Uber-"teaching" in the congregation, or changing the world? My community is bigger than yours, or birthing the new community?

In the wake of 41 Baha'i Regional Conferences, gathering tens of thousands of Baha'is from every corner of the world to reflect on the present moment and stimulate the multiplication of "intensive growth programmes", the wider question, (whatever for?), rings on my mind. Are we yet another congregation, buzzing ourselves up to proselytise more keenly, or is there something distinctive about the enterprise of growing the Baha'i community? Is this an inward-looking, bums on seats (we have no pews), my congregation is bigger than yours mindset we are cultivating? Or has this vision of growth anything deeper to offer to a world fast slipping from our fingers? We want, like most religious groups, to grow our community. Does our concept of community change the nature of the enterprise?

The New Paradigm for Bahá'í Community Building

In sociological terms, the Bahá'í community falls into what Scherer described as a synthetic community: “an attempt to build and develop a community consciously and deliberately.” Unlike communities into which we are born, or communities with an established history into which we merely enter, synthetic communities involve a conscious effort at community building. The Baha’is are engaged in just such a venture, on an epic scale, for the very raison d’etre of the Bahá'í community is precisely to engender, in Jaqueline Scherer’s definition, "a ‘core of commonness’ or commonality that includes a collective perspective, agreed upon definitions, and some agreement about values... [A] context for personal integration” of truly global scope.

We are, however, yet to identify what Baha’is specifically mean by community, what it is that should be the end product of the sacrifices of 160 years of community building effort. First, what it is not.

"To mistakenly identify Baha'i community life with the mode of religious activity that characterizes the general society--in which the believer is a member of a congregation, leadership comes from an individual or individuals presumed to be qualified for the purpose, and personal participation is fitted into a schedule dominated by concerns of a very different nature--can only have the effect of marginalizing the Faith and robbing the community of the spiritual vitality available to it." Universal House of Justice, 22 August 2002.

What, then, in light of the Baha’i experience so far, and under the impact of a Revelation that aims to altogether transform the current conceptions of humanity, is the Bahá'í meaning of community?

The answer is perhaps most clearly and most directly articulated by the Universal House of Justice in their message to the Bahá'í world for the festival of Ridvan, April 21, 1996:

“A community is …a comprehensive unit of civilization composed of individuals, families and institutions that are originators and encouragers of systems, agencies and organizations working together with a common purpose for the welfare of people both within and beyond its own borders; it is a composition of diverse, interacting participants that are achieving unity in an unremitting quest for spiritual and social progress.”

This definition is both descriptive, and prescriptive. It describes a “comprehensive unit of civilisation”, emerging from the interaction of three key constituents (individuals, families and institutions) originating and encouraging “systems, agencies and organisations”. The majority of local Bahá'í communities, and many national Bahá'í communities are really, from this description, at most embryonic entities, with very crude systems, agencies and organisations in place, a limited number of individuals and families, and few institutions to speak of beyond a Local Spiritual Assembly and the Nineteen Day Feast.

Nevertheless, the fourth and particularly the fifth epochs of the Cause (1986-present) are witnessing a sea-change in this area, as local communities generate a broad infrastructure of “systems, agencies and organisations” arising singly and collaboratively from the individuals, families and institutions in the area. I refer of course to the development of study-circles, mostly focused around individuals; children and junior youth classes, mostly revolving around families (Bahá'í and others); devotional meetings which, with socio-economic development activities, are the seeds of future local Mashriq’u’l-Adhkars; the ever evolving training institute in each country; and where these elements are in place, socio-economic development projects (increasingly a spontaneous, organic feature of Baha'i community clusters in process of intensive growth), as outlined in the letter written by the Universal House of Justice to the Counsellors of January 9, 2001.

If the second and third epochs of the Cause were about building institutions, then the fourth and fifth epochs have been and are about building communities.

But in saying that the call of the day requires building a global network of local “Bahá'í” communities, the word Bahá'í makes the usage of community distinctive. For the definition gifted to us by the Universal House of Justice is not merely descriptive, but also prescriptive. It consists, yes, of a unit made up of individuals, families and institutions originating and encouraging systems, agencies and organisations (nothing uniquely Bahá'í about that). But for this community to be worthy of the Most Great Name, it must, further, be “working together with a common purpose for the welfare of people both within and beyond its own borders”.

So the communities Baha’is are now building are not simply communities, but altruistic communities.

Moreover, they are not inward looking, concentrating on the welfare of people within their borders, but also "beyond" their borders. This illuminates the focus of the current Plans on home-front pioneering, area clusters, and intensive growth programmes. Clearly, again, the aim is not merely to generate an increased flow of individual enrolments or fill-up vacant LSA spaces, but also and above all, to instil into the emerging communities of the fifth epoch a sense of interdependence, whereby a given community will work organically and inherently for the welfare its own locality, and of localities “beyond its own borders”. To the well known Bahá'í notion of the “locality” we now therefore add the compass of a “cluster” of localities to which one also belongs and with whom one systematically interacts and builds community.

The borders the new Bahá'í communities are expected to cross are, furthermore, not merely geographical, but also, and most challengingly, of identity. It is crucial, again, to notice this outward-looking emphasis in the systems, agencies, and organisations Baha’is are called to build in this new Epoch.

“It is evident, then, that a systematic approach to training has created a way for Bahá'ís to reach out to the surrounding society, share Bahá'u'lláh's message with friends, family, neighbours and co-workers, and expose them to the richness of His teachings. This outward-looking orientation is one of the finest fruits of the grassroots learning taking place." (The Universal House of Justice, January 17, 2003, Progress of Five Year Plan -- Learning in Action, p. 1)

"The culture now emerging is one in which groups of Baha'u'llah's followers explore together the truths in His Teachings, freely open their study circles, devotional gatherings and children's classes to their friends and neighbours, and invest their efforts confidently in plans of action designed at the level of the cluster, that makes growth a manageable goal. " The Universal House of Justice, August 22, 2002

The key building labour of the Baha’i community in the 20th century (perhaps counter-intuitively known to Baha'is as the Century of Light), the 19 Day Feasts, Local Spiritual Assemblies, and Bahá'í funds through which the Ark of God has been erected on Mount Carmel, were designed exclusively for Baha’is. The new key agencies, institutions and organisations Baha’is are building are, explicitly, not for Baha’is only.

Thus we are told that the purpose of Baha’i children’s classes is not the education of Bahá'í children, but the Bahá'í education of children. Animators of Junior Youth groups are even warned explicitly not to view their youth groups, or the outreach carried out to establish them, as direct instruments of expansion, but as a Baha'i oriented service to the community, whose primary intention, providing guidance and friendship to young people in a given neighbourhood, at the critical age where they establish their moral framework, should never be lost sight of in the desire for numerical growth. Study circles are meant to include both Baha’is and their friends in their number. Devotional meetings are not to be designed for or focused exclusively on Baha’is, anymore than the services at the great Bahá'í Houses of Worship are. Like them, they are meant to be gifts of the Baha’is to the world at large, and an integral part of a vision of community that inherently incorporates the Other:

“O ye lovers of this wronged one!” exclaims ‘Abdu’l-Baha, “Cleanse ye your eyes, so that ye behold no man as different from yourselves. See ye no strangers; rather see all men as friends, for love and unity come hard when ye fix your gaze on otherness.”

“In every dispensation," he writes elsewhere, "there hath been the commandment of fellowship and love, but it was a commandment limited to the community of those in mutual agreement, not to the dissident foe. In this wondrous age, however, praised be God, the commandments of God are not delimited, not restricted to any one group of people, rather have all the friends been commanded to show forth fellowship and love, consideration and generosity and loving-kindness to every community on earth.”

As a personal orientation, this is an outlook that Baha’is have been cultivating since Bahá'u'lláh first attracted a company of god-intoxicated lovers (ashiqan) to the Abode of Peace, near the banks of the Tigris. We find this perspective in a letter written in 1867 by the Bahá'í community of Baghdad to the United States Congress petitioning support against the oppression of the Persian and Ottoman empires, at a time when religious segregation remained a fact upheld, institutionalised and sustained by religious belief. The letter was delivered to the Secretary of State William H Seward, immersed in dreams of grandeur that drove him to finally purchase Alaska in the course of that same year, even as the Union struggled to rebuild the country after the carnage of the Secession. It is not known whether that former cabinet colleague of Lincoln and master of political intrigue read the exotic letter, telling of

“…a perfect, wise and virtuous Man” Who “appeared in Persia, he had knowledge of all religions, laws and knew the history of wise men, kings and the rules of nations; he saw that the people oppose, hate and kill, abstain and [are] afraid to mix with each other. Nay, they consider each other unclean, though they are all human beings, having different and numerous religions, and that the people are like unto sheep without a shepherd - That learned and wise man wrote many works containing the rules of union, harmony and love between human beings, and the way of abandoning the differences, untruthfulness, and vexations between them, that people may unite and agree on one way and to walk straightforwardly in the straight and expedient way, and that no one should avert or religiously abstain from intercourse with another, of Jews, Christians, Mohammadans and others. That wise man revealed himself till he appeared like the high sun in midday”

The embrace of the other is thus a long-standing Baha’í virtue in a general sense. The systematic and deep engagement of local Bahá'í communities with the world outside their borders of place and of identity, is, however, relatively new to a Bahá'í world that has spent the greater part of the last century concentrating on the accumulation of “individuals, families and institutions” within the banner of the Cause, andºerecting and maintaining at great personal cost a basic infrastructure of thinly resourced administrative bodies: not having the luxury of looking very much outside.

This sacrificial labour, however, was the essential prerequisite for building the “systems, agencies and organisations” which will enable what we have always called “local Bahá'í communities” to truly become, and for the first time, “comprehensive units of civilization”. This profound shift, described by the Universal House of Justice as “a new paradigm of opportunity” has required from us, and continues to call for, what the Universal House of Justice” has referred to as “a new mindset” and “a change of culture.”

As this outward looking, inclusive focus deepens, the boundaries of Baha'i identity soften, and what Baha'is call the "community of interest", become allies in this building of a new civilization amidst the current, evidently tottering one (see Chris Martenson's prescient analysis for a good sense of things to come. I hope to blog on this later!). It is thus not only Baha'is who are empowered by the new culture of Baha'i community life to fashion the "systems, agencies and organizations" of a new civilization:

"The nature of the core activities of the current Plan—children’s classes, devotional meetings and study circles—permits growing numbers of persons who do not yet regard themselves as Bahá’ís to feel free to participate in the process. The result has been to bring into existence what has been aptly termed a “community of interest”. As others benefit from participation and come to identify with the goals the Cause is pursuing, experience shows that they, too, are inclined to commit themselves fully to Bahá’u’lláh as active agents of His purpose. Apart from its associated objectives, therefore, wholehearted prosecution of the Plan has the potentiality of amplifying enormously the Bahá’í community’s contribution to public discourse on what has become the most demanding issue facing humankind.

"If Bahá’ís are to fulfil Bahá’u’lláh’s mandate, however, it is obviously vital that they come to appreciate that the parallel efforts of promoting the betterment of society and of teaching the Bahá’í Faith are not activities competing for attention. Rather, are they reciprocal features of one coherent global programme. Differences of approach are determined chiefly by the differing needs and differing stages of inquiry that the friends encounter. Because free will is an inherent endowment of the soul, each person who is drawn to explore Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings will need to find his own place in the never-ending continuum of spiritual search. He will need to determine, in the privacy of his own conscience and without pressure, the spiritual responsibility this discovery entails. In order to exercise this autonomy intelligently, however, he must gain both a perspective on the processes of change in which he, like the rest of the earth’s population, is caught up and a clear understanding of the implications for his own life. The obligation of the Bahá’í community is to do everything in its power to assist all stages of humanity’s universal movement towards reunion with God."

This, it seems to me, is the key context in which to view the spirit behind the goal of growth of the Baha'i community, and the overarching logic in the evolution of each Baha'i "cluster" toward the capacity to launch and sustain "intensive programmes of growth": "to assist all stages of humanity’s universal movement towards reunion with God", not in sole collaboration with fellow believers who accept without reservation every claim of Baha'u'llah, but also in full interelationship with those not prepared to take that leap, who yet grasp the power of the global vision animating our efforts, the authenticity of its spirit, and the beneficence of our intentions.

Nor is enrolment the goal, but rather a stage that may coincide with enrolment in the Baha'i community, but is more likely to take the rest of our lives and possibly our existence: "reunion with God". Between interest, attraction, commitment, servitude, consecration, sanctification, and complete evanescence before the Will of God, dying to ourselves and living in Him, is a journey that cannot be reckoned in words, or group identities. We are not a community of the elect, but of the determined improvers, so to speak, where, wherever we were yesterday, we seek again each day to "find" our "own place" in the "never-ending continuum of spiritual search". Together.

And as we come to this spiritual core of our visionary, divinely aided, if broken winged efforts, we recall that this is not some recent fad, or corporate rebranding, but of the essence of our genesis, a genesis to which we must return to grasp the heights that yet await us, in the claim which the example of those gone before us insistently makes upon us, legatees of a heroic history.

Indeed, in remarking on the distinctive aspects of this stage in the evolution of the Baha'i community, it is also important to recognise that, as a fundamental process, the labour of community building is not a new endeavour for us. On the contrary, it is a quintessential part of being a Bahá'í since the earliest origins of the Bahá'í community in the second half of the nineteenth century. The Dawnbreakers, first believers and heroes of the Baha’i Revelation, after all, embodied the spiritual process indicated by the Universal House of Justice in their above-cited description of Bahá'í community as “a composition of diverse, interacting participants that are achieving unity in an unremitting quest for spiritual and social progress.”

“"Most of those who surrounded Baha'u'llah," wrote Nabil "…exercised such care in sanctifying and purifying their souls, that they would suffer no word to cross their lips that might not conform to the will of God, nor would they take a single step that might be contrary to His good-pleasure." "

…The joyous feasts", comments Shoghi Effendi", "which these companions, despite their extremely modest earnings, continually offered in honor of their Beloved; the gatherings, lasting far into the night, in which they loudly celebrated, with prayers, poetry and song, the praises of the Bab, of Quddus and of Baha'u'llah; the fasts they observed; the vigils they kept; the dreams and visions which fired their souls, and which they recounted to each other with feelings of unbounded enthusiasm; the eagerness with which those who served Baha'u'llah performed His errands, waited upon His needs, and carried heavy skins of water for His ablutions and other domestic purposes …these, and many others, will forever remain associated with the history of that immortal period”

Such stories are not merely inspiring, they are crucial to what it means to build a Bahá'í community today, and provide an indispensable lens through which to understand the efforts of the last century. For Shoghi Effendi linked the “efficacy” of the “instruments” Baha’is fashion, the institutions, systems, agencies and organisations of the Baha’i community, to the spirit of those breakers of the dawn, writing:

“For upon our present-day efforts, and above all upon the extent to which we strive to remodel our lives after the pattern of sublime heroism associated with those gone before us, must depend the efficacy of the instruments we now fashion -- instruments that must erect the structure of that blissful Commonwealth which must signalize the Golden Age of our Faith.” (Shoghi Effendi, Dispensation of Baha'u'llah)

The Bahá'í vision of community thus harmoniously integrates the structural approach of sociologists of community; the personal and interpersonal approach of psychiatrists; and the visionary approach of artists, idealists and revolutionaries, embedding all three perspectives on community in the transformative context of the Day of God and the oneness of humanity.

The potential significance of the labours of the present-day Baha’i community is therefore breathtaking. Baha’is are not merely building local Bahá'í communities in clusters and localities, but they are building the basic units of a civilisation which Shoghi Effendi declares will constitute the “fairest fruit” of the revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, and signalise the advent of the promised “golden age”.

One’s degree of awareness about the nature and significance of such task, allows one to work towards this vision not merely consciously but, crucially, in a systematic manner. The pattern of such evolution is not dictated by accidents of geography or language, but by an understanding of organic growth, a focus on process, and vast stores of inspiration and guidance.

The achievement of a world-wide Bahá'í community made up of diverse individuals and families and a global infrastructure of local administrative institutions, has enabled the Baha’i community, in this second half of the second Bahá'í century, to turn its attention at long last from the building up the Administrative Order, to the birthing Bahá'u'lláh’s New World Order. Of this opportunity previous generations have been deprived, as Shoghi Effendi himself testifies:

“The second century is destined to witness a tremendous deployment and a notable consolidation of the forces working towards the world-wide development of that Order, as well as the first stirrings of that World Order, of which the present Administrative System is at once the precursor, the nucleus and pattern---an Order which, as it slowly crystallizes and radiates its benign influence over the entire planet, will proclaim at once the coming of age of the whole human race, as well as the maturity of the Faith itself, the progenitor of that Order.” (Shoghi Effendi, Messages to America 1932-46, pp. 96-7; letter 15-JUN-46, "God Given mandate")

It is now, in this second half of the second Bahá'í century, that the work of the Baha’is entails, as unveiled by Shoghi Effendi, the ushering in, on a global scale, of the first stirrings of Bahá'u'lláh’s new World Order. The last one hundred years saw the raising up of a wide-ranging network of basic administrative and spiritual instruments of community building. The task that faces Baha’is today is the building a wide-ranging network of comprehensive units of civilisation that, patterned on sublime heroism and working to a common purpose, promote the welfare of those within and outside their borders, achieving unity in a collective pursuit of spiritualisation and social progress. This, it seems to my obfuscated eyes, is the essence of growth, and the distinctive nature of our task.

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Direct Teaching Methods and the Institute Process

I was once unexpectedly invited to join a list made up principally of Bahá'ís who had been deeply involved decades ago in the mass teaching projects that saw a significant expansion of the Bahá'í community in the United States. It was inspiring to see the passion for teaching, and the commitment to learn and audaciously experiment. A point of dialogue was how the earlier approaches to "teaching the masses" fit in with the new processes associated with the last 5 Year Plan. The following is my introductory letter to the group, that articulates my thoughts on the subject. It is followed by a response to a two friends, elsewhere, to their reservations regarding the validity or wisdom of mass teaching methods.

Honoured friends,


With great humility I join your list, as our beloved Master wrote, "with no good deeds to tell of, only hopes". I am fascinated to hear of your initiative, and touched by the San Antonio project's goal of "Growth without creating conflict in the community", which combines like the projects described in the newsletter audacious, systematic and intense individual initiative with a deep engagement with and humility before the institutions of the Cause.

I admire the vitality of commitment evinced, together with the "learning mode" which our beloved said was the greatest legacy of the Four Year Plan and the first intimation of the change of culture that ushered in the Fifth Epoch of the Formative age of our Faith. It calls to mind the vision and methods championed by Hand of the Cause Dr. Muhajir, and appears already to be yielding significant results.

I would be very grateful to hear, in this light, the current progressis in the Army of Light initiative in connection with "the goal to welcome into the Cause of God at least 2001 new souls in this One Year Plan, byRidvan 2001, and then 5000 in each year of the Five Year Plan". How many souls did enter the Faith in the One Year Plan by Ridvan 2001? Where are we now?

For my part, I have had experience of such direct teaching methods across the UK, in Mexico, former Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Ireland. Almost without exception, such initiatives have in my experience proven successful in attracting new souls into the Faith, sometimes in substantial numbers. What has proven hardest has been, on the one hand, successfully integrating such souls into existing communities in a lasting and fulfilling manner, and on the other, in UK at least, making direct teaching methods culturally acceptable to the Baha'icommunity.

Generally, such mass teaching initiatives are built around individuals with confidence and skill in the process, who act as catalysts for involving other Baha'is in the campaign and enrolling new believers. In UK, most Baha'is are deeply, intensely uncomfortable about approaching people in the street about the teachings, associating such behaviour with either aggressive proselytisation or marginal religious behaviour. It is the sort of approach that they would personally cross the street to try to avoid if it was coming from someone else. Individuals who see the promise of such an approach generally manage such reluctance and diminish it in at least a proportion of the community, who supports and joins them in teaching. The problem is that when such an individual or group leaves, the momentum is lost and the community returns to more culturally comfortable ways of expressing their faith.

In relation to the new believers that invariably emerge when direct teaching is done skillfully and with sincerity, the problem of consolidation tends to arise either because the individuals who have been instrumental in the declaration and enrolment of the new believer have moved on, and the remaining Baha'is are unable to replicate the spiritual connection built with the original teacher; or because the new believer approaches his new faith from an entirely different cultural standpoint to that prevailing in his new Baha'i community. In Britain, where the culture of the Baha'i community has tended to be professional, literate, and ethnically predominantly white British and Persian, episodes of substantial growth among working class and unemployed families, and among ethnic minorities, have generally petered out after a few years, not only in terms of new enrolements, but in terms of retention of new believers too.

I recall, in this connection, the passages in Century of Light which the Universal House of Justice mentions in their remarkable letter to me which I believe Rich shared earlier with this list:

"Determined efforts were made to respond to the guidance of the World Centre that expansion and consolidation are twin processes that must go hand inhand. Where hoped for results did not readily materialize, however, a measure of discouragement frequently set in. The initial rapid rise in enrolment rates slowed markedly in many countries, tempting some Baha'iinstitutions and communities to turn back to more familiar activities and more accessible publics.
"The principal effect of the setbacks, however, was that they brought home to communities that the high expectations of the early years were in some respects quite unrealistic. Although the easy successes of the initial teaching activities were encouraging, they did not, by themselves, build a Baha'i community life that could meet the needs of its new members and be self-generating. Rather, pioneers and new believers alike faced questions for which Baha'i experience in Western lands - or even Iran - offered few answers." (Century of Light, pp.101-102)

It seems to me that what we have achieved in the past are "successes" in "teaching activities", but a crucial element was missing without which such activities were inherently fragile, and the accompanying expectations "quite unrealistic". That element without which the process of entry by troops is hamstrung is, as I understand it, "a Baha'i community life that could meet the needs of its new members and be self-generating" (ibid). What followed was a process of learning and experimentation described in such letters from the beloved as those of the 26 Dec 1995 to the Conference of the Continental Board of Counsellors; April 1998 on Training Institutes, February 2000 on Training Institutes and Systematic Growth, and 9 January 2001 to the Counsellors. The distilled insight of the last decade has resulted, across the world, in the emergence of the three core activities of study circles, devotional gatherings, and children's classes, as the key instrument for achieving "a Baha'i community life that could meet the needs of its new members and be self-generating". As we invest ourselves heart and soul in the process of establishing these critical elements of Baha'i community development over the next twenty years, and as we integrate our non-Baha'ifriends into these activities, we will move our clusters through successive stages of development till we achieve the "culture of growth" which, the Universal House of Justice points to in their letter to me as the ultimate goal of the Four, One and Five Year Plans.

The key difference then, in my mind, in relation to prevous patterns of large-scale expansion, is that whereas in the past the fundamental motor of such enrolements was the enthusiastic and skilled efforts of a small number of Baha'i teachers, in future I anticipate the key motor of large-scale growth will be the achievement of a critical mass of growth-focused and effective "category A" clusters, consisting of:

"a high level of enthusiasm among a sizable group of devoted and capable believers who understand the prerequisites for sustainable growth and can take the ownership of the program; some basic experience on the part of a few communities in the cluster in holding classes for spiritual education of children, devotional meetings, and the Nineteen Day Feast; the existence ofa reasonable degree of administrative capacity in at least a few Local Spiritual Assemblies; the active involvement of several assistants to Auxiliary Board members in promoting community life; a pronounced spirit of collaboration among the various institutions working in the area; and above all, the strong presence of the training institutes with a scheme of coordination that supports the systematic multiplication of study circles."(UHJ January 9, 2001)

How do these faltering and obfuscated thoughts resonate across the ocean among such valiant and exemplary souls and true eagles in the firmament of servitude and consecration to the Blessed Beauty and His precious, sacred Universal House of Justice?

Your affectionate and humbled pupil,

Ismael



* * * * *^
Dear both,
Thank you for your kind and encouraging responses. If there was no note of contrariness, beloved ones, it is because I do believe that mass teaching approaches do retain immense potential even now, when combined with the patterns of community life fostered by the House of Justice in their Jan 9 letter; when embedded in the attitudes of openess and lack of exclusivism called for in the message to the religious leaders; and when built on the foundation of clusters that evince the characteristics called for by the beloved, and focused on growth. I do not see personal teaching, the development of study circles, devotional meetings and children's classes truly "open to all" on the one hand, and large scale, well-planned, direct teaching campaigns on the other, as mutually incompatible, although the latter, unlike the former, need not be universal.
I recall our House of Justice's explanation that: "At this stage in the development of the Faith there are many new experiments taking place in the teaching field and also in the work of consolidation. It is obvious that not all these experiments will meet with success. Many have great merit while others may have little or none. However, in the present period of transition and rapid growth of the Cause we must seek diligently for the merit of every method devised to teach and deepen the masses." The Universal House of Justice, DDBC, 7.2 Each time I have overcome my inherited (and I must say substantial) discomfort to sally forth to gather souls in His Name with a direct method, on the streets of Britain for instance, each time I have encountered truly precious souls, ready souls, looking for the Faith, yet with no one to share with them the message, and felt deeply moved and grateful at having been part of such a sacred and soul enriching process which beyond the joys of service resulted in some deeply precious friendships with souls I would never otherwise have encountered, nor, it is likely, any other local Baha'is. This condition of yearning after new truth and not knowing where to turn for it Baha'u'llah describes in the Iqan as "the great oppression" of the latter days prophecied in the great Gospels. The bulk of the global Baha'i community owes the gift of the faith, it seems to me, to precisely such audacious and for many in the West counter-intuitive approaches, however discomforting they may, still, initially be in certain corners of my mindset.
Their effectiveness had nothing to do with the illiteracy or material ignorance of the target audience, as was demonstrated by the response of tens of thousands of cultured and educated individuals in Eastern Europe, and had already been shown among hundreds of like souls in Western countries. I recognise that such approaches are not suitable to all, and hold inherent spiritual pitfalls, but I cannot think of a single approach that does not. I therefore truly respect and admire those souls who feel called to advance this particular approach with sincerity, thoroughness, and in a learning mode and spirit of unity and submissiveness to the institutions, and look on with interest and prayerfulness for their progress.
For one thing I do not think has changed in Baha'i culture, is our focus on expansion. Rather, I would suggest the contrary to be the case, and that the culture the House of Justice is specifically and explicitly seeking to move us towards is what they designate as "a culture of growth". The key innovations are not, it seems to me, in deviating from a focus on expansion, but rather in our overall approach, which has become systematic, focused on learning from trial and error, and centred around a universal core of community activities which are not exclusive to Baha'is and which build a nurturing and self-generating community life. This does imply, as you reminds us, a much more open outlook towards the Other than may have been the case before, a much more dynamic and fluid boundary between the Baha'i community and its environment. At the same time it appears to me that, ultimately, it also calls for a more universal, more mature, and more consecrated focus on expansion on the part of each and every one of us.
As our beloved source of guidance wrote to an individual believer on April 1 1996, at the very begining of the House of Justice's efforts to evolve to a new stage our prevalent Baha'i culture: "In the future the Cause of God will spread throughout America; millions will be enlisted under its banner and race prejudice will finally be exorcised from the body politic. Of this have no doubt. It is inexorable,because it is the Will of Almighty God. However, as the House of Justice hasbeen trying to get the friends to understand for some time, the necessary precondition to translation of our community's social vision into reality is a massive expansion in the number of committed, deepened believers who are well grounded in the essentials of the Cause. Those who fail to comprehend the urgency assigned to the objective of achieving a large expansion have obviously failed to appreciate the moral imperative behind this aim."(quoted in "Raising the Call: The Individual and Effective Teaching", p.12)
It seems from this quote that we seem "for some time" to have had difficulty grasping "the urgency assigned to the objective of achieving a large expansion", on account of not understanding clearly enough "the moral imperative behind this aim". I certainly feel that such an analysis reflects my own frailties, and that the intellectual and more crucially spiritual connection between "our community's social vision" and the need for "a massive expansion in the number of committed, deepened believers who are well grounded in the essentials of the Cause.", with the clear emphasis on "massive expansion" and on "urgency", is one that has not always been clearly present in my heart, or animated in an authentic and personal way my labours and priorities in the Cause. The work of the souls in San Antonio; in Bryan/College station where 50 souls (mostly hispanics and African-Americans) have embraced the faith; in Northeast Oklahoma where 90 new believers have entered the Cause including a new LSA composed entirely of Cherokee Nation believers; etc., are all personally inspiring responses to both the moral imperative and the urgency of expansion, that have challenged me to reflect on my own response, and seek His signs in the regions and in my self.
With humble love,
Your friend,
Ismael

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