On a Culture of Change: The Baha’i Community has turned the corner

By george wesley dannells on Feb 28, 2008 in Baha'i Views

Q: What is ‘culture’?
or
outmodels in the wild.
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Each circle represents an individual with an outmodel (M) that represents its individual view of the world (color). The outmodel of each individual is heavily influenced by the outmodels of the individuals around them, and is influenced to a lesser degree by parts of the objective world with which the individual has direct contact (trees). As a group, the individuals create a common world view, or an organized system of learned behavior that is their total way of life (i.e., a culture). Commonly, individuals and groups resist changes or challenges to their world view.
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A: An organized system of learned behavior that is a total way of life of a people.
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Image and description uploaded on March 26, 2006 by zachstern on flickr, licensed under Creative Common Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic
Above is text and image defining culture as learned behavior, which I found on Flickr as I was looking for a visual for this post. Below are the final two paragraphs from Momen’s paper “Culture of Change,” which I discovered on the Hedayati’s Reaching and Teaching Efforts, a version dated February 2007. I am struck by the fact that one year later evidence of a profound change in Baha’i culture now appears, to my eyes at least, undeniable. In the interim between last February and this, the corner has been turned. -gw

In 2002, The Universal House of Justice made it clear: “Where Bahá’í communities are unable to free themselves from an orientation to Bahá’í life that has long outlived whatever value it once possessed, the teaching work will lack both the systematic character it requires, and the spirit that must animate all effective service to the Cause.”[i]

Of course it is early days yet — it took more than a decade for the change in culture that Shoghi Effendi instituted to become established in the Baha’i community. But the tide is turning. Guided by the Counsellors and the National Spiritual Assemblies, the Baha’is are beginning to follow the instructions of the Universal House of Justice — and increasingly it is those Baha’is who have previously played a passive “congregational” role in the community, who have not been leaders in the community, the women and the youth, who are responding and initiating the activities that the Universal House of Justice has asked for. Although they may not yet be able to visualize how the Bahá’í community will look in its new cultural manifestation and they may not yet discern any benefits from the new order, nevertheless they are pressing ahead with the process. The direction towards which the Universal House of Justice is pointing the Bahá’ís is clearly the next logical step in the development of the Bahá’í community and as Bahá’í communities respond to the call for a change of culture, it can be anticipated that the features of the new culture will gradually become clearer.[ii]

[i]. Letter of the Universal House of Justice to an individual, dated 22 August 2002
[ii]. A first draft of this paper appeared on an e-mail list in February 2003. It has subsequently been published in Living Nation and translated and published in a few languages. I am grateful to numerous people who commented on this paper in that list and subsequently by private correspondence and thus helped to shape the current (February 2007) version of the paper.

Moojan Momen, “A Culture of Change”
http://www.teachingandprojects.com/

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