THE FRONTIER: Baha'i Faith--A Retrospective

In 1893 the American Historical Association held its annual meeting in conjunction with the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. As the site of both Frederick Jackson Turner’s legendary speech, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” and the celebration of the Exposition in Chicago as the “horizontal” “White City” of “the future,” this provocative affiliation was meaningful for many reasons. Perhaps the most notable reason was what each suggested about what it meant to be an American in 1893. Turner’s speech at that World’s Fair not only lamented the official closing of the American frontier by the Census Bureau in 1890 but in the speech Turner was obsessed with the role of the frontier in the formation of a distinctly American national identity.(1)

All of this had more than a little significance for the then embryonic international Baha’i community which in 1893 was planning to send its first pioneers to the USA from the Middle East. In 1893, too, the name of Bahá’u’lláh, the Founder of the Bahá'í Faith Who had died the previous year in Palestine, was first mentioned in Chicago on the American continent by Dr. Henry H. Jessup at the Parliament of Religions held in conjunction with that Columbian Exposition. Chicago became, for the Baha’is, that ‘White City’ in a way quite unpredictable in 1893. When the Mother temple of the West was completed in 1953 in Chicago it signalled the beginning of the Kingdom of God on earth for a world religion which by that year had some 200,000 adherents, ninety per-cent of whom lived in Iran.-Ron Price with thanks to (1) Catherine Gouge, “The American Frontier: History, Rhetoric, Concept,” Americana: The Journal of American Popular Culture, Spring 2007, Volume 6, Issue 1.

Of pomp and circumstance, of any
manifestations of public rejoicing
or of popular applause, there were
none to greet this first intimation of
the existence and purpose of the new
Revelation proclaimed by Bahá’u’lláh.

Announced through the mouth of an
avowed supporter of ecclesiasticism,(1)
of the narrow variety which this Faith
itself had challenged & sought in time
to extirpate; characterized at its birth as
a heterodox and obscure offshoot of a
contemptible creed, the Message of the
Most Great Name is now fed by streams
of unceasing trial and warmed by bright
sunshine from more than a century of a
tender and loving care. It is now driving
its roots deep into America’s genial soil
with a wonderful and thrilling motion all
over the world of existence as a Kingdom
of God enters the end of its sixth decade!!

(1) Dr. H.H. Jessup, a Presbyterian missionary in the Middle East for 54 years; he died in 1910.

Ron Price
12/2/’10
Updated for: Canadian Content
Internet Site On: 23/8/'10

Recently the Baha'i faith had an annual meeting of sorts in a town in Eastern Ont.

I was there as part of the entertainment.

Prior to the meeting a lady representing the Quebec contingent got up and said a "prayer for Canada"..............TOTALLY IN FRENCH. Then, she sat down. No one called her on it.

If the Frenchies wanna be divisive, they're going about it in the right way.

This "religion" can go back to the Middle East, along with Islam, anytime it wishes. Sooner the better.

Take along the rest of religions while they're at it.

.......made my freakin day.

Thanks for your "kind and gentle" response, Nuggler. All of the major religions of the world began in the Middle East or Far East. I can understand your desire to send them all back and have Canada a completely secularized country. I grew up in Canada and then moved to Australia, an even more secularized country.

Most people I have known in my life, both in Canada and Australia, could be described generally as secular humanists without any commitments to a religion or a political party, commitments to family and job yes, to some leisure time activity like sport, gardening or some human service endeavour. In the last several generations they have moved away from a commitment to any religion. Your sentiments have much company, Nuggler.

When my mother joined the Baha'i Faith in 1953 there were about 300 Baha'is in Canada and less than 100 in Australia. You probably could have sent the religion back to the Middle East then. Now there are 30,000 in Canada and 20,000 in Australia. Religious and political heterogeneity is here to stay.

When I was a kid in the 1950s the religious choices people had were: Catholic, Protestant and Jew and now people have so many choices the vast majority throw up there hands and say "too much information for me." I can't say I blame them.....trust you can keep entertaining the troops, Nuggler.-Ron

You take yourself far,far, too seriously. No one else really gives a shyte.

As kindly and as gently as I can, I say, kiss my ass.

Oh goodie, another one, where can I join yer wonderful religion, and do you guys have cookies?

Belated apologies, -- Hatchet Thug, for taking some two months to respond. Life is busy even in these middle years(65 to 75) of late adulthood, as some human development psychologists call the years from 60 to 80. Baha'is generally, at least in Canada and Australia where I have been a member of and active participant in their communities for more than 50 years, have marvellous food('tucker' as it is called colloquially in Australia). You get a good variety of cookies, if you hang around long enough.-Ron Price in Tasmania