Paul Bartlett wrote:
(excerpted for brevity):
>
> But my understanding was that the purpose of a fireside was precisely
> to present/introduce the Faith to non-Baha'is (again, please do not
> call me a seeker). Indeed, I once had a personal chat in his home with
> a long-standing, experienced Baha'i, and if I recall correctly what he
> said, he remarked that Shoghi Effendi said that all Baha'is should have
> a(n at least informal) fireside in their homes every (Baha'i) month for
> non-Baha'is. If there is a book giving advice on how to hold
> firesides, I have seen no evidence of it.
Though I am relying on memory I believe the book in question was
'Firesides' by Catherine Samimi. It is still available at least at
the Australian Baha'i book distributors and used copies at
amazon.com. It is not an authoritative book but well respected. I
hope its the book I remember - perhaps other readers can comment?
But what is a fireside is
> for if not to present the Faith to others?
That certainly is or at least should be the primary purpose of a
fireside. The classic fireside as delineated by Shoghi Effendi and
reiterated since involves a Baha'i host (or host family) inviting a
non-Bahai (or couple, or family) to a social event in the host's home
at which it is made clear there will be discussion of the Baha'i Faith
or Baha'u'llah or something related to the Baha'is. The specific
nature of the conversation should be driven by the interests and
questions of the guest(s). If the hosts know a number of unrelated non-
Baha'is who have an interest in the Faith it is usually better to
invite them individually to different firesides as their interests and
questions are likely to be different though obviously there may be
occasions to bring them together for practical reasons.
In this context there is no need or purpose to invite a lot of extra
Baha'is though clearly if the guest has signalled in advance a desire
to talk about some particular aspect of the Faith one might invite a
Baha'i with knowledge in that area. For example a Baha'i host of
Hindu background knowing that the guest is interested in the
fulfilment of Christian prophecies might invite a Baha'i friend who
has studied that aspect.
It is in effect a home visit in reverse.
From the very beginning I
> was given to believe that the primary purpose of a fireside was to
> present the Faith, but my experience turned out to be otherwise.
Firesides have been a primary vehicle for presenting the Faith for the
best part of the century and they have evolved not necessarily for the
better. The kind of fireside you experienced with lots of Baha'is and
material suitable for deepening Baha'is became the norm. Probably the
firesides you attended occurred on a specific day and happened whether
or not any non-Baha'i attended?
As Samimi insisted its only a fireside if a non-Baha'i has been
invited and accepted.
Its a matter of conjecture as to why firesides became like this.
Clearly one factor was the great desire of Baha'is to hold firesides
in obedience to Shoghi Effendi's instructions. For most of us who
found it hard to find people who would accept an invitation it became
easier to announce we were holding a fireside on a particular day and
stick up notices about it and invite everyone we knew and just hope
someone would come. Also I remember when I first started holding
'firesides' as a new Baha'i and advertising them, when someone
actually accepted the invitation, I panicked thinking I did not know
enough to answer questions and phoned the nearest community asking if
some more experienced Baha'i would come to help. It was a rather
distinguished fireside with one not very interested guest, one very
nervous host but two magnificent ABMs who had driven for an hour to
attend.
So gradually, I suppose, firesides became little groups of Bahai's
meeting at an advertised time hoping somebody would turn up. What did
they talk about while waiting? Why the Baha'i Faith. So they got
into the habit of treating a fireside as a deepening and when a non-
Baha'i did turn up their habits were too ingrained to change easily.
I'm not sure why and when the habit of having a formal presentation or
similar grew up.
> However, I
> have to say in all blunt frankness that I was not overall favorably
> impressed with Book One (which I attended every session and
> participated fully in). Different soceties have differenct
> characteristics and needs. I wonder if the Universal House of Justice
> is making a blunder in placing too much emphasis on Ruhi as a teaching
> method everywhere on the globe.
There was a period when Ruhi was seen as a teaching method but I'm not
sure that that can be attributed to the House. The more common line
now is that Ruhi is a resource builder, teaching already committed
Baha'is how to build communities and attract others. My quibble with
that is that there doesn't seem to be any evidence that the books per
se do that. For example book 1 with which you are familiar is
supposed to inspire us to hold devotional meetings. The book doesn't
mention devotional meetings, in so far as it deals with prayer and
wor****p it primarly relates to 'in the privacy of your chamber' and
the exercises, apart from memorisation, actually are for a form of
home visit with a little deepening rather than a devotional meeting.
On top of that the statistics in my part of the world do not show any
evidence of people starting devotional meetings when they complete
book 1.
>
>> Also the implications of the book didn't
>> reflect Australian cultural values as to the protocol of visiting
>> people.
>
See my answer to Susan elsewhere
> There are clusters in this area, but I honestly don't know what their
> signficance is. Strictly as an aside, while it comes to mind, I recall
> one evening when I was at a fireside. During the chitchat before the
> presentation, a visitor asked what community I was part of. His
> apparent assumption was that if I was there, I must be a Baha'i. That
> is the sort of issue I have had with firesides.
Yes, for a long time in many communities there was the assumption that
nobody outside the Faith could be interested. Not so much an
assumption perhaps as an ingrained habit.
> Nevertheless, I live in a suburban county of approximately one and a
> half million population with (supposedly) hundreds of Baha'is. What
> does it take to be "typical" in a western country?
I'm not sure what a suburban county implies not being US myself but if
you have several hundred Baha'is within easy driving distance of each
other I would assume the typical condition now is that life revolves
around the cluster and the cluster reflection meeting, that there is
strong pressure on the Baha'is to complete the sequence of Ruhi books,
that some desultory teaching by traditional methods such as firesides
does continue but the emphasis and hope is centred on Intensive
Programs of Growth which may or may not have started and which will or
do feature bouts of 'direct' teaching (such as door knocking)
sup****ted by longer periods of consolidation of the contacts and
declarants found that way which will feature enrolling them in Ruhi
courses, home visits, and suggesting they help in the childrens and
youth cl***** which are intended to be a feature of Baha'i community
life.
>
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