Bahá’í World/Volume 18/The Association for Bahá’í Studies
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194
THE BAHA’I’ WORLD
2. THE ASSOCIATION FOR BAHA’l STUDIES 1979—1983
GERALD FILSON
IN 1974 the Universal House of Justice called upon the Canadian Bahá’í community to ‘cultivate opportunities for formal presentations, courses and lectureships on the Bahá’í Faith in Canadian universities and other institutions of higher learning’. Following a policy conference, the National Spiritual Assembly of Canada established the Canadian Association for Studies on the Bahá’í Faith. It was felt that the Association would provide a suitable means of approach to intellectuals and universities and bring to these circles an awareness of the Faith and an acquaintance with the academic resources which are available to facilitate formal study of it. From 1974 to 1979 four annual meetings were held. The Association grew in membership, published a series of high quality monographs, initiated work on a textbook on theiFaith of university calibre and stimulated formal presentations at universities and colleges throughout Canada.
In the period Riḍván 1979 to Riḍván 1982 the Association for Bahá’í Studies has played an increasingly important role in the affairs of the international Bahá’í community and through its conferences and publications has provided an exciting forum for intellectual and spiritual development. The change of name which was recommended by the Canadian National Assembly and approved by the Universal House of Justice in April 1981 reflected the emerging nature of the Association’s membership and activities with national affiliates established in a number of countries. lts executive committee included, for the first time, members from the United States as well as Canada. Serving 0n the current Executive Committee are Hossain Danesh, Glen Eyford, Richard Gagnon, Jane Goldstone, William Hatcher, Douglas Martin, Peter Morgan, Nasser Sabet and Christine Zerbinis, of Canada. Firuz Kazemzadeh and Dorothy Nelson serve as liaison officers in the United States.
The Association has constantly received invaluable and reassuring support, guidance and assistance from the Universal House of Justice and has enjoyed the participation and
encouragement of the Hands of the Cause and members of the Continental Boards of Counsellors. It has also derived benefit from the spiritual and intellectual contributions of members of the National Spiritual Assemblies of the United States and Canada.
Highlights during the period under review —a period of transition from a Canadian to an international associzltion—have included the opening of a modest but beautiful Centre for Bahá’í Studies, the first such centre in the
I Bahá’í world, at the heart of the University of
Ottawa‘s campus in Canada‘s national capital; the holding of three annual conferences. two special theme conferences and several regional conferences; continued excellence in the standard of publications produced by the Association; and the launching of an affiliated organization, the Bahá’í International Health Agency. which began operations in July 1982 with Dr. Ethel Martens (researcher. social and preventive medicine) serving as executive secretary.
In 1979 the Universal House of Justice gave a further goal to the Canadian community for the Seven Year Plan: ‘Expand the opportunities for teaching in Canadian institutions of higher learning and further develop the Canadian Association for Studies on the Bahá’í Faith.’ And in 1981, when the second phase of the Seven Year Plan was launched, the Universal House of Justice restated this goal and divided it into two parts: ‘Foster the development of the Canadian Association for Studies on the Bahá’í Faith’ and “Expand and intensify the teaching of the Faith in Canadian institutions of higher learning.‘
The goal of cultivating opportunities for formal presentations and courses remained a primary objective of the Association, but the Universal House of Justice also encouraged specific attention to the development of the Association itself. The Association had become a significant feature of the intellectual, social and spiritual life of the Canadian community, and for increasing numbers of Bahá’ís worldwide.
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INTERNATIONAL SURVEY OF CURRENT BAHA’I’ ACTIVITIES 195
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View of the reception area in the centre for Bahá’í Studies. The centre is located at the heart of the campus of the University of Ottawa.
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196
The fifth, sixth and seventh annual conferences held in 1980, 1981 and 1982 were creative and stimulating events. All three were held in Ottawa—at the University of Ottawa in 1980 and 1981 and at the Chateau Laurier in 1982. Approximately three hundred Bahá’ís and guests attended in 1980 and 1981 while more than six hundred and fifty enjoyed the presentations and discussions at the 1982 gathering held a week prior to the International Bahá’í Conference in Montreal.
The fifth annual conference inaugurated an annual memorial lecture in honour of the Hand of the Cause Hztszm M. Balylizi who died in February 1980. The Hand of the Cause of God John A. Robarts, Dr. ‘Abbas Afnan, Dr. Muhammad Afnán and Mr. Douglas Martin spoke at that conference on the life and work of Mr. Balyiizf. Mr. Douglas Martin and Mr. Glenford Mitchell, secretaries Of the National Spiritual Assemblies of Canada and the United States, respectively. made a joint presentation for the memorial lecture in 1981. Mrs. Gayle Morrison, whose To Move the World: Louis G. Gregory and the Advancement of Racial Unity in America appeared in 1982 to critical acclaim, speaking on the life of the Hand of the Cause Louis Gregory, gave the Hasan M. Balyi’izi lecture at the 1982 conference. Another new feature. begun at the fifth conference and continued at subsequent conferences, was the presentation of Association contest awards for best essay by a high-school student, best essayby a university student. and best individual research paper.
The first Bahá’í International Conference on Health and Healing, organized by the Association, was held immediately following the fifth annual conference. It brought together Bahá’í health professionals and their fellow Bahá’ís to discuss health in the light of the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh and contemporary scientific thinking. The Hand of the Cause John A. Robarts inspired and encouraged conference participants and closed the historic gathering by delivering an address on the unity of science and religion.
The sixth annual conference was also graced with the presence of a Hand of the Cause of God. Amatu’l-Bahá Rúḥíyyih Khánum gave the opening and closing addresses at the International Conference on Marriage and
THE BAHA’I’ WORLD
Family Life which immediately followed the annual conference of 1981.
The seventh annual conference, held from 30 August to 2 September 1982, served to emphasize the growing international dimension of the Association. Many of the unprecedented number of participants who crowded into the beautiful Chateau Laurier ballroom came from a number of countries outside Canada. ‘The Bahá’í Option’, theme of the conference, examined solutions offered by Bahá’u’lláh to many contemporary problems confronting mankind. Human rights, personal and social values, justice, economics, telecommunications, workshéps and symposia 0n scholarship, Bahá’í curricula and health were all included on the conference programme. A full day was devoted to .a discussion of international development.
Two other features are now characteristic of the Association’s conferences. First is the degree to which they reflect the importance in Bahá’u’lláh’s Revelation of music and the arts. Presentations Of the arts were not auxiliary t0 the main programme but are viewed as being as essential to the conferences as the lectures and discussions. The second feature, which relates closely to the original aim of the Association, is the inclusion on the programmes of well-known figures from outside the Bahá’í community, a concrete demonstration of the success the Association is enjoying in bringing to leaders of thought an awareness of the Faith and helping raise the prestige of the Faith through fostering cordial relationships with leading intellectuals and scholars. Dr. Jean-René Milot, Professor at the University of Montreal, spoke at the 1980 conference; Mrs. Yoshiko Nomura, Executive Director of the Lifelong Integrated Education Centre in Japan, made a presentation at the gathering in 1981; and Mr. Lewis Perinbam, Vice—President Special Programmes Branch of the Canadian International Development Agency, addressed the conference participants in 1982. These guest speakers were favourably impressed by the quality of the conferences. Indications are that future invitations to speak at conferences Of the Association will be well received‘ a sign of the emerging importance of the kind of forum for scholarship and study which the Association provides.
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INTERNATIONAL SURVEY OF CURRENT BAHA’I’ ACTIVITIES 197
The Hand of the Cause Amatu’l-Bahá Rflhl’yyih Khdnum addressing the international conference on marriage andfamily life, Ottawa. Canada; 1981.
The Hand of the Cause John Robarts with youth who received awards during the seventh
annual conference of the Association for Baha 1 Studies for scholarship and research on aspects of the Bahá’í Faith.
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198
In addition to the emerging international activities of the Association, regional conference committees were established which held nine regional conferences in the period from 1979 to 1981. The conference held in Quebec was noteworthy in that it was the first Association conference to be conducted entirely in French. A further development was the sponsorship by the Association of sessions at Bahá’í schools in the United States. One hundred and fifty participants attended the three-day Green Acre Bahá’í School and the Bosch Bahá’í School sessions of the Association in 1981. There were similar sessions at these two Bahá’í schools in 1982 and 1983, and additional sessions at the Louhelen Bahá’í School.
By 1983 three regional conference committees were functioning in Canada and three in the United States: Pacific Northwest, Saskatoon and Quebec, in Canada; and California, Midwestern United States and New England in the U.S.A.
The publishing work of the Association expanded in the period under review with volumes 6 to 11 of Bahá’í Studies being produced. Volume 6, The Violence-Free Society: A Giftfor our Children, by Dr. Hossain B. Danesh, was reprinted (30,000 copies) and provided a focus for a number of regional and
local proclamation programmes and confer?
ences in Canada. A translation into French of volume 6 appeared as volume 8. Volumes 7 and 9, Response to the Revelation: Poetry by Bahá’ís, by Dr. Geoffrey Nash, et a1., and The Concept of Manifestation in the Bahá’í Writings, by Mr. Juan Ricardo Cole, were followed in 1982 by volume 10, a collection of articles on creativity by Dr. Bahíyyih Nalijavéni, Dr. Geoffrey Nash and Mr. Otto Donald Rogers. and a selection of poems by Mr. Roger White in homage to Emily Dickinson taken from his full-length work One Bird, One Cage, One Flight. Volume 2, The Science of Religion, by Dr. William S. Hatcher, was also reprinted. Finally, volume 11, The Concept of Spirituality, by Dr. William S. Hatcher, was published in 1982. A new venture for the Association was the publication of Bahá’í Studies Notebook. This publication presented in an attractive format the presentations made at some of the conferences: the April 1981 issue focused on health
THE BAHA’!’ WORLD
and the March 1983 issue on marriage and family. The first Bahá’í Studies Notebook brought together poetry and essays on the Faith, and an issue on international development was in the final stages of publication in 1983. These two publications, Bahá’í Studies and Bahá’í Studies Notebook, have served to demonstrate the power of the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh to illuminate contemporary problems and issues. They provide valuable resources for the important work of expanding and intensifying the teaching of the Faith in institutions of higher learning.
Another important effort of the Association has been the sponsoring of formal presentations at universities and colleges in both Canada and the United States. The universities of Ottawa, Western Ontario, McMaster, McGill, Simon Fraser, Ohio State, Concordia and Quebec (at Montreal) are someof the universities which have had formal presentations by Bahá’í speakers on behalf‘of the Association. Members of the Association spoke at university teaching hospitals and at a variety of conferences and seminars including the World Congress of Mental Health in Salzburg, Austria, in July 1979 and the Governor’s Conference on Child Abuse in Nevada, in 1980. In May 1983 Association members will participate in the Third Annual Symposium on Religion in the Modern World and will represent the Bahá’í Faith at the ‘Worldview 1984’ Conference of the World Future Society.
These formal presentations represent important first steps towards the day when Bahá’í courses will be available at institutions of higher learning. Two initiatives in this specific area are worth noting: in 1980 the University of Toronto sponsored a non-credit course on the Bahá’í Faith and, in that same year, the University of British Columbia’s Continuing Education Department offered a full semester course on the Faith.
As of Riḍván 1983 these various activities of the Association for Bahá’í Studies promise to accelerate in intensity with increasing significance for the intellectual and learned circles of society still unaware of or barely acquainted with the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh. With the Centre for Bahá’í Studies well established and providing accommodation for the secretariat, a reference library and the affiliated Bahá’í
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200 THE BAHA‘I’ WORLD
International Health Agency. with computerization of much of the Association’s administrative and publishing work and, finally. with its international aspects expanding, the Association for Bahá’í Studies looks forward to rapid and exciting developments. Indeed, the Universal House of Justice confirmed the hopes and expectations of the Association‘s members and supporters in letters written on its behalf to the Association from which the following excerpts are taken:
‘The efflorescence of the . . Association for Bahá’í Studies has been, in the eyes of the House of Justice, one of the very favourable outcomes of the Five Year Plan and bodes
well for the maturation and eminence of the Canadian community.’ (19 March 1979)
“We are asked to convey its [the Universal House of Justice’s] commendation t0 the Association for the steadily increasing scope of its interests, for its expanding membership and for the valuable stimulus it is providing particularly to the North American Bahá’í’ community.’ (24 November 1982)
‘The House of Justice is very pleased with the way in which the Association has been developing, and will pray at the Sacred Threshold for divine confirmations t0 surround its work.’ (9 January 1983)
APPENDIX I
Bahá’í INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON HEALTH AND HEALING 1—4 JUNE 1980 UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA Programme
Health: A Global Per:pec!ive—Victor dc Araujo, Ph.D., Representative of the Bahá’í International Community to the United Nations, New York.
Spiritual Dimensions of Health Seiences—Hossain Duncsh‘ M.D., Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, University of Ottawa; Director Family Therapy Programme. Ottawa Civic Hospital.
Scientific Method and Search for Truth—Peter P. Morgan. M.D.. D.?.Hi, Associate Scientific Editor. Canadian Medial! Asxociation Journal. Ottawa.
Mind, Body and Soul—Faranch V. Khádem, Ph.D.. Ncurophysiologist, Montreal Children‘s Hospital.
The Bahá’í Revelation and Lifestyle Alteration—Duvid Smith, M.D., Ophthalmologist in private practice and Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology. University of Toronto.
Adolexcent Quest for Tranquillity: The Dilemma of Drug Abuse—A. M. Ghadirian. M.D., Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal.
Poxilive nycholherapy—N. Peseschkian, M.D., Psychiatrist in private practice, Wiesbadcn, West Germany.
Smoking and Exercise—Pctcr Pi Morgan, M.D., and Arthur Irwin, Ph.D., Kanuta, Ontario.
Alcoholixm. Drug Abuxe (md Yamh—A. M. Ghadirian. M.D.. and Rulh Eyford, M.S.W.. St. Albert, Alberta.
Psychology Without Religion?—N_ Peseschkiun, M.D.
Total Stimulation for Children Recovering from Malnutrition—Linda Gershuny, B.A., Dipl. Montessori Htipital Albert Schweitzer. Port-au-Prince. Haiti.
Nutrition: Key Factor in High—level Wellnesx—S. Raman, Ph.Dn EdtDt, Associate Professor of Nutrition. University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu.
Music Therapy—Jocclyn Boor, R.M.T., Shorewood. Wisconsin.
Healing Relalionships in Marriage—Ruth Eyford. M.S.W.
The Imporlance far a Physician (0 Turn to God—Agncs Ghaznavi, M.D., Psychiatrist in private practice. Biennc, Switzerland.
The Balui'z’ Approach Ia Sexualitv—Panel: Agnes Ghaznavi. M.D., and Hossain Danesh, MD.
What are [he max! urgent issuex concerning IzeuIIh and wellbeing (hm require research and what are the recommendalions in this respecfi—Roundtable Discussion.
Ideas on the Natural Approach to Healing—Florcnce Altass. R.Nt. Sussex. England. (Miss Altgss. age 96 and unable to lruvcl. submitted a tapc-recordcd presentation‘)
