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The leadership of the Baháʼí Faith has created goal-oriented Baháʼí teaching plans, spanning 1–10 years each, to spread the Baháʼí Faith. The plans began in the 1930s and 1940s as teaching goals for certain countries and in 1953 became coordinated globally, often with a focus on sending travelling teachers to new countries. Shoghi Effendi initiated the plans before his death in 1957, and the Universal House of Justice has initiated the plans since 1964. From 1964 to 2000, there were six international Baháʼí teaching plans of varying lengths.

Since 2000, the plans have had a focus on Baháʼís becoming trained to facilitate "core activities" of devotional gatherings, classes for children and adolescents, and a systematic study known as "study circles", based on a series of workbooks by the Ruhi Institute. Starting with a one-year plan from 2021 to 2022, the Universal House of Justice has announced a 25-year-long series of plans ending in 2046. Currently, the international Baháʼí community is in the midst of a nine-year plan intended to last from 2022 to 2031.

Background

The Tablets of the Divine Plan, letters written by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá to the Baháʼís of North America, asked the followers of the religion to travel to other countries. Their publication was delayed in the United States until 1919 — after the end of the First World War and the Spanish flu. Following their publication the first Baháʼí permanent resident in South America, Leonora Armstrong, arrived in Brazil in 1921.^[1] Shoghi Effendi, who was named ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's successor, wrote a cable on 1 May 1936 to the Baháʼí Annual Convention of the United States and Canada, and asked for the systematic implementation of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's vision to begin.^[2]

The multifaceted goals of Baháʼí teaching plans were discussed in a 1975 letter from the Universal House of Justice (the governing body of the world's Baháʼís since 1963):

Teaching the [Baháʼí] Faith embraces many diverse activities, all of which are vital to success, and each of which reinforce the other. Time and again the beloved Guardian emphasized that expansion and consolidation are twin and inseparable aspects to teaching that must proceed simultaneously yet one still hears believers discussing the virtues of one as against the other. The purpose of teaching is not complete when a person declares that he has accepted Baháʼu'lláh as the Manifestation of God for this age; the purpose of teaching is to attract human beings to the Divine Message and so imbue them with its spirit that they will dedicate themselves to its service, and this world will become another world and its people another people. Viewed in this light a declaration of Faith is merely a milestone along the way—albeit a very important one.
— To all National Spiritual Assemblies, May 25, 1975, Lights of Guidance, p. 594

In 2000, the Universal House of Justice published Century of Light, which reviewed the accomplishments and setbacks of the previous century. A major conclusion of the book was the need to focus on long-term teaching goals.

Plans under Shoghi Effendi

1st Seven Year Plan (1937–1944)

A cable to American Baháʼís was sent by Shoghi Effendi on 19 May 1936 calling for permanent pioneers to be established in all the countries of Latin America. The Baháʼí National Spiritual Assembly of the United States and Canada was appointed the Inter-America Committee to take charge of the preparations. During the 1937 Baháʼí North American Convention, Shoghi Effendi cabled advising the convention to prolong their deliberations to permit the delegates and the National Assembly to consult on a plan that would enable Baháʼís to go to Latin America.^[2] In 1937 the First Seven Year Plan (1937-44), which was an international plan designed by Shoghi Effendi, gave the American Baháʼís the goal of establishing the Baháʼí Faith in every country in Latin America. With the spread of American Baháʼís in Latin American, Baháʼí communities and Local Spiritual Assemblies began to form in 1938 across the region. The first pioneer to Chile arrived in 1940 when her ship docked at Arica.^[3] After arriving in Panama in 1940,^[4] the first Guaymí Baháʼí converted in the 1960s.^[5] In 1985-6 the "Camino del Sol" project included indigenous Guaymí Baháʼís of Panama traveling with the Venezuelan indigenous Carib speaking and Guajira Baháʼís through the Venezuelan states of Bolívar, Amazonas and Zulia sharing their religion.^[6]

British Six Year Plan (1944–1950)

In 1944, a pioneering movement began with sixty per cent of the British Baháʼí community eventually relocating.^[7] Internationally this effort would take the Baháʼí Faith to Scotland, Wales, and Ireland and raising the numbers of Local Assemblies in the British Isles.

In 1950-1 the Baha'is of the British Isles pioneered to Tanganyika, Uganda, and Kenya. On August 3, 1951, pioneers arrived in Kampala^[8] from which pioneers went to French Equatorial Africa, and Cameroon and so on.

Ten Year Crusade (1953–1963)

In 1953, Shoghi Effendi launched the first worldwide, coordinated effort to expand the Baháʼí Faith, termed the Ten Year Crusade. The four primary goals of the Ten Year Crusade were outlined as follows by Shoghi Effendi:^[9]

The development of institutions at the Baháʼí World Centre;
Consolidation of the twelve countries where the Faith was well established;
Consolidation of all other territories already open; and
The opening of the remaining "chief virgin territories" around the globe.

This effort was launched in order to form Local Spiritual Assemblies and National Spiritual Assemblies all over the world so that the Universal House of Justice could be elected that would be representative of a worldwide Baháʼí membership. From 1953 to 1963, some 250 Americans and Persians moved to many locations around the world as part of the Ten Year Crusade.^[10] Almost every country in the world which had no Baháʼís was at least visited by a travelling teacher.

Following Shoghi Effendi's death in 1957, the Hands of the Cause continued the Ten Year Crusade following his instructions until the formation of the Universal House of Justice, which remains the highest elected body of the Baháʼí Faith, in 1963. After its election, the Universal House of Justice wrote:

"The rightness of the time was further confirmed by references in Shoghi Effendi's letters to the Ten Year Crusade's being followed by other plans under the direction of the Universal House of Justice. ..."

(Messages from the Universal House of Justice, 1963-1986, p. 50)

The efforts of the Ten Year Crusade were followed by large enrollments to the Baháʼí Faith in some parts of the world. For example, wide-scale growth in the religion was observed across Sub-Saharan Africa.^[11]

The title Knight of Baháʼu'lláh was given by Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Baháʼí Faith in the period, to Baháʼís who arose to open new territories to the Faith starting in the Ten Year Crusade.^[12]

Shoghi Effendi kept a Roll of Honour of all the Knights of Baháʼu'lláh. While inaugurated during the Ten Year Crusade, local restrictions caused some of the goals to remain unfilled. The final Knight of Baháʼu'lláh arrived at Sakhalin Island in December 1990. There were 254 total Knights of Baháʼu'lláh that settled in 121 localities, they had been sent to open 131 nations and territories of which 10 had already been opened. On 28 May 1992, during the commemoration of the centenary of the ascension of Baháʼu'lláh, the Roll of Honour was deposited by Rúhíyyih Khanum at the entrance door of the Shrine of Baháʼu'lláh.^[13] See a list here.

Plans under the Universal House of Justice

The House of Justice, which was elected after the conclusion of the Ten Year Crusade in 1963, has continued Shoghi Effendi’s practice of drawing up international plans.^[14] Since its first election in 1963, the Universal House of Justice has overseen a series of international Baháʼí teaching plans.^[15]

Summary of plans under the Universal House of Justice^[16]
Date	Plan Name	Plan Length	Summary of Plan
1963-1972	Nine Year Plan	9 years	This plan aimed to further develop the World Center of the Faith and its institutions, consolidate territories already open to the Baháʼí Faith, and spread the religion's message to more people and territories around the world. This included territories from the Ten Year Crusade and all remaining independent states. The plan also sought to establish 19 new National Spiritual Assemblies in Africa, the Pacific, and Asia.
1974-1979	Five Year Plan	5 years	This plan had three main objectives: preserving and consolidating victories from previous plans, expanding the Baháʼí community, and developing the distinctive character of Baháʼí life, particularly in local communities. The plan also aimed to establish 16 new National Spiritual Assemblies.
1979-1986	Seven Year Plan	7 years	The Seven Year Plan sought to continue expanding the religion, consolidate earlier victories, and achieve any remaining goals from the Five Year Plan.
1986-1992	Six Year Plan	6 years	This plan aimed to expand the religion's resources, increase its global status, and encourage the production and distribution of Baháʼí literature. It also focused on strengthening Baháʼí communities and families, increasing involvement in global needs, and pursuing social and economic development in established Baháʼí communities.
1993-1996	Three Year Plan	3 years	This plan focused on enhancing individual Baháʼís' faith, developing the human resources of the religion, and fostering the function of local and national Baháʼí institutions.
1996-2000	Four Year Plan	4 years	This plan's primary aim was to make a significant advance in the process of entry by troops.
2000-2001	Twelve Month Plan	1 year	Building on the previous Four Year Plan, this plan emphasized creating training institutes and increasing focus on the spiritual education of children and the involvement of junior youth in the Baháʼí community.
2001-2006	Five Year Plan	5 years	This plan aimed to achieve a significant advance in the process of entry by troops, marking the first in a series of plans towards this goal.
2006-2011	Five Year Plan	5 years	This plan continued the work of advancing the process of entry by troops.
2011-2016	Five Year Plan	5 years	This plan focused on extending the methods used for teaching endeavors to other areas of activity, using instruments and methods for teaching with a greater degree of coherence, and increasing the number of people actively working in the Baháʼí Faith.
2016-2021	Five Year Plan	5 years	This plan aimed to extend the process of growth to thousands of new clusters.
2021-2022	One Year Plan	1 year	This plan was designed to prepare for the Nine Year Plan.
2022-2031	Nine Year Plan	9 years	The Nine Year Plan focuses on establishing intensive programs of growth in all the clusters in the world, with the goal of releasing the societal power of the Baháʼí Faith.

Baháʼí terminology

Pioneering

The term pioneer is used among Baháʼís to describe someone who moves to a new area or country for the purpose of teaching the Baháʼí Faith. The first pioneer to enter a country or region mentioned in ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's Tablets of the Divine Plan is given the title of Knight of Baháʼu'lláh.

The following is a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual regarding the term missionary:

"He sees no objection to the word Missionary appearing on your passport as long as it is clearly understood what kind of a 'missionary' a Baháʼí pioneer is. In the best and highest sense of the term it certainly could be applied to our teachers. Unfortunately this word has often been associated with a narrow-minded, bigoted type of proselytizing quite alien to the Baháʼí method of spreading our teachings."^[17]

Baháʼís do not consider pioneering to be proselytism, a term which often implies the use of coercion to convert someone to a different religion.^{[citation needed]} However, sociologist Margit Warburg writes that Baháʼí pioneering is a form of organized proselytism similar to systems of organized proselytism in other religions.^[18]

Declaration

Declaration is a term used in the Baháʼí Faith to describe an adult's conversion as a member of the religion.^[19] Warburg described the declaration process as "the Baháʼí profession of faith, ritualised in the form of an administrative act."^[20]

In 1925, in a letter addressed to the National Spiritual Assemblies in the United States and Canada, Shoghi Effendi noted that defining the qualifications of a "true believer" was a nuanced and intricate matter. However, he outlined what he considered to be the essential elements of membership in the Baháʼí community.^[21] These included complete acknowledgment of the roles of the Báb, Bahá'u'lláh, and 'Abdu'l-Bahá; wholehearted acceptance of their writings; loyal and consistent commitment to Will and Testament of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá; and active engagement with both the spirit and structure of the contemporary Baháʼí administration.^[21] As World War II approached and Shoghi Effendi emphasized that Bahá'ís should seek non-combatant status if drafted, it became essential to provide a registration certificate for those wishing to join the Bahá'í Faith.^[22] In fact, many long-time believers were also asked to sign this card, often mistakenly indicating when they officially became Bahá'ís.^[22] With the introduction of these new, more formal requirements, it became common for individuals who had previously had a casual association with the Bahá'í community to completely abandon their affiliation.^[23]

Entry by troops

Entry by troops is a term used in the Baháʼí Faith to describe a process of expansion when the religion would emerge from relative obscurity as a "steady flow of reinforcements" of "troops of peoples of divers nations and races" would embrace it.^[24] It first appeared in Baháʼu'lláh's Súriy-i-Haykal.^[25]

Entry by troops is seen as a process, not a singular event. It is seen as foreshadowing of a large-scale embracing of the Baha'i Faith, when a majority of the world will recognize and accept the teachings of Baha'u'llah. As Shoghi Effendi wrote,

"This flow, moreover, will presage and hasten the advent of the day which, as prophesied by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, will witness the entry by troops of peoples of divers nations and races into the Baháʼí world — a day which, viewed in its proper perspective, will be the prelude to that long-awaited hour when a mass conversion on the part of these same nations and races, and as a direct result of a chain of events, momentous and possibly catastrophic in nature and which cannot as yet be even dimly visualized, will suddenly revolutionize the fortunes of the Faith, derange the equilibrium of the world, and reinforce a thousandfold the numerical strength as well as the material power and the spiritual authority of the Faith of Baháʼu'lláh."

(1953, Shoghi Effendi, “Citadel of Faith: Messages to America 1947-1957”, p. 117)

A letter written to a Baháʼí on behalf of Shoghi Effendi has a section that gives a clear perspective of the Baháʼí attitude toward mass conversion.

It is not sufficient to number the souls that embrace the Cause to know the progress that it is making. The more important consequences of your activities are the spirit that is diffused into the life of the community, and the extent to which the teachings we proclaim become part of the consciousness and belief of the people that hear them. For it is only when the spirit has thoroughly permeated the world that the people will begin to enter the Faith in large numbers. At the beginning of the spring only the few, exceptionally favoured seeds will sprout, but when the season gets in its full sway, and the atmosphere gets permeated with the warmth of true springtime, then masses of flowers will begin to appear, and a whole hillside suddenly blooms. We are still in the state when only isolated souls are awakened, but soon we shall have the full swing of the season and the quickening of whole groups and nations into the spiritual life breathed by Baháʼu'lláh."

(Letter 18 February 1932, on behalf of Shoghi Effendi)

Notes

^ Baháʼí International Community (1996). "Brazilian parliament honors leading Baháʼí dignitary". OneCountry. 8 (2).
^ ^a ^b Lamb 1995.
^ Ruhe-Schoen 2014.
^ "Comunidad Baháʼí de Panamá". Official Website of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baháʼís of Panama. Comunidad Nacional Baháʼí de Panamá. Archived from the original on 2008-09-20. Retrieved 2008-06-30.
^ International Community, Baháʼí (October–December 1994). "In Panama, some Guaymis blaze a new path". One Country. 1994 (October–December). Archived from the original on 2014-08-02. Retrieved 2008-07-19.
^ "Historia de la Fe Baháʼí en Venezuela". La Fe Baháʼí en Venezuela. National Spiritual Assembly of Venezuela. Archived from the original on 2008-06-21. Retrieved 2008-07-05.
^ U.K. Baháʼí Heritage Site. "The Baháʼí Faith in the United Kingdom - A Brief History". Archived from the original on 2008-02-26. Retrieved 2008-02-18.
^ Mughrab, Jan (2004). "Jubilee Celebration in Cameroon" (PDF). Baháʼí Journal of the Baháʼí Community of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Vol. 20, no. 5. National Spiritual Assembly of the Baháʼís of the United Kingdom.
^ Shoghi Effendi, Shoghi (1971). Messages to the Bahá'í World: 1950–1957. US Bahá’í Publishing Trust. pp. 41–2. OCLC 746970322.
^ Sandra Hutchinson; Richard Hollinger (2006). "Women in the North American Baha'i Community". In Keller, Rosemary Skinner; Ruether, Rosemary Radford; Cantlon, Marie (eds.). Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America: Native American creation stories. Indiana University Press. pp. 776–786. ISBN 0-253-34687-8.
^ "Overview Of World Religions". General Essay on the Religions of Sub-Saharan Africa. Division of Religion and Philosophy, University of Cumbria. Archived from the original on 2007-12-09. Retrieved 2008-04-16.]
^ Redman 2017.
^ Cameron, G.; Momen, W. (1996). A Basic Baháʼí Chronology. Oxford, UK: George Ronald. p. 483. ISBN 0-85398-404-2.
^ "Worldwide Expansion". The Pluralism Project. Harvard University. Retrieved October 4, 2024.
^ Smith, Peter (2000). A Concise Encyclopedia of the Baháʼí Faith. Oxford, UK: Oneworld Publications. p. 272. ISBN 1-85168-184-1.
^ "Selected Messages of the Universal House of Justice". Bahá’í Reference Library. Retrieved October 4, 2024.
^ Letter written by Shoghi Effendi on February 7, 1945 published in (Hornby 1983)
^ Warburg 2006, pp. 268, 408, 410.
^ Adamson 2009, p. 136.
^ Warburg 2006, p. 306.
^ ^a ^b Smith 2008, p. 158.
^ ^a ^b van den Hoonaard 1996, p. 260.
^ van den Hoonaard 1996, p. 259.
^ Letter dated 25 June 1953, Shoghi Effendi, Citadel of Faith: Messages to America 1947-1957. Bahá'í Publishing Trust, Wilmette, 1980. p. 11.
^ "Bahá'í Reference Library - The Summons of the Lord of Hosts, Pages 96-138". reference.bahai.org. Retrieved 2020-05-19.

References

Adamson, Hugh C. (2009). "Declaration of belief". The A to Z of the Baháʼí Faith. The A to Z Guide Series, No. 70. Plymouth, UK: Scarecrow Press. p. 136. ISBN 978-0-8108-6853-3.
Hornby, Helen, ed. (1983). Lights of Guidance: A Baháʼí Reference File. Baháʼí Publishing Trust, New Delhi, India. ISBN 81-85091-46-3.
Lamb, Artemus (November 1995). The Beginnings of the Baháʼí Faith in Latin America:Some Remembrances (English Revised and Amplified ed.). West Linn, OR: M L VanOrman Enterprises.
Momen, Moojan; Smith, Peter (1993), Baháʼí History, Baháʼí Library Online
Redman, Earl (2017). The Knights of Baháʼu'lláh. UK: George Ronald. ISBN 978-0853986058.
Ruhe-Schoen, Janet (2014). An Enchantment of the Heart: A Portrait of Marcia Steward. Beacon, NY: Janet Ruhe-Schoen.
Smith, Peter (2008). An Introduction to the Baha'i Faith. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521862516.
van den Hoonaard, Will C. (1996). The Origins of the Bahá'í Community of Canada, 1898-1948. Wilfrid Laurier University Press. ISBN 9781554584956.
Warburg, Margit (2006). Citizens of the world: a history and sociology of the Bahaʹis from a globalisation perspective. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-474-0746-1. OCLC 234309958.