April 23. On this date in 1991, the Universal House of Justice wrote a letter to Roger White on the eve of his departure from the Baháʼí World Centre.
Roger White was born June 2, 1929 in Toronto, Canada, to Kathleen Rogers and John White, an Irish Roman Catholic family in Canada. He was the oldest of four children.
White's parents were not particularly devout Roman Catholics but White attended church regularly; often taking a younger sister with him. The family moved frequently during his childhood but lived longest in Belleville, Ontario. When he left home he moved to Toronto. In his early twenties, he began to doubt the existence of God. It was also during his twenties that White had self published his first volume of poems, "Summer Windows".
In Toronto he encountered the Bahá’í Faith and converted to the Bahá’í Faith in 1951. Shortly after this, White returned to Belleville where he met Helen Owens, who would also convert to the Bahá’í Faith. They were married in 1952 and the next year helped form the first Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Belleville.
At this time White was employed as Clerk of the local county court. He progressed to be assistant editor of Hansard, the record of the proceedings of the Canadian House of Commons. The Whites were very active in the Bahá’í community of Ottawa, but the marriage ended in 1962. After that he took a position with the Supreme Court of British Columbia in Vancouver.
The years 1966 to 1969 he spent in Kenya as secretary and assistant to the Hands of the Cause of God of Africa. Next he spent two years in Palm Desert, California as the personal secretary and research assistant for Hand of the Cause of God William Sears. In 1971 he went to Haifa, Israel to work at the World Centre. He remained there until his retirement in 1991.
Among other duties in Haifa, he was responsible for production of volumes XIV and XIX of The Bahá’í World, a reference series that chronicles the growth and development of the international Bahá’í community.
In Haifa, he was encouraged to develop his own writing. Several volumes of poetry as well as some prose resulted. This work established him as the premier poet of the Bahá’í community. In his correspondence he connected poets around the world with each other.
He wrote of real and archetypal Bahá’ís, bringing them alive to new generations, explored the nature of commitment, relations between genders and the contrast between physical appearance and spiritual realities. Individual poems appeared in a variety of literary journals around the world. Other artists have found inspiration in his work for creating work of their own: paintings, drama, dance and discussion of the Bahá’í religion. This brought joy and satisfaction to his heart.
After his retirement he moved to Richmond, British Columbia, Canada, and died there on April 10, 1993.
Works
Summer Windows (1947) poetry
Another Song, Another Season (1979) poetry
The Witness of Pebbles (1981) poetry
A Sudden Music (1983) fiction
One Bird, One Cage, One Flight (1983) poetry
The Shell and the Pearl (1984) history
Occasions of Grace (1992) poetry
Notes Postmarked the Mountain of God (1992) poetry
The Language of There (1992) poetry
Forever in Bloom (1992) prose
From The Emergence of a Baha'i Consciousness in World Literature: the poetry of Roger White...
The Universal House of Justice wrote the following, in a letter dated 23 April 1991, on the eve of White’s departure from the Baha’i World Centre:
"Dear Baha’i Friend
For twenty years you have rendered devoted and invaluable services at the Baha’i World Centre, and on the eve of your departure it is difficult to bid farewell to you.We cannot but recall with heartfelt gratitude your loving assistance as Secretary-Aide to our former colleague, Mr. David Hofman, as well as your noteworthy contribution to the Publishing Department. In addition to these specific assignments your manifold contributions to life at the World Centre have been a real source of enrichment.
Your talents and abilities have won the admiration and respect of all of us. Little did we know when you arrived in 1971 that there was now a budding poet in our midst - a field in which you have now distinguished yourself."
David Hofman was born in 1908 in Poona, India where his father served in the British Army. Educated in England, as a young man he set out to see the world. While in Canada during the 1930s, he encountered the Bahá’í Faith at the home of May and William Sutherland Maxwell in Montreal. He became a Bahá’í and continued his travels, living for a time in Hollywood, California, and appearing in a number of silent movies. Back in England he earned several acting roles in the West End of London and in 1937 became the world's only television announcer on the BBC's first television transmissions. His voice was also heard on the radio, on the BBC's Empire Service.
Following World War II he married former US Olympic athlete Marion Holley, who predeceased him. They had two children. The Hofmans were very active members of the Bahá’í community, establishing Bahá’í communities in Northampton, Birmingham, Oxford, Cardiff, and Watford. Mr. Hofman served for 27 years as a member of the National Spiritual Assembly of the British Isles. To promote books of religious interest, including titles on the Bahá’í Faith, he established the publishing firm George Ronald, whose first title was The Renewal of Civilization, a book he wrote as an introduction to the Bahá’í Faith. Years later he authored a biography of Hand of the Cause George Townshend.
David Hoffman was elected to the inaugural Universal House of Justice at the first International Convention in 1963 and served on that body for 25 years, until retiring in 1988. As a member of the Universal House of Justice, David Hoffman was instrumental in applying pressure onthe academic Denis MacEoin.
In 2003, Juan Cole described in a message on the Talisman mail list the pressure placed on Denis MacEoin by the Bahá'í Administrative Order...
Denis MacEoin did not withdraw from the faith, he was chased out by powerful Baha'i fundamentalists who were deeply threatened by the implications of his historical work. Denis became a Baha'i in North Ireland around 1965 and quickly emerged as a Baha'i youth leader. He was chosen to come to Haifa to commemorate the 1968 anniversary of Baha'u'llah's Letters to the Kings.Juan Cole would continue on subsequent posts...
He then wrote the House saying he did not know whether to serve the Faith by becoming an academic scholar of the Middle East or by going pioneering. They wrote back that either path would be praiseworthy. (They later stabbed him in the back about this). He therefore entered graduate school at Edinburgh in Middle East Studies, then went on to Cambridge University for his Ph.D. He was the first academic to study the Babi movement with all the tools of modern scholarship, and his findings were groundbreaking.
Denis made the mistake of continuing to be an active Baha'i. Since the community is so heavily dominated by aggressive fundamentalist fanatics, if a genuine academic wants to be a Baha'i s/he has to keep a low profile. Denis did not. He gave summer school talks. He was once viciously attacked by Abu al-Qasim Faizi. His new ideas were upsetting the conservative British community. He objected when the Baha'i authorities supported dictators like Pinochet and Bokassa. He corresponded with the Los Angeles Study Class and some of his letters were published in their newsletter (a newsletter that the Baha'i authorities later closed down, for all the world like Tehran ayatollahs pulling a publishing license).
Around 1980, fundamentalist UHJ members Ian Semple and David Hoffman called Denis to a meeting and told him he would have to fall silent (rather as the Vatican did to Leonardo Boff). Hoffman was especially harsh. Denis declined to fall silent, and ultimately withdrew from the Faith. He was pushed out by anti-intellectual bigots who had risen high in the Baha'ihierarchy and become Infallible. Denis's works on the Babi and Baha'i movements are some of the few pieces of solid scholarship that exist. Instead of being grateful to him for sacrificing all those years living in penury as a graduate student, studying Arabic and Persian, traveling to a dangerous Middle East, all for the service of Baha'u'llah, the community could think of nothing better to do than viciously attack him and throw him in the gutter of infamy.
Denis's story is the story of most thinking people who have anything serious to do with the Baha'i faith. Either they adopt a cult-like mindset of true believers and covenant breakers, in which case they gradually cease being thinking persons, or they get chased out by the wild-eyed. A few people manage to avoid either fate by not drawing attention to themselves. The Baha'i Extreme Orthodox are like the Borg in Star Trek. They want to assimilate you, but might leave you alone if you stay quiet.
cheers
Juan Cole
https://www.juancole.com/
He wasn't saying anything polemic. He was just discovering who the Babis really were from solid historical sources. The powerful Baha'is, who have all the open-mindedness of Wahhabis, did not like it. It did not look like the fireside talks everyone grew up with, so they shoved Denis out of the community with threats of sanctions echoing about his ears.and later
cheers Juan
Denis's works were mostly published in Middle East or Religion journals or as academic books, and most could be gotten on interlibrary loan. There may be some things at www.bahai-library.org, and there certainly is a bibliography there.
I apologize that I am off to a conference, so cannot go into depth but there are others here who can discuss Denis's findings.
As to why they should have angered anyone, I suppose you'd have to pass them by a Baha'i fundamentalist and they would tell you. You could just ask about MacEoin at e.g. soc.religion.bahai or about his ideas on Babis. Or at beliefnet. I presume you will get an earful. One of them once more or less threatened to cut my head off with a sword, so they can be an irritable bunch.
cheers Juan https://www.juancole.com/
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