Okay, I'm taking a really deep breath...

This blog is a response to Mr. Charles Follymacher's comments on my previous blog. I did respond to some of his questions, but I felt that other questions required a bit more elaboration. Here's what he wrote:

Quite a ways off topic, but I'm seizing the opportunity to ask a real Bahai woman about an issue that prevented me from joining the faith myself (when I was looking into it some years ago). And that is the deal with the highest council being proscribed for male membership only. How do you deal with that? Is it an issue for you? Were you born into this faith?

First of all, I have to make it clear that I'm responding to Mr. Follymacher's question from my viewpoint. What I have to say relates to how Angela Shortt sees the Baha'i Faith, and should not be construed as an official statement. I have links on the left hand side of this blog to the official Baha'i web sites where anyone can get more information. I say this because we, meaning Bahai's, really believe in independent investigate of the truth, and that a person in this age has the ability to seek the truth about God and spirituality through prayer, meditation, consultation with others and sincere, dedicated reading of sacred Scriptures from all of the major relitions. We have no clergy, so no one of us can claim expertise in the Baha'i Faith or other religious matters. We all, however, learn from each other. Seeking God through independent investigation is no lightweight venture, in my opinion. For me, it's the most important journey of my life, and I am always learning.

Having said that, I believe Mr. Follymacher's question involves the Universal House of Justice, which is part of the Baha'i World Centre located in Haifa, Israel. The members of the Universal House of Justice are nine representatives from different parts of the world, (yes, they are all men) who are elected to provide service to world. Not just Baha'is, but the world at large. I emphasize the word service because not one of them has any individual power. The Universal House of Justice has nothing to do with power and influence, which is what most of us associate with elected officials. By themselves, the members of the Universal House of Justice are pretty much ordinary guys. Special in their own ways, but none of them have, nor do they seek, that celebrity hyper-wattage power that is afforded to most politicians, athletes or entertainers. They are elected to work diligently to help bring about spiritual prosperity (shout out to Malik, I LOVE that term!) to this planet. No fanfare, no limelight. Just work, and lots of it.

How do they go about doing this work? I can only share what I have heard during talks given by
Hooper Dunbar, current member of the Universal House of Justice, and former member Douglas Martin. I saw Hooper Dunbar give a talk in Davis, California not long after his election to the Universal House of Justice in 1988, and Douglas Martin (who retired in 2005) lead a discussion of the Baha'i Faith at the San Francisco Baha'i Center last year. On their own, they appeared to be just guys...men who certainly have individual thoughts and opinions. But both men said the same thing (almost two decades apart) about their experiences as members of the Universal House of Justice. They have no idea what comes over them as individuals when the Universal House is in session. After prayer and meditation, their individual egos merely cease to exist, and the sense of connection to the other members is profound. There's discussion, but no arguments. No power-plays, sycophantic dealings or disruptive grandstanding. They consult with each other, gather information, pray at each step of the meeting, and come to a decision. In unity. No egos. Just unity.

Both men admitted that in their own lives, they don't always operate like that. None of us do. Our own personal agendas and egos dictate our actions, and those often collide with the desires and actions of others. It's a wonder that anything gets done, if you think about it. But as a body, the Universal House simply doesn't operate like that. It can't. The job of helping humanity realize its full spiritual potential is much too important to leave to the machinations of ego-centric, power-mad people. (Remember, this is Angela's view, not the Baha'i Faith as a whole.)

Now, about the fact that the Universal House of Justice consists of only men, not women. It's not a problem for me. The House of Justice is not about money, power and respect, the usual suspects in the game of politics, business and far too often, religious institutions. In fact, the way the Universal House of Justice is mandated to conduct its business appears to be completely contrary to how the money, power, respect game is played. The men are asked to COMPLETELY subsume their egos, forget about their personal concerns and connections, and submit themselves to the Will of God. How many men do you know who are willing to do that? Not many. In our world, everyone seems to be playing a prescribed roles for the cameras, nothing more.

To me, this is a huge lesson for mankind. We can't continue to play the game by the same power-hungry games by the same good ole'boy rules because THEY HURT PEOPLE. People are dying every minute because there are those who refuse to give up their positions of influence and allow the people of the world to freedom, justice, and a way of life that is of their liking. Look at CNN for an hour (I don't, by the way because it's the same old, same old.) What do you see? People hurting, their livelihoods threatened by poverty, disease, starvation, and civil war. Behind all of those problems is a group of men who hold the prize. They are the puppet masters, or so they fancy themselves. This worldwide system of business as usual is not working for the rest of us. The Universal House of Justice offers a different model to mankind, should it choose to accept the gift. It will never be enforced. Mankind must willing choose leadership and leaders who are totally submissive to the Will of God, and have no desires for personal gain.

You might say that since men are required to go through a process of humility, that there is, an implication that women, by and large, already recognize that this process is necessary. This is an assumption on my part. As a woman, I've noticed that when women decide to move out competitiveness and concentrate on doing whatever tasks are set before them, they can operate quite well as a group. There is little jockeying for leadership, unless the women adopted the hierarchal model. When that happens, there's no difference between men and women. But I've attended meetings (a lot lately, as a matter of fact) where we have a job to do, and even though we laugh and take a few detours along the way, we still operate as a unified group.

Could it be that instinctively, when male competitiveness is removed from a woman's consciousness, that she understands the need to unified action? It's certainly an idea worth consideration. And maybe that is the lesson that the Universal House of Justice puts before the world. Men can operate in unity, too. Again, this is merely my opinion.

When viewed from this perspective, I have absolutely no problem with the fact that the Universal House of Justice is comprised of men. In fact, I welcome this change in the way men have conducted their affairs on this planet. It's about time.

As for the question about being born into a Baha'i family, the answer is no. I was raised Baptist/Protestant. The slash is there because my father was in the Air Force, and some of the places where we were stationed had no Baptist churches, at least none that would allow Black people. So we attended the Protestant services on base. I am the first member of my family to become a Baha'i, but I am not the last. My son Marc and my daughter Chenelle are both Baha'is although Chenelle is undergoing her journey through the valley of Search right now. It's all good, though. That's what is wonderful about being a Baha'i--we agree to go on a spiritual journey, but we get to decide how we traverse the hills and valleys.

Let me know if this post has not answered your questions. I would be more than happy to respond to more questions, and if I don't have an answer, I can look up the information or call upon my friends (ahem, Phillipe, Liz, Barney, Malik...anyone out there?) for their knowledge and wisdom.

Hey, help a Baha'i sister out, folks! I can't do all the talking about this! :)

Comments

SMK said…
I'd say the blog is pretty well right on in the main thrust of the argument. There is the greater deal that for the first time a Prophet of God has designed the administration of the religion based on His teachings and this is what the authentic written documents say. If He is who He says He is He can write what He wants.

Some other angles

- men made the mess, perhaps men need to clean it up (similar to your main point but not exactly the same.)

- religion can not only be a haven and guide to people; it can be a test. Moses was a murderer and stuttered. Muhammad was illiterate and Jesus can from *Bethlehem*? What comes from Bethlehem? (according to the Bible that is the comment of the day.) So perhaps men and women really are equal and it doesn't matter. If it doesn't matter then... it doesn't matter that men have the exclusive role on the House. If it bothers you then perhaps you haven't bought into the *fact* it doesn't matter.

- it's easy to suppose that because of the oppression of the past of women by men that redress will require women in roles men had. But advocacy of what is right shouldn't depend on gender or race - it should depend on virtues like honesty, trustworthiness, service, wisdom, etc. There may be some tone to contributions in these virtues that the diversity of gender and people can bring to our awareness but not fundamental substance. Human beings can learn - so anything one group of people already knows how to do another groups can learn how to do. And we should. Now the scope of the Baha'i faith is long view - do we think the wrongs of the past will require redress for thousands of years? I don't think so. We have to have a goal beyond redress and that I think is what the Baha'i Faith provides.
SMK said…
O yeah - another bit of detail.... the Baha'i faith openly embraces that there will be another Prophet of God someday and that (well it's often put this way amongst us but no real guide) She can redesign the system as needed - perhaps the next revision of the House will be all women or both sexes or whatever.
Bill said…
There is a simple response to this question. Baha'u'llah and 'Abdu'l-Baha made clear that the Universal House of Justice is composed of men. They did not give a reason. 'Abdu'l-Baha said that the "wisdom" of this would one day be "as clear as the sun at midday." Baha'is accept that Baha'u'llah, as the Revealer of God's will, knew what He was doing.

But They also made very clear that equality of women and men is a fundamental principle of the Baha'i Faith. We must therefore conclude from this that the fact of the Universal House of Justice having a male membership requirement has absolutely nothing to do with men being superior to women or with denying women equality. There must be something deeper at work.

There is a principle in the Baha'i Faith that if parents cannot afford to educate all of their children, they should choose first to educate the girl child for she is the first trainer of the next generation. Is this discrimination against men?

Baha'is have nothing to apologize for here. It is how the Universal House of Justice is constituted. Women have held positions of higher individual rank, such as Hand of the Cause of God and Counsellor. In fact, Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Baha'i Faith, named his great-aunt Bahiyyih Khanum (Baha'u'llah's daughter) the acting head of the Baha'i Faith during two prolonged recuperative absences from Haifa.

If the membership of the Universal House of Justice is a barrier for someone, then he/she must wrestle with it until it becomes clear, or seek spiritual solace elsewhere. I personally observed the workings of the Universal House of Justice for several years and I can testify to its great love and care, it deep concern for the equality of women and men, and its strong and active commitment to implementing the spiritual, legal, and social equality of the sexes.
Pearl said…
What great dialogue. I started leaving a comment but it got so length I decided to take your lead, Angela, and devote a post to the topic myself.

Keep on asking these juicy questions, Charles Follymacher - that's what independant investigation is all about! The Baha'i community benefits greatly when called upon to address such earnest queries. Thank you.
Liz Dwyer said…
Angela,
I think you did a great job answering the question. And good for Follymacher having the courage to ask it!
Nice post. The only thing I can say is that these institutions such as the Universal House of Justice on considered to be divine in nature, an expression of God's will. As such they cannot be fully understood by comparing them to institutions in the wider society that are the fruit of human fancy and imagination. What it means to be a member of the Universal House of Justice does not share the meanings that we associate with power and authority in other institutions. I heard someone put it this way, if you look at most organizations as a pyramid, whoever is at the top is "better" than those who are not. In the Baha'i sense, this pyramid is turned upside down. Those who serve on the Universal House of Justice are at the lowest level of selfless, sacrificial service not only to the Baha'i community, but to every man, woman and child on the planet. Another way of looking at it is as concentric circles radiating out from a central point. The House of Justice would be the widest outside ring, embracing the whole human race with God at the center. Of course there would be an even wider ring representing God, Who embraces everything, being both the beginning and the end of all things.

Anyway those are just my thoughts.
Portia said…
Angela, I'm coming to your entry on this topic very late, via Pearl's blog. I'm so happy that you both addressed this issue. And I thank the person who raised the initial question and compelled you to respond.

Your thoughts, coupled with everyone else who posted here, were beautifully expressed. I was particularly struck by Bill's comments, because I sometimes tend to dance around this issue.

The bottom line is Baha'u'llah said it was to be this way. When Abdu'l-Baha takes pity on us and explains that in time the reasons will be clear, what else can I say to that! ;- )

It is interesting though, that for many of us our first inclination upon learning about this matter is to suggest that it seems contradictory to the principle of the equality of men and women.

Why is there an immediate assumption that the service of men alone on the House of Justice somehow speaks to the role, station, and glory of women, with the further assumption that women are not "worthy" to serve on that body? That's quite a leap. And speaks more to our own prejudices and perspectives, than what the Manifestation of God Himself had to say.

Baha'u'llah said, and quite forcefully, that men and women are equal. He didn't minimize that statement, or offer degrees of equality, or equivocate in any way. Men and women are equal. So the ways in which we serve have nothing to do with our equality in the sight of God.
Anonymous said…
Thank you Angela for taking the time and effort to address my poorly framed question. I apologize for taking so long to respond. I checked in a few more times on the day I posted the question and when I did not see a response I forgot that I had posted it, not used to travelling to your site regularly (I forget where you were referenced). I only just remembered that I commented here a while ago and thot to check one more time.

Anyway, yes, it is more than simply a matter of there *happens* to be a bunch of men on the "highest" council. It has been decreed so. A don't-worry-bout-it-allll-will-be-revealed kind of stance is discomfiting to me. And while persuasive, I'm not quite convinced of the flip-the-pyramid idea either. It feels like a "trick" to make it seem like it is less than it is.

A rule of thumb (re education of children) is not the same as a law.

*****"Why is there an immediate assumption that the service of men alone on the House of Justice somehow speaks to the role, station, and glory of women, with the further assumption that women are not "worthy" to serve on that body? That's quite a leap. And speaks more to our own prejudices and perspectives, than what the Manifestation of God Himself had to say." *******

To me, and I'm willing to bet most people, that's not a big leap at all. There is a long and protracted HISTORY of women being considered second-class citizens that cannot be casually ignored. It seems naive to say, well all those other prejudices don't apply to us, keep looking at the stuff over here and don't go behind the curtain where the UHJ is. Proof is in the pudding, no?

I understand that it is service in the same way that being a President or Prime Minister is a sacred stewardship as well. But at the end of the day, there is only one group of deciders and it's been decreed that women are not allowed to be part of that group.

I have researched many (many) religions and philosphies in my life and Bahai seemed the most perfect to me until I tripped across that one law. I couldn't make it fit no matter how I tried. And to me a religion needs to be perfect, at least in principle(s), if I'm to accept it.

I don't want to cause trouble (too late?), but I could never find a satisfactory answer to this seemingly glaringly obvious problem (yes, I recognize you all don't see a "problem" at all). Thanks all of you for giving me some insight re how you deal with it. It has been illuminating.
Ms Angela said…
I wanted to thank Mr. Follymacher (that isn't your last name, is it?) for visiting this blog again and giving us a chance to try address your questions. It's important to me, and probably to most Baha'is, that we at least try to give as much accurate information as our own perspective and knowledge will allow us at this time. It keeps us on our toes, and we are literally forced to study the Holy Scriptures of all religions so we could address the questions in a reasonable manner. It's all good. As I've said before, we have no clergy so each one of us is charged with sharing what we know about the Faith with others who are seeking answers to questions in this confusing and very troubled age.

I will get back to some of the issues you raised with your last post, but I want to address something that I feel that is at the heart of ALL religions--faith. We humans have a tenuous relationship with that word. We have faith when God is doing things that we feel He should do for us. Of course, I have faith in God, I might say one morning. I'm alive, I have a job, a roof over my head, food in the fridge, etc. Praise God! Then it's all snatched away, and I blame God. "Why hast thou forsaken me?" I cry to the heavens. "Haven't I always been a good person? Shouldn't I be rewarded for being a good servant?"

The way I see it, Mr. Follymacher, is that God isn't a short order cook. We don't tell God what's needed in the world. He already knows because He (or She, if you will) has the Big Picture. As smart we all are, we don't have that picture. God sees all of the ailments of mankind, and prescribes the medicine. We have the choice (free will) to taking the medicine, rejecting it, or taking it and spitting it back out. He is the Divine Physician. And just like that nasty cod liver oil my grandmother used to give me when I visited her, sometimes the medicine is not to our personal tastes. After all, as intelligent beings we ought to know what we need in order to have perfect world, right? We shouldn't need to ask "that big dude in the sky who's supposed to be runnin' things" as my oldest daughter, who claims to be an atheist,always says.

Faith is strange thing, Mr. Follymacher. Some people have it, some don't. Some need to have concrete evidence that there is a reason to have faith in God. But what it comes down to whether or not you have, as the Baptist preachers of my childhood used to say, a personal relationship with God. Without that, religion just seems like an endless exercise in rhetoric and semantics.

What I'm trying to say here is that it's not about us, the group of people called Baha'is. It's not about you, me or anyone else. It's about faith in One God, the Divine Physician, who has what mankind needs to heal all the peoples of our world. Faith has been the cornerstone of all the religions of the world, and God has sent Manifestations of His Holy Essence to educate, enlighten, sanctify and comfort people.

It may not look that way because people have a way of getting ego-ridden desires and ambitions mixed up with God's message. But there has always been God, and She will always send Divine Messengers to humanity when we have developed the necessary spiritual capacity and understanding. From a strictly human point of view, that seem totally arbitrary, doesn't it? I used to think so,too. And I would be lying if I said that I don't have days (like today) when I have doubts about all this religious stuff.

But just when I start thinking that it's all a big mind game,something happens to reassure me to keep going along the path of faith. A man, a total stranger, stopped me today and said, "There you are, little sister. Look, you see all these people rushing around? Where are they going? They don't need to run like that; they'll get to where they're going if they just have patience. That's all it takes, baby. Some patience."

True story, Mr. Follymacher. I kid you not. It might not mean much to you, but not more than one minute before, I was despairing my life and how things haven't "gone my way", the way I had planned them. It was one of my numerous complaining to God days. There was one incident in particular that set me off, and I was on the verge of tears. That's when that man walked up and said that to me.

Coincidence, right? Could be. I can see a logical explanation for it all. But logic dictates that he would say something like, "Oh come on, little sister, don't cry. It's a nice sunny day. Smile!"

Instead, I received the answer that I desperately needed at the time. Have patience. I'm an Aries, and patience is something I've never achieved without a lot of grousing and getting angry first. As the words to one of the gospel songs I used to hear in church says, "God may not give you what you want, but He's always RIGHT ON TIME.

One last thing, Mr. Follymacher. You are NOT causing trouble here. Your questions are most heartily welcomed on this blog. Please ask away; we need to find the answers for our own developing relationship with the Almighty, and because more than likely, we have the same questions. Being a Baha'i doesn't mean that any one of us has arrived at the truth. It means we have agreed to go on the journey through life in search of the truth and greater understanding of the Beloved. So ask away; if we don't know, we will try our best to find out!
Anonymous said…
Thanks again Angela for your patient response. I do believe that your experience with the old man is not a complete accident. I do believe we get divine(?) messages of one sort or another from time to time.

However. What the Bahai and other faiths give us is a framework for orienting ourselves to life, what it means, what we are to do with it, where it came from and where it is going, what lies beyond.

In the end these various frameworks are about an understanding of the relationship with the ultimate creator(s). They give us rules for what is acceptable behaviour, what the creator(s) want from us, etc.

Faith is a funny thing. What one person is willing to believe, another may hold up in ridicule. It is a very subjective thing, obviously. But faith permeates every aspect of our lives, even atheists (there is in fact no proof that the sun will rise tomorrow just because it has for a pretty long time. there is no proof that the physical "laws" of the universe won't change in the next instant, we could float into space in the next 3 seconds. we take it as a matter of faith that we won't. look up Hume's Problem of Induction).

We choose what to have faith in, even tho some ideas (like, say, gravity) seem far more "reasonable" than others (oh, say, scientology).

I choose to believe in a God that doesn't tell his messengers that the rest of us can't handle this bit of truth. I want a God who'll tell his messengers the full deal and let those with strength adhere to the path.

So far the only framework that supports my basic ideals yet is loose enough for some personal interpretation is Quakerism. So far, for me, it bends and twists without breaking. YMMV...
Anonymous said…
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned that the highest status of any individual in the the Faith was a women: Martha Root
Ms Angela said…
Anonymous,

I think we left out a lot of women who have have made priceless contributions to the Baha'i Faith and to humanity. I admit to not knowing enough about Martha Root, and I would appreciate it if you could share with the readers here. It's great to have other voices here other than mine!

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