is smart and he gets around and he talks to people in the Bundestadt and the Foreign Affairs Ministry and the like and they trust him and they like him and he’s a reliable figure.  So it is the calibre of the people more than the resources at this point. In the future it won’t necessarily be that way but certainly at the moment it is.  We are drawing more and more National Assemblies into having to take part in major activities.

New Zealand is becoming more involved because it has a very crucial role in relation to Iran with trade. So there are a number of things that are expanding.

We bring together a number of representatives of National Assemblies in a place called Acuto, Italy in September/October. They discuss the issues that are before them and they network with each other. So nowadays we’ve reached a point that whenever there is an outbreak of opposition to the Faith in Iran, the National Assemblies, the 7 or 8 key ones pick up the ball immediately, share information using the Internet and the defence occurs within the first 2 or 3 days which is about all the time you’ve got. It has happened with minimal intervention by the House of Justice, which makes us feel real good. Because in the past we had to come and manage the whole thing, telling them what to do, whereas now the network is so good that we can just watch it all happen and get copies of emails back and forth and then fine tune it as we will. We also bring together a number of representatives at a meeting at New Year in the Holy Land where we interact with them and define what we think are the needs and the pressures. We are in that sense actively involved.

3.   The systemisation or use of the Arts. Are there any models around the world which are working really well following on from the International Teaching Centres letter of November?

There are a diversity of approaches all of which have been successful but there is no one model which has emerged.

A lot of it is related to the conditions in each country and so, as with the Institute programs, the House of Justice has a largely hands-off policy, seeing how it evolves and develops. At some future time, we envisage sharing information about what has happened in various countries, but it is premature to do that now.  We have not yet got to that stage where certain themes have emerged sufficiently well for others to share it. So it is still at that early stage.

4.   I’m just enquiring about the recent release of the “Summons of the Lord of Hosts” and the “Gems of Divine Mysteries”. What selections of the writings to be translated are in the pipeline?

There are a number of things we’re looking at but I’m reluctant to get into detail because a lot of it is tentative. We’re looking tentatively at some major Tablets and books and some other things from the Bab, and another compilation from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and some other Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh.  A number of things are being looked at but no decision has been made regarding which is to have intensive development for the next couple of years.

The translation process is accelerating, drawing on an external translators in groups, who prepare drafts which are ultimately approved at the Bahá’í World Centre.  So one can anticipate more things coming out but there is nothing immediately coming up and there is no decision made about what the next one should be.

5.   How do you feel about some of the drafts that are presently on the Internet with regard to translations?

There is no objection to anyone reading them. They are like everything else of varying quality. There is no restriction on anybody who wants to read them.  It is up to them.

I was telling somebody about some of the work we did on the translation of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas where we consulted, amongst other things, some of the translations that had been done by others. Some were terrible and some were not that bad. I recall the one done by Reverend Miller who was a inveterate enemy of the Faith.  His translation of the Aqdás obviously reflects his anti-Bahá’í bias but it’s not a bad translation. I was interested in it because the man obviously didn’t like the Faith one bit, but he had a degree of intellectual honesty. He sincerely tried to follow where the translation was leading him. You may have someone who is very sour on the Faith but, depending on the level of intellectual honesty, they may still do not a bad job.

6.   Whilst as Bahá’ís we’re not supposed to oppose or disobey a government, then how does the function of the Bahá'í International Community (BIC), for example working with the United Nations to fight for the human rights of the Bahá’ís of Iran, how does that fit in with concepts like if you’re not opposing a government, then you’re going against their policies?

There are 2 parts to this question.

The first part is the question of obedience to a government. As a matter of principle in the writings, we are obedient to government in all matters except matters of conscience where there is a spiritual principle involved. It takes a National Assembly to decide that, not the individual.

There is for example the classic example of Nazi Germany in the late 1930s where the Hitler regime said to turn in the Jews. Would you turn in your neighbour who you know to be a Jew and who is pretending to be a Christian?  Had that question arisen, it would be up to the National Assembly to determine whether there was a spiritual principle involved in turning in the Jews in sending them to concentration camps to be killed.

Now onto the question of the BIC in relation to its defence of the Bahá’ís of Iran. Its defence of the Faith in Iran is not a criticism of the government but an appeal for human rights.  It’s one thing to condemn, it is another thing to appeal. We appeal for human rights in Iran. We say to the Iranian government, your constitution says you’re not discriminating against people of any religion. The defence of the Iranian representative at the United Nations is that there is no religious discrimination in Iran. And then the BIC representative says what about the Bahá’ís? They say, well they’re a bunch of Zionist spies, it is not a religion, but something that the British created. We appeal for application of principles that the government has agreed to. So in that sense, we’re not disobedient to the government. We’re basically saying to the government, you have committed yourself to these constitutional principles, apply them please. And in that sense we’re not opposed to government, but rather calling for it to put into practice its avowed principles.

7.   One of the major principles of the Bahá’í Faith is that backbiting is not allowed, that it is very much frowned upon. One thing you tend to notice, specially in historical works, is that enemies of the Faith are often described disparagingly. How do you justify that’s not backbiting regardless of the fact that the person has committed horrendous acts against the Faith?

We have to be somewhat more precise in the definition of backbiting. Backbiting is not permitted because it is destructive of human relations. Gossip and backbiting destroy the bonds of amity and fellowship in a community.  That’s different from evaluation. If the bunch of people present here tonight were working in my research lab, I would have to make an evaluation each year of their professional output in order to determine who gets promoted and who gets fired and the like.  So it is legitimate in one’s performance of specialised functions to make evaluation. It would be legitimate for me to evaluate them in terms of their capacity to carry out the functions for which I find them responsible and that’s not backbiting.

The Head of the Faith has the right to make any evaluation of individuals who have opposed the Faith or treated it in any way, just as it has the right to offer praise to those who have done well for it and that does not fall within the realm of backbiting. It is more in the realm of evaluation appropriate to legitimate functions. And in that sense, you find all kinds of statements in the Promised Day is Come, where the Guardian evaluates and points out shortcomings of certain leaders of the 19th century in their relationship to the needs of the age.

8.   When the House of Justice was conceived in 1963, the Bahá’í community was much smaller. Now that we have progressed and there is more of a burden for the House of Justice, why don’t you expand the number of members of the House of Justice?

As the Bahá’í community grows, it is arguable whether the work of the House of Justice grows.  One would argue yes it does, becomes there are more Bahá’ís. The counter argument though is that with the passage of time, the National Spiritual Assemblies become more capable, more experienced and more adept, and so more things get handled at the national level rather than having to come to the House of Justice. So you have 2 countervailing tendencies.  One is the tendency for an increase in the workload following an increase in the size of the community and the counter tendency is a decrease in the workload by the passage of time leading to a maturing of the Assemblies. So the end result of it is that there is not a linear relationship between growth of the community and work load of the House of Justice.

Nevertheless, the work of the House of Justice increases because of the scope of the increase in Bahá’í activities such as the involvement with the UN, the relationship with various governments of the world in various ways, and the scope of the size of the World Centre. Antagonists coming from obscurity into the stage of repression. So in that sense, your point is well taken in that the work of the House of Justice has increased. That doesn’t necessarily lead to a need for more members of the House of Justice because it can also be resolved by having more support staff. A lot of the things that the House of Justice members do today are devolved to other departments. A lot of what the Research Dept does today was done by the House of Justice members themselves previously.

As more capable people emerge, one can devolve more work to them and supervise them. The House of Justice has to retain overall supervision. Personally I don’t see an increase in the foreseeable future, by which I mean for several decades.

9.   You mentioned that certain individuals have set up Internet sites being opposed to the Faith, and you mentioned that by doing that they are digging their own grave. Aren’t they helping other individuals to dig their own graves too even though some of them are not Covenant-breakers?

They could help extinguish ones faith even though they are not Covenant-breakers. They are not violating the Covenant. They are saying in various forms the Faith is all nonsense. It’s not a violation of the Covenant, where you accept Bahá'u'lláh but not His provisions for authority. But, it can be spiritually corrosive. It’s similar in some ways to pornography. I mean what do you do about pornography? There are various Internet filters. You basically depend on bringing up your kids so that they have the degree of internal restraint, so they won’t get wrapped up in pornographic sites.  So it is in developing the self-restraint not to get involved in spiritually corrosive materials on the Internet.

10. You mentioned studying the history of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. How important is it, in trying to understand the writings of the Guardian and where the Faith is going, to look at examples from the non-Bahá’í community and studies?

I think such studies are helpful. But I think that is a second stage. I think one should first dive into the Guardian’s writings very thoroughly, because one would get diverted if one went first into studies in relation to the issues that the Guardian raises, because life is too short basically.

One’s priority should be to make this intensive study of the Guardian’s writings and that will take a long time. To my mind making an intensive study of “God Passes By” can’t be done in under a year of hard work.

11. My question is actually in relation to youth, well in Sydney we have an issue in involving the youth in the activities of the community. I just wanted to know what your thoughts were on how to engage youth, particularly in activities of the 5 Year Plan?

I think generally to involve youth in an area like Sydney, one has to deal with the fact that is a fairly busy environment in a materialistic city. And one has to begin with that situation.

I remember when Rúhíyyih Khánum came to Sydney, the NSA assigned me to be her chauffeur and I spent a lot of time drinking a lot of coffee with her. She told me how she had pioneered in Berlin in the 1930s and Germany was pretty crazy then and how materialistic the place was. She wrote to the Guardian and said this place is materialistic and terrible and can I leave and go to somewhere else to pioneer? The Guardian said to her that you’re free to leave, but basically Berlin will not change unless there are Bahá’ís there who are teaching the Faith and helping to change the atmosphere, so she stayed there for several years.

We cannot deal with places like London, New York or Paris by saying let’s quit the city. You can if you want to, but somebody has to be in the big cities. That’s where a lot of people are. That’s where there are a lot of opportunities to influence attitudes to the Faith. So I don’t think one can just resolve the question by leaving the city, you’re free to do so but it’s not an obligation.

Youth are resistant to people telling them what they should do and not do. One’s best bet is to find ways of attracting them to come to further activities. How you do that is an individual thing. Some people are attracted because it is fun. More and more people are attracted because the Bahá’í gatherings are a wholesome environment where people are not doing drugs or sneaking off and having promiscuous relations or anything like that. So the fact that Bahá’í gatherings are wholesome can be an attraction to others.

The fact that some still remember enough of their Bahá’í background that they feel twinges of conscience can be another thing. Everyone is different.

I remember when we moved to the Holy Land we had a very close friend living in an Appalachian state in USA.  She was a fairly passive believer.  We would write and tell her about our activities in the BWC, and to our amazement we turned her into an active believer. It was dumb luck on our part.  By one’s enthusiasm and one’s excitement about the Faith, people are drawn into it.  I remember when I was a Counsellor in Australia, we used to meet with the Auxiliary Board members once a year.  One year we met in Canberra in June, which is very cold, and there were I think 12-13 ABMs and I was there as a Counsellor and there was another Counsellor there, Tinai Hancock.  Our practice in those days, was to say to the National Assembly: “What are the problems that you have, that we can help you with?”

And they said that year that the people are not reading the Bahá’í books enough. So during this meeting with the ABMs and Counsellors I raised the question: “How can we get the believers to read more Bahá’í books?” And we consulted on it and the consultation was a disaster because no one could think of ways to get the believers to read more Bahá’í books other than the orthodox means. Yet we knew that doesn’t work. And so I stopped the conversation, “You can see we’re not getting anywhere.” I said: “Let’s go around and each one say what it was that motivated us to read Bahá’í books”

One by one we did this, and lo and behold, we found that in almost every case each one of us had felt motivated to serious Bahá’í study as a result of somebody talking about a Bahá’í book with enthusiasm and excitement. Nobody had done it because of being sermonised or harassed. We heard someone talking about it.  Out of this discussion we learned that the best way to motivate others to read was by our own reading, producing in us a level of excitement that came naturally and which was infectious to others.  Everyone is smart enough to find out if you’ve made a project of them. The genuineness of someone’s excitement will be sensed by you and you will get swept up in it. I think that is the best way to do it. How to do it of course in relation to youth who are less active involves finding a way to draw them in, to attract them in some way which they find interesting or exciting.

End