Transcript:Paul Lample/Speaking on learning and the community
| Transcript of: Speaking on Learning and the Evolution of the Bahá’í Community (2008) by |
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[0:20]Good evening, friends. It's really a pleasure for me to be here with you this evening. It's such an important gathering among such thoughtful believers who are engaged in such challenging areas of investigation related to the service of humanity and the application of the Bahá’í teachings. And I just want to begin by saying something you already know probably very well, and that is that I'm here to share with you some ideas of my own. What I'm saying doesn't represent the views of the Universal House of Justice. You don't even have to agree with me if you don't want. I hope you do, at least a little bit, but we'll see at the end. I think that I was already very happy to participate in some of the sessions that took place today, and I could see that already the friends were deep in thought and discussion about a number of the issues that are of interest to me. So what I see is what I'm doing here is just adding more ideas to your ongoing conversation. It's something that's already underway, and I just have a few things to share.
[2:02]The thing I think that we should keep in mind as Bahá’ís - it's fundamental to the nature of the Faith - is that Bahá’u’lláh hasn't come to create another religion, add another church on the block and so on. Our mission as Bahá’ís is something much more profound than creating another organization. It's really about something fundamental to the social reality of humanity. Bahá’u’lláh talks about the idea, He urges us to strive to translate that which have been written into reality in action. He also talks about the idea that the object of every revelation is to affect a transformation in the whole character of mankind, a transformation that shall manifest itself both outwardly and inwardly, that shall effect both its inner life and external conditions. Otherwise, He says, the futility of God's Universal Manifestations would be apparent. So we have a world out there, it's shaped in a certain way, it's a social reality that reflects the will of human beings, and built within that structure are patterns of injustice, oppression, prejudice, extremes of wealth and poverty, all kinds of imbalances in the social order that people structure it that way because they gain benefit from it.
[3:48] In the Kitáb-i-Íqán, Bahá’u’lláh talks about the idea of the oppression that would affect people, and they would not know where to turn to find God. And they would be led by leaders who were pursuing their own self-interest. And He talks about the idea that in idle fancy they find the doors of material wealth. But in the call of the Manifestation, they find only the call for self-sacrifice. And so naturally, He says, they prefer the one, and they reject the other. So our challenge as Bahá’ís is to really understand these forces that are at work in the world and to look at Bahá’u’lláh's teachings and figure out how do we translate its teachings into a new social reality that will reflect justice, order, peace, unity, the oneness of mankind, and so on. And that's a challenge that we'll be pursuing throughout the entire dispensation.
[4:49] Shoghi Effendi talks about the idea, he gives some insights with a few quotations about the challenge that's before us. For example, in the area of economics, he explains that the Central Figures of the Faith were not technical economists and that there's no recipe for how to create a new economic system in the teachings. But what there are are principles, concepts, certain methods like consultation and so on, that Bahá’í economists will use over time, generation after generation until they do create a new economic order, one that reflects more the justice that Bahá’u’lláh intends. Shoghi Effendi says something very similar about education, that there's no system of education embedded in the teachings. Again, principles, comments, statements, methods that Bahá’í educators will have to work with generation after generation, until they bring into the reality, until they translate the concepts and ideas into a reality that reflects Bahá’í education. And then we see its impact in the world.
[5:57] ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, in Secret of Divine Civilization, said that the world of politics is like the world of man. He's a seed at first, and then passes by degree to the condition of embryo, fetus and so on. And He says the political world, in the same way, cannot instantaneously evolve from the nadir of defectiveness to the zenith of righteousness and perfection. Rather, qualified individuals must strive, by day and by night using all those means which would conduce the progress until the government and people develop along every line, from day to day, and even from moment to moment. Now this is our challenge then. We have to commit ourselves to this process. One thousand years of effort to learn how to translate what's been written into reality in the world. And this is not an easy thing to do. We have to struggle with it. We have to recognize we're not perfect, that we'll make mistakes, and that we have to learn how to do things better over time. We have to recognize, as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said, that all forms of human knowledge are limited and so we have to strive for a better understanding of the revelation and a better insight in every field of endeavor to learn how to translate the teachings into action. Without learning and action, we're caught in an endless circularity. We can't determine that one way of doing things is better than another. So we can't promote all things because we endlessly go around in circles. But if we can determine what becomes more effective than something else, then we put our foot one foot before the other, step by step to create a new civilization. So it's really about learning. Studying the revelation, consulting on its meaning, trying to translate in to action, reflection on action, revising that, a continual process of engaging in learning to translate what's written into reality in action.
[8:00] Now, before commenting a little more on the challenge that you all face in working to translate the teachings into reality in the various fields that you work in, to transform this social reality that we live in, it's worthwhile to look at the experience that we've had over the past 12 years in terms of our expansion and consolidation work. Because this is an area where the House of Justice some years back in the Four Year Plan, talked about the idea that our community had experienced a changing culture, and that this culture was based on attitude of learning, on a foundation of learning. And it's this new culture then, is reflected in our action in the teaching work, and the more we can understand that then, the more we can begin to get insight into how this culture of learning can apply to other activities.
[9:03] I want to begin not with a look at the time since the Four Year Plan, but even a little further to the beginning of the ministry of the Guardian. You know, Shoghi Effendi assumed this great responsibility of the work of the Cause and the execution of the Divine Plan, and when he looked around him, he saw really that the Bahá’í community wasn't capable of executing this plan. First of all, it didn't have the machinery at its disposal. It wasn't organized, it didn't have the Institutions of the Faith which would carry forward the teaching work well-developed. So he had to spend 16 years teaching the Bahá’í community about Bahá’í administration. And all kinds of strange things which would be happening, which we would consider very strange today, but the Bahá’ís didn't know about administration. So, for example, you would go to the National Convention in the United States and the Bahá’ís would start nominating people to be elected as a member of the body of the National Spiritual Assembly. So bit by bit, through all the whole process, what's the Convention about, what are Assemblies about, how do you form them, what are the bylaws, all these things, step by step Shoghi Effendi had to give some guidance. The Bahá’ís would do some things, he would give them more guidance until gradually this pattern emerged.
[10:34] There was a similar process of learning by the Bahá’ís about the teaching work that was guided by Shoghi Effendi. So for example take the idea of pioneering. In 1939, Shoghi Effendi wrote to the Bahá’ís in India and Burma. And he said those believers that have the means and also the capacity to teach should be encouraged, no matter how great the sacrifice involved, to settle in these virgin territories until such time as a local assembly has been constituted, or at least a group of firm believers formed that can safely and gradually evolve into a firmly organized and properly functioning local assembly. This policy of teaching by settlement, which the Guardian has also advised and indeed urged the American believers to adopt, has been proved by experience to be the most effective way of establishing the Faith in new territories. And he therefore confidently recommends it for adoption by your assembly.
[11:43] Now look, this idea, we take for granted, the concept of pioneering, we can't imagine a Plan that wouldn't involve pioneering, internationally or in the home front. But here as late as 1939, Shoghi Effendi is talking to the Bahá’ís of India and saying, look, this pattern of taking a deepened Bahá’í, moving them to a place, have them settle and gradually raise up an Assembly has proved by experience to be the most effective way, better than putting somebody in a boat and sailing to the different ports and stop and teach and then write letters and things like that. This became the most effective way to spread the faith, so he recommended it then to the National Assembly of Indian and Burma, to the American National Assembly as well, and it became a fundamental part of all the Plans there after.
[12:32] This same concept is found in the work with firesides. It has been found, a letter written on behalf of the Guardian states, it has been found over the entire world that the most effective method of teaching the Faith is the fireside meeting in the home. This method is far more effective than advertising in newspapers, public lectures, et cetera. The Guardian is encouraging the believers over the world, including those on the home-fronts to engage in this method of teaching. So what was happening? The Bahá’í were teaching. How? By lectures, by putting information in the newspaper and so on. Then somebody had an idea. What if I invite people to my home? What if I show them hospitality? What if I talk to them about their questions about the Faith? And this proved by experience to be more effective than these other things and the Guardian recommended it, and then it became the fundamental aspect of our teaching work. So this idea of learning over time is a fundamental aspect of putting the teachings into action.
[13:39] And we can see the impact of it in the Ten Year Crusade when, after all these years of guiding the friends and teaching them and giving them some guidance and seeing what they did and then taking that experience back and pointing out what was effective to them. By the time of the Ten Year Crusade, in the first year of that Plan, the friends were able to accomplish more in terms of opening countries and territories, one hundred countries and territories in one year, more in one year than they did in the previous century. And in the course of that Ten Year Crusade, something like over 40 National Assemblies were formed in 10 years when up to the previous 100 and some years at the start of that Plan, there were only 12 National Spiritual Assemblies.
[14:23] So this ability to receive guidance, learn how to put it into action, see what proves to be most effective, received more guidance, has been a pattern throughout the ministry of Shoghi Effendi and continues now under the guidance of the House of Justice. We should see in this that the concept of divine guidance is not separate from the concept of learning. Divine guidance does not mean, whether it comes from Bahá’u’lláh or ‘Abdu’l-Bahá or through the Guardian or now through the guidance that's received from the Universal House of Justice, it doesn't mean that the friends shouldn't think, that they don't have to be creative, that they don't have to try and learn things. The guidance comes and then the friends have to act on that guidance and as a result of that action, things proved to be effective. And then the Center of the Faith can point to that kind of action.
[15:20] We've seen repeatedly the same thing occur in the Four Year Plan. From the time of the Four Year Plan on. Here we were faced with the challenge of large scale growth, which began during the time of Shoghi Effendi. Thousands and thousands of people would become Bahá’ís in one community, and then the process would break down because we didn't know how to deepen them, how to consolidate, how to raise up Assemblies and so on. This pattern repeated itself for nearly four decades, from near the end of the ministry of the Guardian up until 1996. At one point, we had 1,000,000 people become Bahá’ís during a two year period in the Six Year Plan just before the Holy Year, and then we didn't know what to do with all the folks. We lost most of them, the process came to a crashing halt again.
[16:11] So the House of Justice in 1996 looked back at this body of experience and then set us on a more systematic pattern of learning about growth. For example, they talked about the importance of the training institute, and at the time in '96 they said, have courses at a central location and courses at a distance. But, well, people knew what courses at a central location meant, they didn't know what "courses at a distance" meant until people did different things. And then somewhere somebody sat down and they took a small group and they had a tutor, and they taught them, and that proved to be effective. The idea of a study circle was born. So in 1996, you see no mention of study circle. By 1998, study circle was promoted as a fundamental approach to implementing the work of the institute. As another example, after the Four Year Plan, in the Twelve Month Plan, the House of Justice called for the establishment of area growth programs, and this was done in only a handful of places, about 27 places. And so the friends didn't quite know, they had to match growth with training now that the institute was established, but they didn't know what that should look like. So in one place they picked a couple villages and they said, we'll have an area growth program in these two villages. And then it turned out, most of the people in those villages were already Bahá’ís, and the rest knew about the Bahá’í Faith but they didn't want to become a Bahá’í. So the growth program died before it even started because there wasn't anybody to teach. The area was too small. In another place, the friends identified a very large area, but then the Bahá’ís were so far apart that they could never get together. They could never talk. They could never plan what they could do. And the process also ground to a halt. So out of these 27 area growth programs, out of these experiments for area growth programs, none of them worked. But the insights that were drawn from them laid the basis of the Five Year Plan in 2001.
[18:18] So the House of Justice was able to describe certain prerequisites for success and certain characteristics like expansion and consolidation need to go hand-in-hand. But interestingly in 2001 it couldn't describe what an intensive program of growth would look like. It just describes some of these features and then talked about the idea of clusters and then encouraged the friends to go on and try to figure out what that was. And it took until 2004 before the first framework of an intensive program of growth emerged, in which there was a three month cycle of activity and it began with reflection and planning, and then there was an intensive teaching phase, and that was followed by consolidation phase and that proved to be effective. And then that was the pattern that emerged. So that by 2005, the launch of this Five Year Plan, the House of Justice could describe this in great detail and then say, let's have 1,500 of these intensive programs of growth. So, it would have been nice if in 1996 the House of Justice told us what they told us in December, 2005. Why didn't they? You know? Well, they can't do it. It doesn't work that way. It's not about a crystal ball that looks into the future. It's about God gives the guidance, which tells the friends what they should do. Then we know that's the direction we should go in, but then we have to act, and we have to figure out what it looks like and what works in practice. Now along the way, we make a lot of mistakes when we do this. This idea of learning is not like applying some magic formula. So we did all kinds of crazy things as we sincerely tried to apply the guidance. For example, at one point, it proved to be effective to have non-Bahá’ís participate in study circles, and many became attracted and they became Bahá’ís. Somehow the idea got out, oh, now the idea is to send our friends to study circles so don't, close down all your firesides and don't have firesides anymore. Of course, the House of Justice didn't say that. So things happened, it went that way and then people wrote and then the House of Justice responded, no, of course not. And so we should have our fireside and we should have our study circles. So there were many examples like this.
[20:49] Learning doesn't take place in an easy way. It's something that initially human beings, because something new is hard and complex, we reduce it down to a kind of a rigid formula. And then we try to work at it like that, but it doesn't work until we gain more experience. Many studies have been done about how human beings acquire new skills, and this is the pattern that it shows. If you're learning how to play chess, for example, you're just worried about how the pieces move. Eventually you become an expert and you learn the standard openings and how to control the board and things like that. Eventually you become a Grandmaster and then there's all this intuitive knowledge and you think 20 moves in advance and so on. Well, that's the nature of the process we're engaged in as well. At the beginning, it's very awkward, we make mistakes. But gradually as we become more expert it becomes smoother in practice.
[20:50] Now friends, these are just some of the examples. The process continues, in the past year we've learned a lot about the teaching work for example. And we've seen a doubling of enrollments in the second year of the Plan over the first through things like using resource people, and having collective projects aimed at receptive populations, and being more direct in our teaching rather than using indirect methods, all of these things have helped us gain another level of progress. But then we face again the same challenges in clusters where we enroll a lot of people. Are we balancing expansion and consolidation? So we have to ask ourselves that.
[22:33] Now we have a big discussion about door-to-door teaching. And suddenly, if you're not doing door-to-door teaching, then you're not really with the Plan and so on. And so all the other ways of teaching that were fine for 12 years apparently are not fine anymore, and now the only way to teach is this way. Not that this isn't an effective way, but this is another tool that in our arsenal for certain populations, done in certain ways, this becomes an effective way. And some of the friends can dedicate themselves and become effective in that. But our cluster work is not just this particular action. So if 30 out of 100 friends are involved in this process, well 70 others still stand there and the local assemblies and the cluster agencies need to figure out how do we involve those friends in the work as well? So every step forward, every new learning brings with it new problems, and then we have to tackle those problems. The only big problem is if we have the same problem over and over again. So we just need new problems. And when the new problems come, we can be happy. But they're not going to go away for 1,000 years. And then another Manifestation will come and create a whole other list of problems.
[23:50] Now friends you've seen now, in this most recent Riḍván message, the House of Justice has identified the fact of this great progress that has taken place now after 12 years and the exciting things, both quantitative and qualitative, that are happening in the clusters. But they also added another interesting paragraph where they talk about now, gave a little hint about what lies in the future. They refer to the call of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the two calls to civilization. One is the call of civilization itself, the progress in the material world. The other, the diffusion of the divine teachings. These are both arenas for action and the House of Justice adds:
[24:39] "As you continue to labour in your clusters, you will be drawn further and further into the life of the society around you and will be challenged to extend the process of systematic learning in which you are engaged to encompass a growing range of human endeavours. In the approaches you take, the methods you adopt, and the instruments you employ, you will need to achieve the same degree of coherence that characterizes the pattern of growth presently under way."
[25:11] So it was necessary for us to focus on this fundamental aspect of growth. It's like the embryo, the zygote, or the first fertilized cell. If this cell represents a human being that wants a degree in economics, it can't just kind of go out there and enroll in a university. His first job is to get two cells, and then to get four cells, and then eight cells. It has to multiply. And when there's enough cells than some can become the brain and some can become the kidneys until you have a baby born. And then that baby continues to grow and develop until finally then, it goes and enrolls in the university and gets the degree in economics. So our challenge is the same. As long as we're small, we can't do much to transform the old world order into this new social reality that Bahá’u’lláh wants us to create. So we could spin our wheels forever or we could apply this systematic learning and solve the problems of growth. And in a 12 year period we have effectively solved the problem that has been around since the end of the ministry of the Guardian. So almost a half a century we've been dealing with this problem, now we've learned how to deal with it. And it sets the stage, as the Riḍván message says, that we can begin to look ahead at how we'll be involved, because it's not now just about more growth and more growth. Now it's about what to do with those cells and organs and how they integrate together.
[26:44] So there are a number of activities then. The House of Justice now hasn't described what this implies, I'm going to offer you a few of my own ideas. I think one thing, for example, I think it's at least three areas of a greater involvement with the community beyond us. One is social action, where we look to apply the Bahá’í teachings to the problems that are facing the families, the communities, and the cluster, and the nation, and the world. This is social and economic development activity, for example, where we look at the problems we're faced, and begins within the Baha'i community itself, but then we try to apply the teachings and resolve those problems in a manner that's open to all of the people of the cluster. And then another of these avenues is our involvement in the discourse of humanity. So we see people talking about their problems, people trying to struggle with them. We see the work of the Bahá’í International Community of the United Nations and so on. The same process could go all the way down to the local community level where the people are thinking, they're talking, they're trying to decide on issues. Here, we could draw insights from the Bahá’í teaching and contribute to that discourse of humanity. And a third area, I think, relates to our involvement with all of the disciplines of human knowledge. Here, Bahá’ís are called to contribute to various fields, trades, business, industry, arts, psychology, medicine, education, economics as I said before. In all these ways, our participation, first of all in the field itself, without worrying about whether we're bringing Bahá’í concepts to bear. This first call of civilization, many passages from the Writings call us to participate in all these fields, and then to carry them forward. Because carrying forward the sciences and arts is the way civilization advances. And then as we participate in those different disciplines and professions, to the degree that we can, we bring the insights of the Bahá’í teachings to bear.
[29:06] So in all of these areas then, we have to take this same framework of learning that we've applied so successfully to the teaching work and now apply them to these other areas as well. First, in a parallel way, you see we have our work of expansion and consolidation. We have our work of social and economic development, of involvement in various fields of endeavor, of participating in human discourse. Correspondingly, then that impacts our learning about the further progress of our clusters, the role of the local assemblies, community building, external affairs activity, further development of human resources, and so on. All of these things have to be captured in a framework of learning, first so that they advance themselves, but then just as in the teaching work, we've seen the coherence between our training and core activity [**missing few seconds**] multiply core activities. That opens the space for more people. Then we teach them. Then we train them. If somebody comes to a fireside, they might find that they would also like to send their children to Bahá’í classes. In a junior youth group you might attract the parents to come and participate in a study circle. So there's a coherence and integration between all of these activities that reinforce one another. Well at the cluster level, as each one of these lines developed, we'll also have to learn not only how each advances systematically through learning, but then how they integrate for the building of a new civilization. This becomes our challenge.
[30:46] So this now I think has a direct bearing then on this gathering, the work that you're all doing. In a sense, Bahá’í intellectual activity as a whole. In all of these areas I described, obviously without Bahá’ís to bring their intellectual capacity to bear, none of these areas will advance. We won't learn about any of them, about our growth, obviously not, but in social and economic development, in advancing various fields of human knowledge, various disciplines of human knowledge, engaging in discourse with the wider society, all of these are arenas for increased intellectual activity.
[31:35] Now scholarly activity, whether it's Bahá’í studies particularly or participation in any field of human endeavor, can legitimately be seen as another line of action then, that has to advance as part of the overarching divine plan, as a parallel way and then itself to be more and more integrated into the coherent pattern of activity in which we're engaged. In the past, people have raised questions about the work of Bahá’í social and economic development. The House of Justice called for it in '83. But then, when Bahá’ís started to participate in development activities, people would say, well, does this development activity contribute to an increase in enrollments? And then when the Four Year Plan began, again, the question arose, we have to focus on growth, so really, isn't it a waste of time to be involved in this development activity? Shouldn't we now just drop that and all participate in the teaching work in the cluster? But the House of Justice wrote then, in response to such questions, that social and economic development is an important area of activity in and of itself. Its justification should not be sought in its ability to produce enrollments. It complements teaching and also contributes to it. So part of our work as Bahá’ís is translating the teachings into action and solving human problems. And we do that in a disinterested way. We don't have an ulterior motive. It's like if you want to come to our health clinic, then you have to become a Bahá’í, only Bahá’ís can come. No, just the opposite! ‘Abdu’l-Bahá insist that our development activities have to be for all people without any exception. So this work doesn't have to justify itself, whether or not it advances the teaching work. Just like the kidneys don't have to justify itself, depending on whether or not it's good for the brain. Of course it is, they compliment and reinforce one another. So we find out when we teach people, they might then have problems or they might have capacities that contribute to our development work. And we might find out that when people participate in our development activities, they see the efficacy of Bahá’u’lláh's teachings in action, and then they also want to learn more about the Faith.
[34:06] So the same thing is true with our scholarly work. This activity doesn't have to justify itself on the basis of whether or not it contributes to the current goals of the Five Year Plan. It's valid in its own right. It's an area of endeavor in which we have to engage. When we participate in the external affairs work, you're talking to a Minister of Education somewhere, you don't suddenly pull out an enrollment card. You know, that would conflate the two things. Well, it's the same thing, really, in our work. If we're writing a scholarly paper, we don't have to put quotations from the Writings in it. It might be relevant in some cases. It might be acceptable within the framework of that particular reason for that paper being written. But it's also acceptable if we're advancing the field of knowledge. If we're studying the Bahá’í Writings on the one hand, to understand our field, but then when we participate in our field, we speak in the language of that field. We draw from the voices within that field, and we gradually advance that field in the light of this framework of the Bahá’í teachings over time.
[35:23] Now, that means then, friends, that we need to think a little bit in our work here for Association for Bahá’í Studies, for scholarly activity of various kinds. About how we take these concepts of learning and put them to work in what we're doing. So we need to think about what's our framework for action? We don't have to make an elaborate plan and think this whole thing through. Think about the Four Year Plan. There were a few ideas that got us started. The House of Justice described the foundation of a framework for learning about more systematic action on growth. So the same thing is true then with our scholarly activity. What are the elements of this framework? What guidance have we received in the writings or from the House of Justice? What's our experience to date? What's been good about it and what hasn't been good? Then how do we define certain lines of action that we should be pursuing in this learning process? These might be the initial lines of action. They might not be the ones that we're doing five or ten years down the road, but they get started in the path of experimenting, consulting about the guidance, acting and then reflecting on our action. Even this conference itself can start to be a reflection point. As Tim was describing, it already is that. But we should consciously know that this is a reflection point about the work that we're doing in different fields of intellectual endeavor during the course of the year. And we come here, and we share, and we talk about it, and we learn from one another.
[37:02] Now, I think that we should recognize that as we - and I think we're already familiar with the fact that as we walk in these different disciplines, we face a variety of challenges, because the old world order is aligned in a certain way, and it's not the way that we want it now - so if you're in a particular discipline, you might run into certain kinds of tension. Tension between faith and reason, between science and religion, and the ideas and concepts that we're drawing from the Bahá’í writings might or might not be welcome in that particular discipline. They might or might not have a direct bearing on the challenges and problems of that particular arena of human thought. So how do we deal with those tensions? There's a book that I read recently that has some insights which I particularly found to be helpful. It's a book called "Our Practices, Our Selves (Or, What it Means to Be Human)". And the author's name is Todd May. He talks about the idea that what makes us human is the practices that we engage in. And he says that, he uses things like practices are where a group of people participate in certain kinds of behavior, usually goal-oriented, that's governed by social norms. And to be committed to a practice is to be committed to enough of the findings and claims and theories of that practice to be shown to be committed to it. So, for example, one kind of practice is credit card users. There's a certain kind of pattern of behavior that is common to all those who use credit cards. Or another kind is raising children, certain methods and concerns of parents who are all engaged in the same challenge of raising children. But a practice might also be a community or a culture, or a community with a certain interest, like the community of scientists or the community of educators, for example. Within that practice, then, as a member of that discipline or a member of that practice, there's a certain body of knowledge which is considered to be true in that practice. There's certain procedures and methods of how you engage in that practice. There's certain methodologies that are considered to be useful in uncovering new truths and investigating reality further. And if you're a member of that practice, then it means you're committed to a body of knowledge, to those patterns of behavior and so on.
[39:50] So, for example, if we have a conference of astronomers and somebody comes up to the podium to speak and they start speaking about astrology, well they wouldn't be welcome there because that speaker is committed to a different body of knowledge and different patterns and different methods, and it would be completely rejected by the larger conference of people. So as Bahá’ís are engaged in scholarly activity, they're committed in a certain sense, to at least two practices: the practice of the faith itself, which has its own body of knowledge, its own methods and so on; they're also committed to the practice of their discipline. Somewhere in the future, these two things might be one. But for now there might be quite a distance. And an individual has to, in a certain sense, respond to the demands of both areas of practice. And some years ago Moojan Momen wrote a paper where he talked about the particular challenges that Bahá’ís who are in these two arenas face. And he talked about the idea that the method he preferred was that the Bahá’í engaged in scholarly activity should write material that satisfies both academic community and the believing community. So you stand in both arenas of practice and you write something that can be, of course, as a historian, you're right to say, well, I have to respond to the demands of my discipline; otherwise, no historian would take me seriously. But, I can write something that would satisfy historians, which would also satisfy the wider community of believers. Now there's certain tensions that arise even in this case. Todd May talks about kind of how you resolve some of those tensions. He said, "On the one hand, you can be comfortable with ambiguity". So if the two practices are calling for different things and they seem in being contradiction, you can say, well, for the time being, I don't know how to reconcile these differences, but it'll sort itself out over time. Maybe I can even help sort all the tensions. So you become comfortable with ambiguity because the House of Justice has made it clear we can't solve every problem right now. Future generations will solve problems. We have to be patient at a particular stage in our development.
[42:24] It can also happen that the understanding in one practice shapes the understanding in another, but not by imposition. So what happens is we might get new insights from a particular discipline, like the field of education might give us different insights that we can then look back at our practices in Bahá’í education and see that well, yeah, these things would help. It would improve our practice of Bahá’í education if we were to apply some of these concepts and ideas. Now we wouldn't reject fundamental aspects of our Bahá’í practice like ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says a certain thing, and then we adopt this idea, say, from the field of education that directly contradicts what ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said. That wouldn't happen. But what would happen is perhaps what is challenged is not what ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said, but what we think ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said. So we have to recognize the fact that we have a certain understanding and a certain approach based on the way we understand the teachings. But then we might find that participating in other disciplines helps us get new insights to better appreciate what ‘Abdu’l-Bahá or Bahá’u’lláh intended. And the same thing takes place in reverse. There might be insights from certain concepts from the Bahá’í writings that shed light on these different disciplines, but it's not necessarily achieved by producing a quotation that then convinces everybody. It might be that we introduce a certain concept, and then the people in the discipline themselves kind of grapple with it and then justify it on the basis of their own methods. So, for example, the idea of the education of the girl child, which is now a dominant idea in the field of development. Well Bahá’ís, I'm not saying it was purely because of Bahá’ís, but I know Bahá’ís were actively working through different agencies, through the UN and so on to introduce this concept into the thinking of the community. Then, through practice, through experience, through, you know, justifications built within the field of development itself, the field concluded that, yes, the best way to help a family advance is to educate the girls. They become the educators of the family and so on. And so this concept that's embedded in the Bahá’í teachings has been accepted and proven to be effective in the wider field of development. So these two fields, these two disciplines, these two practices can affect one another.
[45:00] Finally, there's even the possibility that an individual who is in two practices can't reconcile the contradictions between them and can't be patient with ambiguity and so on, and feels that they need to resolve it right now. And so then they might withdraw from one of those areas of practice. In all three of these areas outlined by Todd May, there's also quotations from the House of Justice that reflect the same thing in its discussions about Bahá’í scholarly activities and so on. So these are different possibilities. But what isn't acceptable is that an individual participates in two different disciplines and accepts contradictory truths in both ones, and acts you know, as if the truths of one don't affect the reality of the other. That's an extreme relativism which isn't acceptable. So I think that this area then, might give some insight into how we can approach our participation in both of these areas of practice, whatever our discipline is and how we can begin to resolve some of these tensions until these practices grow more closely together.
[46:20] Another point I want to make is about the nature of Bahá’í scholarly activity itself. We engage in a wide variety of activity. It might be, for example, apologetics, which is very directly related to the faith, and then follow a continuum of less and less direct input from the Bahá’í writings [**missing word**] to advancing a particular field for its own sake. Maybe I'm an auto mechanic, for example, but the most I can draw from the Bahá’í teachings is the concept of honesty. And then I run my business in an honest way. But there's not much in the Bahá’í teachings that talk about, you know, how a car engine runs or something like that. But even that little bit could have a profound impact on the whole field. As people suddenly see an honest mechanic and rush to bring the car to that person, and everybody then has to change their behavior if they're going to stay in business.
[47:24] So if we then look in a certain sense, for a kind of metaphor that describes the overarching work of Bahá’í scholarly activity, I think that we can look at a number of concepts. And I'm not talking now about the method of a particular discipline. I'm talking about the meta-method of Bahá’í scholarly activity. First of all, the learned Bahá’í isn't a gatekeeper or a priest. The Bahá’í community doesn't sit idly by its side waiting for Bahá’í intellectuals to tell them what the teachings mean so that they can go on. That doesn't mean that somebody expert in languages or in history or in [**missing word**] can't find certain insights that are instructive to the community and that enriches its understanding. But the community doesn't depend on that. It doesn't wait upon that. The learned Bahá’í isn't an anthropologist of the Bahá’í community. The goal is not to describe the community as it is now. We know that the Bahá’í community of the future will be different than this one, so we might get some insights but what is defined now is not what the Bahá’í community will be in the future. The learned Bahá’í isn't an archaeologist. It's not that the truth of the Faith lies somewhere in the past, and somebody has to dig it out and tell us what it is. There's a constant process of evolution and advancement and over time we're gradually drawing closer to what Bahá’u’lláh wants us to be. The true meaning of what He wants lies in the future, not in the past. The learned Bahá’í isn't an artist. Bahá’í intellectual activity is not to take from the teachings whatever you want and combine it in any way you want. There's an intended meaning there. We have to struggle. It doesn't mean that we don't need creativity, but we have to try to understand Bahá’u’lláh's purpose and find that purpose in our action in reality. The learned Bahá’í isn't an impartial observer. It's not possible for a Bahá’í to stand back and look at the Faith as if it's some kind of molecule or object for study, as if whatever the investigator does doesn't have an impact on the community itself. I think that the learned Bahá’í is more like a scout who participates in some kind of journey or expedition into unexplored territory. It's somebody who actively participates in that journey, but has specialized knowledge and skill and experience that informs various aspects of the work as the Bahá’í community struggles to make progress. So it might be constructive insight into the past, present or future, technical capacity for certain kinds of study, problem posing or problem solving, or defining cultural and intercultural relations. On that journey, the learned individual doesn't have authority but makes a vital contribution. And like any other participant is fallible and learns over time.
[50:36] Well, friends, I want to conclude with a few comments. Bahá’í scholarly activity is vital to the progress of the Faith and its engagement with the wider society. The fruits, however, will only be realized as the culture of learning that's beginning to emerge in the field of teaching and [**missing**] increasingly takes root in our work for Bahá’í studies. Any tensions that obstruct such pursuits have to give way to a community of inquirers that engage in an ongoing conversation using sound hermeneutical principles, involved in consultation, action, and reflection. Conscious of their role and influence as an integral part of the Bahá’í community, and as members of the practices in which they participate, the professions and disciplines in which they participate. They have to be imbued with qualities, attitudes and behaviors shaped by the teachings, and operate in harmony with the teachings of the Faith and the guidance of the Universal House of Justice. This culture of learning is characterized by error and achievement and by periods of ambiguity, or of consensus, punctuated by valuable new insights. In a culture of learning, Bahá’í academic specialists and all those generally engaged in intellectual activity will find personal fulfillment in their chosen discipline and also contribute their share to the progress of the Faith and the progress of society. The possessor of knowledge has great promise, but also great responsibility, as Bahá’u’lláh says:
[52:20] "Know thou that he is truly learned who hath acknowledged My Revelation, and drunk from the Ocean of My knowledge, and soared in the atmosphere of My love, and cast away all else besides Me, and taken firm hold on that which hath been sent down from the Kingdom of My wondrous utterance. He, verily, is even as an eye unto mankind, and as the spirit of life unto the body of all creation. Glorified be the All-Merciful Who hath enlightened him, and caused him to arise and serve His great and mighty Cause."
[53:00] Thank you, friends.
