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While the first mention of events related to the history of the Bahá'í Faith in New Zealand was in 1846 continuous contact began around 1904 when one individual after another came in contact with Bahá'ís and some of them published articles in print media in New Zealand as early as 1908. The first Bahá'í in the Antipodes was Dorothea Spinney who had just arrived from New York in Auckland in 1912. Shortly thereafter there were two converts about 1913 - Robert Felkin who had met `Abdu'l-Bahá in London in 1911 and moved to New Zealand in 1912 and is considered a Bahá'í by 1914 and Margaret Stevenson who first heard of the religion in 1911 and by her own testimony was a Bahá'í in 1913. After `Abdu'l-Bahá wrote the Tablets of the Divine Plan which mentions New Zealand the community grew quickly so that the first Bahá'í Local Spiritual Assembly of the country was attempted in 1923 or 1924 and then succeeded in 1926. The Bahá'ís of New Zealand elected their first independent National Spiritual Assembly in 1957. By 1963 there were four Assemblies, and 18 localities with smaller groups of Bahá'ís. The 2006 census reports about 2800 Bahá'ís in some 45 local assemblies and about 20 smaller groups of Bahá'ís though the Association of Religion Data Archives estimated there were some 7400 Bahá'ís in 2005.
Contents
Beginnings
The first mention of events related to the history of the religion was a report in a Wellington newspaper in July 1846. These were reprints of an 1845 article in the London Times which relied on Muslim reactions to the new religion.
In 1853 there was an event with caused great suffering on Babís ( who Bahá'ís hold as a direct precursor akin to the relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus.) The Babís were blamed for an attempted assassination of the Shah of Persia. Recent scholarship has identified a fringe element distinct from all the major aspects of the religion, its community and leadership at the time. Nevertheless, coverage in newspapers at the time often echoed the Persian government's view blaming the Babís and Babís in large numbers were in fact executed as a result.
Following this initial mention of incidents related to the religion there were several contacts between New Zealanders and Bahá'ís at the beginning of the 20th century. New Zealander Wilhelmina Sherriff Bain may have met Sarah Jane Farmer, a notable Bahá'í in the United States, (see Green Acre) in 1904. Whoever her contact was, Bain authored a large detailed article in the Otago Witness published 30 December 1908 edition about the religion. Other articles followed in 1909, 1911, and 1913. It is also known that letters were exchanged in 1910 between a Mildred Burdon of Geraldine and `Abdu’l-Bahá. Robert Felkin had met `Abdu'l-Bahá in London in 1911 and in 1912 moved to New Zealand where he helped found the Whare Ra. Felkin wrote an article for a New Zealand publication which was published around then too.
Meanwhile Auckland resident Margaret Stevenson's sister living in the United Kingdom had sent her a copy of "The Christian Commonwealth" which had reported on 'Abdu'l-Bahá's speech in London on 27 March 1911. In 1912 Stevenson rented a room to English Bahá'í Dorothea Spinney - a traveling performer of Greek plays - who had just arrived from New York via Auckland. Spinney's stay was probably brief as she is known to have been in New York in November 1912 and again in January 1913. Following learning from a Bahá'í first hand Stevenson decided to subscribed to Star of the West, an early major English publication of the religion, and officially accepted the religion in 1913. Though Felkin is more known for being involved with other interests, another early Bahá'í, Maurice Chambers, counts Felkin as the Bahá'í through whom he learned of the religion and converted in 1914.
Whoever converted first, there was at least one Bahá'í in New Zealand in 1912 and more shortly thereafter.
Growth of the community
`Abdu'l-Bahá wrote a series of letters, or tablets, to the followers of the religion in the United States in 1916-1917; these letters were compiled together in the book titled Tablets of the Divine Plan. The seventh of the tablets was the first to mention spreading the Bahá'í Faith in New Zealand and was written on 11 April 1916, but was delayed in being presented in the United States until 1919 because of disruptions from World War I and the Spanish flu which strongly affected New Zealand and beyond. These tablets were translated and presented by Mirza Ahmad Sohrab on 4 April 1919, and published in Star of the West magazine on 12 December 1919. Chambers is known to have exchanged letters with `Abdu'l-Bahá in 1919. Stevenson received a visit by Australian community founders John and Clara Hyde-Dunn in 1922 and again in 1923 and the New Zealand community quickly grew, including Stevenson's sisters Amy and Lilias. The community tried to form an Assembly without properly following procedure in 1923 or 1924. In 1924 Martha Root shared news that Shoghi Effendi, then head of the religion, had space to receive New Zealander Bahá'ís undertaking pilgrimage. 1924 was also the year of the first pioneer from New Zealand when Nora Lee moved to Fiji from 1924 to about 1930. In 1925 Stevenson left with two other New Zealand converts as well as a contingent from Australia for a year-long trip on pilgrimage where they stayed some 19 days and then visited with the community of the Bahá'í Faith in the United Kingdom. The news journal Herald of the South was begun publishing for New Zealand and Australia during their voyage out of Auckland (transferred publishing to Adelaide Australia in 1931.)
After receiving a compilation on forming Assemblies they then returned to New Zealand in December 1925. They also returned with some dust from the Tomb of Bahá'u'lláh which was placed in New Zealand soil at Stevenson's home in a ceremony held on 14 February 1926. Later in 1926 the Bahá'ís in Auckland were able to properly elect their first Bahá'í Local Spiritual Assembly. In 1928 there were seven assemblies between New Zealand and Australia - by 1939 the number of assemblies had reduced to 4 but the locations with Bahá'ís increased to 17 and by 1940 the count of assemblies reached 19 while there were still 17 other locations with smaller groups of Bahá'ís. In 1931 Keith Ransom-Kehler also visited. In 1934 Bahá'ís from Australia and New Zealand elected a regional National Assembly - there were three delegates from Auckland, three from Sydney and three from Adelaide. From 1934 to 1939 Stevenson served on the regional National Spiritual Assembly of Australia and New Zealand and then died shortly thereafter in 1941. In 1940 the community held its first season school. In 1947 Alvin and Gertrude Blum left the United States for New Zealand where they lived until 1953 when they pioneered and became Knights of Bahá'u'lláh for the Solomon Islands. In 1948 the first person of Māori descent to accept the Bahá’í Faith was Albert White, who was one quarter Māori. In 1949 the first Persian Bahá'í pioneer, Manoochehr Ala’i, arrived as a student at Massey College. In 1953 the first standing Hand of the Cause, the highest appointed position in the religion open to all, `Alí-Akbar Furútan, visited New Zealand. In 1957 the New Zealand community held its first independent convention to elect its own National Spiritual Assembly with three delegates from Auckland and two each from Devonport, New Plymouth and Wellington. This convention elected the first National Spiritual Assembly of New Zealand. In 1958 Hand of the Cause of God, Enoch Olinga visited the Ngaruawahia Marae and talked with elders and four years later, when Hand of the Cause of God, Dr Muhajir visited, Ephraim Te Paa, a Kaumatua (Māori elder) from Ahipara converted to the religion. In 1963 with the election of the Universal House of Justice the Hands of the Cause updated and published a kind of census of the religion. At that time there were four assemblies -Auckland, Devonport, Hamilton, Wellington - and 18 localities with smaller groups of Bahá'ís - see maps. The story of one convert in 1964 includes her concern for her bi-racial children and despair at the bigotry of interracial marriage among the very minorities her children were members (she being Celt and married a Māori) when she found this kind of marriage highly accepted among Bahá'ís. The members of the National Assembly, who participated in the convention for the first election of the Universal House of Justice, were: Hugh Blundell, John Carr, Margaret Harnish, Linda Hight, Percy Leadley, Phyllis Milne, Jean Simmons, Douglas Weeks, and Terry Stirling. The New Zealand Bahá'í community came to the assistance of refugees in 1979 from the persecution of Bahá'ís in Iran who were allowed to settle in New Zealand. Between 1987 and 1989, a further 142 Iranian Bahá'ís settled in New Zealand.
Modern community
Since its inception the religion has had involvement in socio-economic development beginning by giving greater freedom to women, promulgating the promotion of female education as a priority concern, and that involvement was given practical expression by creating schools, agricultural coops, and clinics. The religion entered a new phase of activity when a message of the Universal House of Justice dated 20 October 1983 was released. Bahá'ís were urged to seek out ways, compatible with the Bahá'í teachings, in which they could become involved in the social and economic development of the communities in which they lived. Worldwide in 1979, there were 129 officially recognized Bahá'í socio-economic development projects. By 1987, the number of officially recognized development projects had increased to 1482. In the modern Bahá'í community of New Zealand the Bahá'ís have multiplied their interests internally and externally. Aside from major themes there have also been individual work done in variety of topics - for example post-traumatic stress syndrome. Additionally the community has continued to advocate with the New Zealand government to speak up on behalf of the persecuted Bahá'ís in Iran.
Racism
In 1997 the Bahá’í community approached the Race Relations Conciliator with a project to honor the memory of Hedi Moani, an Iranian-born Bahá'í who worked to promote positive race relations. Discussions took place over many months and on 10 December 1998 (Human Rights Day), the Race Relations Office formally announced that Race Unity Day would be celebrated in New Zealand on 21 March each year. The first awards were in 2001. There are reviews of speeches in 2007, 2008, and 2009. National covereage of events with the police was affirmed in 2008. In addition to national-scale events various localities have had local competitions - an example was the observance in Whangarei and Lower Hutt in 2009. In 2012 then 13 year old Rima Shenoy submitted a video that won first place in the Race Unity Speech Awards of the New Zealand Police and the Bahá'ís.
Development
As the Bahá'í community has grown in size and complexity it has also run into controversies and survived. In the 1980s there was a controversy about the status of women not being electable to the Universal House of Justice. In 1989 there was a controversy over the burial of a Māori Bahá'í, Pakaka Tawhai. Though the National Assembly had consulted with Tawhai's wife about burial, Pakaka's tribal family, the Ngati Porou, confronted the Bahá'ís during the tangihanga, demanding to take his body back to Ruatoria. Ultimately they failed. Then member of the Universal House of Justice Peter Khan spoke at a conference in New Zealand in 2000, noting that the Universal House of Justice had received letters "written in distasteful language" from New Zealand - he encouraged systematic education of children, application of a moral life, a serious study of the Covenant of Bahá'u'lláh, and study of the writings of Shoghi Effendi.
Beyond controversies, the Bahá'ís in New Zealand have broadened their interests both through individual initiatives and collective action. In 1991 an assembly was elected in the Kapiti Coast District. In 2000 two Bahá'í pioneers from New Zealand settled in Pitcairn Islands, one of the few nations on earth that had no Bahá'í presence. In 2006 Bahá'ís helped dedicate the temporary Spiritual Centre at Middlemore Hospital. In 2007 Dunedin Bahá'ís had been granted access to a community center. The Universal House of Justice called for a regional conference for the Bahá'ís from New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Fiji, Hawaii, Kiribati, New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu to be held in Auckland’s Manukau City, on the sacred grounds of their marae, in 2008 and it came to pass in February 2009. The Bahá'í on Air television show is broadcast weekly on Auckland's Triangle TV which also covers the Cook Islands, American Samoa, and Adelaide, Australia. There has also been an independent documentary by a non-Bahá'í New Zealander exploring the religion in 2007. In 2011 Bahá'ís participated in the community memorial for those who had died in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. It was mentioned in a review of spirituality in business in 2012. The community in Tauranga invited the Bahá'ís to join their interfaith council.
Demographics
A 1999 report from the census bureau noted that of the citizens of New Zealand of Middle Eastern ethnicity, 4% were Bahá'í and 20% of the Bahá'ís in New Zealand are members of some ethnic minority. The 1991 and 2006 New Zealand census reports about 2800 Bahá'ís though the 1996 census listed just over 3100 Bahá'ís. The Association of Religion Data Archives (relying mostly on the World Christian Encyclopedia) estimated some 7400 Bahá'ís in 2005. There are more than 65 local Bahá’í communities around New Zealand, the large city communities have hundreds of members and assemblies, while some rural areas having groups of just two or three Bahá'ís. About 46 are full-fledged assemblies. The religion was called a "mainstream religion" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Well known individuals
The Bahá´í Association For the Arts and its publication Arts Dialogue has produced a lists of New Zealand Bahá'í artists, reviews of the shows and articles published dealing with New Zealand. The national assembly posted profiles of some Bahá'ís in 2011.