“So why are you moving to Esperance?” It’s a pretty harmless question. But also a fairly loaded question for a Bahá’í pioneer. There are not the standard excuses of work or love or family. One also does not want to be too vague, lest another might deduce more bleak motives, perhaps running from mistakes in a past life and wanting to start afresh. So, what to say?
There are some easy, if also slightly smug and self-serving responses:
“My friends moved down here a while ago and I want to help them out”.
“Regional communities need more people to join them, with all the people that are leaving”.
“I feel like I can take the professional skills I have developed in an urban setting and apply them in a rural setting” (or, for me: “I want to make your parks better”).
All true to an extent, but not the whole truth. Then the more ambiguous, cop out answers:
“I’ve been visiting for a while and just felt drawn here”.
“This is the gap year I wish I took after high school”.
“I’ve lived in Perth my whole life and I need a fresh challenge”.
“City life will kill you, eventually”.
Then the more blunt answers, probably as close to the truth as any:
“I saw myself becoming an Academic, and realised I needed a way out, quick”.
“For the beaches, man”.
Or maybe even: “To find a wife?”
That’s the mild dilemma I have been grappling with. Because, of course, the real answer, the Truth so to speak (note the capitalisation), is along the lines of: “As a Bahá’í, we are told that pioneering to new areas is the most pressing, most urgent task of a believer, to recruit new souls, to spread the Faith to every corner of the world, and that if we do so we will receive God’s confirmations and blessings and be protected and supported in all our endeavours.” Bang. Well, that was easy.
**
So: if that is the real reason, and we are certain of it, then we should be confident enough to just say it. But we (I) probably won’t. Perhaps because telling the Truth all the time is actually very difficult, and takes cojones that not many people have.
But it also isn’t as simple as just saying the Truth every time, and feeling guilty when you don’t. Because there are also certain connotations to the Truth. Some might close the (metaphorical or physical) door with varying degrees of force straight away. Some might even say: “so you are a missionary?” And I would say: erm. I would like to say they are completely different but the underlying reality is the same. You are travelling away from home to spread your Faith, and through it the Word of God, to people who need it.
But pioneering also has to be different. A very wise Bahá’í recently said that one of the most challenging tasks in teaching our Faith is to re-conceptualise religion. We are not just teaching to receptive souls and Bahá’ís in waiting, but to those whose existing preconceptions of religion range from skeptical, to dismissive, to downright hostile. While there are many reasons for such hostility (which I used to share, not gonna lie), they seem to me to stem from either a lack of understanding of the unarguable positive influence of religion in historical societies, or completely logical responses to the unarguable negative influence of religion in contemporary society. Hypocritical religious individuals who claim certain spiritual virtues while practicing the opposite; pious and holier-than-thou religious communities who condescend and shun rather than embrace and include those they see as morally inferior; toxic, corrupt and self-serving religious institutions — these are all preconceptions that Bahá’ís are endeavouring to overcome.
More fundamentally, I think, Bahá’ís (whether they are conscious of it or not) are trying to re-conceptualise what it means to be ‘religious’. It is said by his wife, Rúhíyyih Khánum, that Shoghi Effendi (the fourth-most important figure in the Faith, for want of a more detailed explanation) was once asked what it means to be a Bahá’í, and answered along these lines:
“The whole object of our lives is bound up with the lives of all human beings: not a personal salvation we are seeking, but a universal one. We are not to cast eyes within ourselves and say “Now get busy saving you soul and reserving a comfortable berth in the Next World!” No… our aim is to produce a world civilization which will in turn react on the character of the individual. It is, in a way, the inverse of Christianity which started with the individual unit and through it reach out to the conglomerate life of men.”
So: how is pioneering different? How is it re-conceptualising religion in this context, and the more specific act of religious teaching and outreach? Let me try and explain, for my own benefit as well, in a tangentially and not particularly concise way.
**
There is a part of a Bahá’í prayer, for protection, which is particularly relevant for those teaching in challenging circumstances. After some not uncommon but still powerful phrases extolling a desire to walk in the path of God and to spread His Word, it drops in this:
“Wherefore I have been subjected to such adversities that my tongue hath been hindered from extolling Thee and from magnifying Thy glory”.
I have thought a lot about what this actually means, which started by checking what ‘wherefore’ actually means. There are many ways to read this line, as there is with all the Writings. This line might have been particularly pertinent for and even aimed at Bahá’ís who have been actively and sometimes viciously persecuted for expressing their faith, notably in its earliest days as well as today in countries like Iran, Yemen and others. But it could also be interpreted more universally. It’s easy (and enjoyable!) to speak openly about your faith around other like-minded people. But: if you are truly following the path of God — or more simply, going outside of your comfort zone to try and change the world as is expected of us — you will inevitably find yourself in situations where this luxury is restricted, diminished or completely incapacitated.
One of the reasons this line resonated so much was because it describes the spiritual dilemma at the centre of Martin Scorsese’s movie Silence, one of the most intellectually complex and thought-provoking movies I have seen (gratuitous religious violence not withstanding). It tells the story of two Christian missionaries who travel to Japan in the 17th century — a time when Christianity was being forcefully suppressed and Christians were largely in hiding due to the heavy persecution they faced (again, not unlike the situation many Bahá’í have and still do face). Upon capture, the missionaries are put under immense pressure, including impressively creative torture methods, to renounce their faith. Importantly, it is not primarily the missionaries themselves who are tortured, but other prisoners: they are forced to choose between their own steadfastness to teach and the suffering and eventual death of innocent people. This, if ever, was an example of one’s tongue being hindered from extolling. If you are after a relaxing and trivial night of entertainment, I would look elsewhere.
**
Ok, so that is a bit of a dramatic segway, but bear with me.
As well as being an historical period piece, there are different contemporary themes at play in Silence. Various aspects of religious faith are questioned but not answered; there are some hardcore existential questions about the limits (even dangers) of emotional detachment, and the seeming ambivalence of God to suffering: rabbit holes both best avoided (for now). As such, it invites viewers to interpret the movie themselves, probably to support their own existing lines of argument, as I am about to do.
Ultimately, I think Martin Scorsese (a faithful but fiercely questioning Christian) was trying to undertake his own re-conceptualisation of his religion, along the lines of Shoghi Effendi’s description earlier, specifically by challenging self-absorbed, self-serving interpretations of religious faith and its teaching. It questions the expression of faith as superficial outward acts of virtue signalling to the Almighty, where ultimately one’s own spiritual journey and relationship with God are prioritised at the expense of others. Instead, I get a suggestion that true faith might be something that allows you to remain steadfast internally even as you make an external compromise that you deem able to relieve the suffering of others (basically taking ‘deeds not words’ to the next level). Slightly paradoxically, then, someone truly faithful can, as one would swallow their pride, also swallow their faith during times when making mention of God is judged to be undesirable, and to act seemingly in contradiction to ‘faithfulness’ — to apostatise — in service of something greater.
And it is really the concept of apostasy that this movie, for me, revolves around. Apostasy, as broadly defined, isn’t necessarily renunciation of God, or even a religion (although it can be, and this is its typical connotation in a Biblical sense), but the renunciation of a particular religious or spiritual principle or belief. In Silence, the apostasy isn’t against God in any meaningful sense: at the risk of spoilers, it is made clear that those who apostatise outwardly by no means relinquish their faith internally. Rather, the apostasy is against a pre-determined idea of what it means to be unconditionally faithful to God: basically, to put the integrity of your own faith and how it is outwardly expressed ahead of the well-being of others. In this sense, the film actually invites us to see the apostasies as profound acts of spiritual sacrifice.
**
I definitely don’t want to trivialise the potential seriousness of apostasy, or its related concept of ‘dissimulation‘, which is a complex and tricky one in the Bahá’í Faith. But the traditional conception of apostasy does seem a bit self-absorbed: a failing of an individual’s personal faith and belief in God, without any great consideration of its broader implications. Maybe it is useful then, in the spirit of re-conceptualisation, to take away its more dramatic and emotional connotations, and look at it, as in Silence, more pragmatically.
In this context, what if the key differentiating quality of pioneering that allows it to break away from previous modes of religious teaching, or preaching, or of missionaries, is through conscious acts of (albeit very mild) apostasy. Every instance of teaching is not a test of telling the Truth (phew, they slammed the door and i’ll probably never see them again, but at least I passed!), but a test of whether you genuinely have their best interests at heart; are you just going through the motions, or are you truly driven by the goal of increasing the well-being and unity of that community. In fact, one of the slightly subversive implications of Silence for pioneering is that just saying the Truth every time might actually be a bit of a cop-out. It relieves you of the burden of not having to go through the tedious process of seeking to get to know and understand each individual you come into contact with, considering what the best approach is to take moving forward, whether direct or indirect; being open to both inviting them straight-out to a Ruhi book or agreeing to come over one afternoon for a drink (non-alcoholic, of course).
This is a tough balance; good teaching, in any domain, requires being detached to some extent from the outcome of teaching (you can lead a horse to water but can’t force them to drink etc.), a quality that lends itself towards simply focusing on getting the message right and being uninfluenced by how it is received. The alternative, more pragmatic mindset can also lead to excuses, and avoidance of difficult conversations, and to potentially miss situations and interactions that might actually be opportunities for direct teaching: or, more colourfully, a Divine test to see if your really are committed to telling the Truth when necessary. It could also lead to you being perceived as insincere in your motives… acting a bit tricky. But it also acknowledges the reality that there are times when it isn’t feasible to directly teach the Faith, because this isn’t an appropriate approach to connect in a meaningful way with someone. Maybe the re-conceptualisation of religion that is necessary here is to commit an apostasy, swallow that quote you had ready, and engage them on their terms, whatever that entails.
**
Of course, this could just be me having an ego trip, comparing Christian missionaries in Japan facing torture and crucifixion for spreading their religious beliefs to me pioneering to, of all the ghastly places in the world, Esperance (although, we do have sharks). And again, it is wort re-stating that, like in Silence, the pressure to apostatise/dissimulate is a very real one with life and death consequences in the Bahá’í Faith, particularly during its early days but also still in many countries today.
It could also just be me justifying not having the courage to speak openly about the Faith, or over-thinking it when we already have so much guidance on different strategies to use for different situations. And there is already a lot of guidance along these lines: to employ effective speech; to use moderation, tact and wisdom; to consider the capacities of the receiver. Even, slightly ruthlessly, “to leave the spiritually blind to themselves” (1).
In the end, all this is probably just a way to help explain to myself and anyone interested what I am doing here. We are not just going door-to-door (or village to village) with pamphlets in hand and a pre-determined spiel in mind, not that these approaches don’t play a role. We also need to be a friendly neighbour without any underlying agenda (except perhaps to mow my lawn); to be a valued part of existing community life (anyone have spare footy boots?); and to be of use in a professional and practical sense (i.e. make their parks better).
Because when it comes down to it, the reason for pioneering is simple. You have found something that has had a profoundly positive impact on you, and you want to share it with other people. Perhaps if is that simple, and if we keep that in the front of our minds at all times, the conversations become simple.
Anyway, off to the beach, maybe to find a… um, receptive soul.
(1) Hushidah Motlagh, 2008. “The Magnet of Divine Blessings: Teaching the Cause of God”. https://globalperspective.org/catalog/teaching/magnet-divine-blessings
Midsplaining 