Wilmette Institute

A special version of the ebbf podcast for the Wilmette Institute course Promoting Moral Excellence in Business, January 2020.

A special version of the ebbf podcast for the Wilmette Institute course Promoting Moral Excellence in Business, January 2020.

A special version of the ebbf podcast for the Wilmette Institute course Promoting Moral Excellence in Business, January 2020.

A special version of the ebbf podcast for the Wilmette Institute course Promoting Moral Excellence in Business, January 2020.

A special version of the ebbf podcast Discovering How for the Wilmette Institute course Promoting Moral Excellence in Business, January 2020.

A special version of the ebbf podcast for the Wilmette Institute course Promoting Moral Excellence in Business, January 2020.

A great granddaughter of Pauline and Joseph Hannen, Judy Hannen Moe has written a book which tells of the unique and various contributions these early Washington DC believers made to the Bahá’í world, as they grew in their devotion to Bahá’u’lláh. She writes about their frequent encounters with ’Abdu’l-Bahá and how that shaped their lives, as well as the many ways they served the Faith both locally and nationally. She also shares much about the work they did teaching in the African American Community at a time when that was a great challenge to do in our country. They are given credit for teaching the Faith to Louis Gregory, who was a Nationally known speaker and promoter of the Faith and the first African American to serve on the National Baha’i Assembly. Stories of their close relationship are throughout the book.

Judy also writes about other people Pauline and Joseph taught about Bahá’u’lláh, including their parents and Pauline’s famous sisters, Alma Knobloch—who helped to open the Faith to Germany—and Fanny Knobloch who brought the Faith to South Africa and who taught the Message of Bahá’u’lláh in many states. Judy uses mostly first source manuscripts and personal letters, which she researched in the National Bahá’í Archives and the Bahá’í Archives of Washington DC. She also had the unique opportunity to interview five of Pauline and Joseph’s six grandchildren before they passed on to the spirit world.

The book, Aflame with Devotion: the Hannen and Knobloch families and the early days of the Bahá’í Faith in America is thoroughly reviewed by the Bahá’í World Center and the National Baha’i Review Committee, and is edited and published by the Bahá’í Publishing Trust in Wilmette, IL. Judy has put together a power point presentation which summarizes the book and tells about the various areas of service in which the Hannens and Knoblochs were key players. It also explains how she went about doing the research for the book.

Judy Hannen Moe has been active in the Baha’i Faith her whole life and in her community of Rockford, IL for 45 years where she lives with her husband Bruce. She is very involved in various community activities involving social justice and interfaith work. She brings this experience to the discussion of the early believers as well as current issues in our world. Judy is a retired teacher of English as a second language.

During research that led to an historical trilogy, author Michael V. Day looked for answers to his own questions about the story of the Shrine of the Báb. Among the topics of his interest were the:

Michael V. Day is the author of a trilogy that tells the story of the Shrine of the Báb. In 2017, UK publisher George Ronald released the first volume, Journey to a Mountain, which covers the period 1850-1921. The second volume, Coronation on Carmel (1922 to 1963), appeared in 2018, and the final volume Sacred Stairway (1963-2011) in 2019. Michael was editor of the Bahá’í World News Service in Haifa from 2003-2006. Prior to that, he was a journalist with various newspapers in New Zealand and Australia, the last being The West Australian newspaper in Perth where he specialised in reporting from Indonesia.

Before moving to Australia in 1988, Michael served on the New Zealand Bahá’í Public Relations Committee, and from 2007-2018 was a staff member of the Office of External Affairs of the Australian Bahá’í Community. Michael also has a legal background, and is currently a full-time author and researcher of Bahá’í history. Michael resides in Queensland, Australia, with his wife, Dr. Chris Day, the author of 52 Secrets of Psychology. They have two sons, Tom and George, and a yellow Labrador, Jazz.

In this talk Mikhail Sergeev offers a new interpretation of the Soviet period of Russian history as a phase within the religious evolution of humankind by developing a theory of religious cycles, which he applies to modernity and to all the major world faiths of Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. Sergeev argues that in the course of its evolution religion passes through six common phases – formative, orthodox, classical, reformist, critical, and post-critical. Modernity, which was started by the European Enlightenment, represents the critical phase of Christianity, a systemic crisis that could be overcome with the appearance of a new religious movement such as the Bahá’í Faith, which offers a spiritual extension of the modern worldview.

Slide presentation:

The numerically largest Bahá’í community in the world resides in India, and most of those Bahá’ís come from a Hindu background. Bahá’ís readily acknowledge Hinduism as one of the great religions, and identify Krishna as one of the “Manifestations of God”. Yet, generally speaking, Bahá’ís outside of India know little about this religion, and very little about Krishna. They are not alone. Most non-Hindus may be able to evoke a few common perceptions, such as Hindus believe in many gods; cows sacred for Hindus; they believe in reincarnation and are vegetarians, right?, yet otherwise have little knowledge of this religion.

This talk aims to “decode” elements of what constitutes “Hinduism”, an ancient and vastly complex religion, to address these perceptions, and to examine points of convergence and divergence between Hinduism and the teachings of the Bahá’í Faith.

More specifically, I will examine the following questions:

What do Bahá’í authoritative texts say about Hinduism and Krishna?

Anne M. Pearson holds a Ph.D. in religious studies, specializing in South Asian religions. She taught for many years in the Department of Religious Studies at McMaster University, Hamilton, as well as the University of Toronto and the University of Waterloo, teaching courses on world religions, Hinduism, gender and religion, Gandhi and nonviolence, among others. She has authored a book (“Because it gives me peace of mind—Ritual Fasts in the Religious Lives of Hindu Women”), articles and book chapters on various topics including on Hinduism in Canada. She has been a faculty member of the Wilmette Institute since the 1990s, involved with courses on Hinduism and Buddhism for deepening and dialogue, and preparing for interfaith dialogue, among other courses. She lived in India for a number of years, and continues to visit and be involved with organizations that promote women’s empowerment and peace-building. She has also been an active participant in the Baha’i community since embracing the Faith as a student in the late 1970s.

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