Mini-history, An Approach How-to, and No Whittling
By John Taylor; 2009 Feb 04, 15 Sultan, 165 BE
Over the past year, some interesting supplemental information rose to the top of the Baha'i mix. I have been keeping it close to my chest in hopes that I could use it in an essay, but that does not seem to be happening. Before you know it, the year will be out and it will have lost its currency. I am intentionally restricting my reading, cutting out Baha'i books, in hopes of actually completing something -- and I actually seem to be succeeding, what with this Comenius series coming along as it is. For the first time in my life, I may finish a major project!
At any rate, one event of interest was the address of Paul Lample at the ABS annual shindig in Washington. This man is not only a member of the UHJ but is also probably the most influential Baha'i in the world right now -- influential, that is, on other Baha'is. He seems to be the main cog in the startlingly radical changes in the way things are run in the Faith. Nobody can accuse him of being a conservative. Here is his summary of recent Baha'i events, and the reason we have entered this hair-raising, hairpin turn in the way the administration is going.
Paul Lample's Mini-history of Recent Plans
After the passing of the Guardian the unfoldment of the Divine Plan continued with a series of global plans conducted under the auspices of the Universal House of Justice. Each plan has built on the objectives and achievements of the previous ones, demanding increasing maturity and new levels of capacity for complex action.
Each brought into focus specific elements related to growth and development. For example, the Nine Year Plan (1964-73) included the objectives of vast expansion and universal participation. The Five Year Plan (1974-79) maintained these goals and added an emphasis on the strengthening of assemblies and community life.
The Seven Year Plan (1979-86) added the focus on a greater involvement in the life of society, including projects for social and economic development. In the Six Year Plan (1986-92), the responsibility for creating national plans devolved onto the National Spiritual Assemblies and the Counsellors, while the Three Year Plan (1993-96) introduced a triple theme -- enhancing the vitality of the faith of individual believers, developing human resources, and fostering the proper functioning of institutions.
Through this entire period, new capacities emerged and were developed. It became increasingly evident, however, that communities struggled to integrate these activities into a coherent pattern of action that could contribute to systematic progress.
Some communities, despite their formation through successful teaching campaigns, were never consolidated. Others saw the emergence of sound assemblies and regular activities, yet these were too often pursued in a fragmented manner as a result of limited human resources. A burst of growth of more than one million believers over a period of two years during the Six Year Plan placed this problem into clear perspective.
The Guardian's Instructions on How to Teach
Last year's Ridvan Message says,
"Humanity is battered by forces of oppression, whether generated from the depths of religious prejudice or the pinnacles of rampant materialism. Baha'is are able to discern the causes of this affliction."
Oppressed from above and below, I guess. It also briefly quotes a small extract out of the following passage from the writings of the Guardian explaining how to vary one's teaching approach. I thought it would be useful to look at the whole passage. It is enlightening in its own right and stands on its own.
"These pioneers, in their contact with the members of divers creeds, races and nations, covering a range which offers no parallel in either the north or south continents, must neither antagonize them nor compromise with their own essential principles. They must be neither provocative nor supine, neither fanatical nor excessively liberal, in their exposition of the fundamental and distinguishing features of their Faith. They must be either wary or bold, they must act swiftly or mark time, they must use the direct or indirect method, they must be challenging or conciliatory, in strict accordance with the spiritual receptivity of the soul with whom they come in contact, whether he be a nobleman or a commoner, a northerner or a southerner, a layman or a priest, a capitalist or a socialist, a statesman or a prince, an artisan or a beggar." (Shoghi Effendi, Citadel of Faith, p. 25)
On Not Whittling Things Down
This passage too was briefly alluded to in the 2008 Ridvan Message.
The Continuity of Revelation
"The Faith standing identified with the name of Baha'u'llah disclaims any intention to belittle any of the Prophets gone before Him, to whittle down any of their teachings, to obscure, however slightly, the radiance of their Revelations, to oust them from the hearts of their followers, to abrogate the fundamentals of their doctrines, to discard any of their revealed Books, or to suppress the legitimate aspirations of their adherents.
"Repudiating the claim of any religion to be the final revelation of God to man, disclaiming finality for His own Revelation, Baha'u'llah inculcates the basic principle of the relativity of religious truth, the continuity of Divine Revelation, the progressiveness of religious experience.
"His aim is to widen the basis of all revealed religions and to unravel the mysteries of their scriptures. He insists on the unqualified recognition of the unity of their purpose, restates the eternal verities they enshrine, coordinates their functions, distinguishes the essential and the authentic from the nonessential and spurious in their teachings, separates the God-given truths from the priest-prompted superstitions, and on this as a basis proclaims the possibility, and even prophecies the inevitability, of their unification, and the consummation of their highest hopes." (Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day is Come, p. 108)
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John Taylor
email: badijet@gmail.com
blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/
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