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The Bahá'í Faith has grown usually at twice the rate of the world population for over a century. As it has moved across the world it has encountered culture after culture and centers of development have been in specific places at specific times. Yet the cultural norms in the religion have been marked by scholars as not particularly associated with any one culture but rather both respecting each culture and seeking to find its blind spots and address them from a perspective of spiritual virtues, yet always in a context of particular cultures at particular times - never conceiving itself to be beyond culture. As it has moved from region to region it has then gone through major transitions as no culture is specifically advanced as the religion has grown.

=Bahá'í Faith and cultural issues=

Early changes from Muslim context
The first cultural transition occurred at about the turn of the last century when the religion became known beyond its mainly Muslim Middle-Eastern population and spread to Christian North America and Europe. The next major change of context started when the religion began to spread rapidly in South America, post-war Europe, and sub-Saharan Africa. Each case had it's own context and challenges. Additionally Shoghi Effendi, head of the religion after `Abdu'l-Bahá, changed standards of conduct and engagement with the Baha'is of India who were facing the Caste system in India. Some idea of the extent of this comparatively sudden change can be gleaned from the fact that prior to 1954, approximately 94% of the world Bahá'í population consisted of Iranians. By 1989, that figure is about 7% while Bahá'ís from the non-Muslim Third World represent some 90% of the Bahá'ís. These being the case, there was a spread of appreciation of the spiritual station of Islam and the historical achievements in Muslim civilization in the West following this.

North America
The foundations of this achievement had been laid from the earliest days of the new religion when Bahá'u'lláh in two of his writings from the Baghdad period addressed Christian issues. Then towards the end of the nineteenth century, the famous Bahá'í scholar, Mírzá Abu'l-Fadl, extended these foundations by writing extensively on Bahá'í approaches to the New and Old Testaments. This was followed by the conversion of numerous Jews, in Iran, and Christians, in Syria and Egypt, to the religion. It was Syrian Christian converts who initially took the Bahá'í Faith to Christian North America. Following development of extensive correspondence and pilgrimages, `Abdu'l-Bahá, then head of the religion, was the central contact on developing some implementation of norms - notably on the subjects changing racism into unity of humanity and sexism into gender equality, and wrestling with problems of poverty (more - first public meeting in the West, repeated in America…). See also `Abdu'l-Bahá's journeys to the West before WWI.

Latin America
In Latin and South America the religion spread in the late 1930s and early 1940s following specific plans of promulgating the religion. A stated purpose for the coordinating committees appointed to oversee the process was to facilitate a shift in the balance of roles from North American leading guidance and Latin cooperation to Latin leading guidance and North American cooperation. The process was well underway by 1950 and was to be enforced about 1953. However a period of "re-activating" core communities was necessary in 1950, while other communities failed to re-elect their institutions initially though the regional committees continued operation. Nevertheless regional National Spiritual Assemblies for the region were elected in 1950 and 1951. By 1961 most Latin and South American countries had their own national assembly.

Africa
In Africa there was widespread conversions to the religion following the 1950s. It was emphasized that western pioneers be self-effacing and focus their efforts not on the colonial leadership but on the native Africans - and that the pioneers must show by actions the sincerity of their sense of service to the Africans in bringing the religion and then the Africans who understand their new religion are to be given freedom to rise up and spread the religion according to their own sensibilities and the pioneers to disperse or step into the background. Enoch Olinga is specifically mentioned as an example of this process unfolding as he arose out of Uganda and repeated the quick growth of the religion. Because of the successive waves of people becoming Knights of Bahá'u'lláh, Enoch Olinga was entitled "Abd'l-Futuh", a Persian name meaning "the father of victories" by Shoghi Effendi though he too implemented changes in character by giving up alcoholism and eventually polygamy.

((south africa, apartheid))

India
In India where the Bahá'í message had for decades been primarily addressed to Indian Muslims and Parsees (Zoroastrians), a re-interpretation of the Bahá'í message in accordance with Hindu ideas was necessary to reach the masses of Hindus. Together with the teaching of theunity of humanity these approaches attracted many of the lowercastes. In two more years almost as many people converted as had been Bahá'ís through regions of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat whereas in the 1940s the Bahá'ís had not accepted illiterate converts out of concern that their choice needed to be fully aware which seemed to require literacy. In 1961 there were a total of 78 Local Spiritual Assemblies and less than 1,000 believers and in 1963 there were some 65,000 and by 1970 these figures had risen to 3,350 assemblies and over 312,000 believers.

India became the largest Bahá'í community in the world in 2000 after about a half-century of this approach entailing systematically reaching a large community of Untouchables or Harijans. See Bahá'í Faith in India. needs to be integrated -

Native Americans
Unlike the spread of Christianity within Indian country in the United States, the Bahá‘í Faith has never been associated with a fortification of colonial occupation, Euro-American assimilation, or forced conversions of Native Americans. Indeed in 1960 Hand of the Cause Rúhíyyih Khánum asked for forgiveness for the injustices her race had done and praised great past of the native peoples. And in 1963 anthropologist Alice Beck Kehoe, a well known researcher of Native Americans, observed that the Bahá‘í Faith is considered by its members to be a universal faith, not tied to any one particular culture, religious background, language, or even country of origin. However one researcher, based on experience as a scholar and elder of in an Indian tribe, observed in 2007: "Most white Canadians and Americans have no clue with respect to how constantly they reinforce their own cultural assumptions, right or wrong, and pile them upon Indians, never willing or even interested in hearing our own Native view. I agree that the Bahá‘ís in Canada and the U.S. have made some good headway in the honoring and validating native spiritual prophecies and principles. However, much more transformation along the lines of intercultural interactions within the Bahá‘í international community needs to take place. In particular, I am referring specifically to most (but not all) of our non-Native Bahá‘ís who find it impossible to break through the inner barriers of their own Euro-American culture."

Patterns of encounters between non-Aboriginal Baha'is and Aboriginal people in British Columbia were studied and the result demonstrated a middle ground between romanticization and violent confrontation was possible, though not fully realized. However, in the words of an historian the encounter with the religion "has nevertheless served as a potent source of empowerment for Aboriginal adherents." The traditions of the people weren't left and again served to solidify community. But there is progress in appreciation of Indian cultural and spiritual experience coming through Bahá'í publishing channels just as there has been of Islam over a century ago.

Papua New Guinea
The religion had great appeal to Nalik people early on in Papua New Guinea who felt it more in tune with their traditional understandings compared to the teachings of Christian evangelical missionaries. Apelis Mazakmat, the first Malik to join the religion, met Hoehnke and was attracted by the Bahá'í teaching of racial equality, and converted early in 1956 after learning more about it from Rodney Hancock. Australian norms and laws of the time enforced a separation between the races. Hancock was detained for mixing with black skinned indigenous peoples on several occasions and was subsequently deported because he stayed overnight in local villages without the permission of the colonial authorities.

Most significantly, according to scholarly review, was that whereas Christian missionaries openly opposed traditional funerary art and performances, the Bahá'ís encouraged their production as a form of worship. Thus while Nalik Bahá'ís are regarded by other Naliks as arbiters of traditional knowledge and practices, the Christian missions and their followers are seen as antagonistic to kastom, a Pidgin English word used to refer to traditional culture because of their negative stance on ritual image production.

These differences were perceived by Mazakmat who returned home and promulgated the religion despite resistance from the Catholic and Methodist missions. He met up with an old friend, Michael Homerang, who was a highly respected malanggan carver and clan leader (maimai) in the village of Madina, on the north shore of New Ireland Province in the far north east. Momerang later said "I saw a white man and woman come to my village and sit down to eat and talk with us. They even slept in our houses. … Only the Almight can make this happen…" Then they met with clan leaders and elders of the community and early in 1958 there were a further 10 conversions who elected the first Bahá'í Local Spiritual Assembly of Papua New Guinea, followed by 30-40 more converts over the next four years in two villages. 1958 is considered the founding year of the Bahá'í community in Papua New Guinea. Representatives from Papua and New Guinea each (the country was then administered separately) attended the 1958 conference in Australia on the promulgation of the religion.

According to local Naliks a delegation of missionaries threatened former Methodists with damnation, monetary fines, and expulsion from the Church and when a fire was started in Madina’s Bahá'í Center it was blamed on arsonists loyal to the Methodist mission. These and other documented events frightened away many newly converted Bahá'ís, who returned to the Methodist mission. For other Baha’is these actions simply consolidated their belief that they were a persecuted religious group echoing the suffering of the early history of the religion and persecution suffered in Iran.

Need to integrate











 * Moojan Momen, Relativism: A Basis For Bahá’í Metaphysics, published in Studies in Honor of the Late Husayn M. Balyuzi: Studies in the Bábí and Bahá’í Religions vol. 5 (ed. Moojan Momen [Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 1988]).