This is the second installment asking why the Baha’i Ruhi courses should “show us the money”. If you missed the first part, then click on the previous link to go back and read it. You can skip it but doing so would be like walking into an LSA meeting; it’ll only leave you confused and unsatisfied.
While Ruhi is attuned to the cultural norms of Colombia, either by design or accident, that does not guarantee or prove that it is a success. That is, proving or showing that there was an inherent fit between the structure or style of the course and the country in which it was first implemented is one thing, showing that it was a success in that country is another matter.
By the way, the culture that Arbab himself was most familiar with and attuned to, Iran, bears a striking resemblance to that of Colombia. And I’m sure that throughout the process of development, the Ruhi course was in turn molded and shaped into what it is by the very fact that the feedback was coming from Colombians (and not, say, from the UK). So although, initially, it may have had a loose shape, over the many iterations and refinements it underwent, Ruhi progressively came to more and more resemble its environment. And to summarize from Part I, these were: a preference for black and white absolutes (rather than greys), group or collective organization (rather than individuals) and hierarchical (rather than egalitarian) structures.
So under such idyllic conditions: having the full support of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of Colombia and the Universal House of Justice (along with the ITC), having sufficient financial backing – provided by the institutions – to initiate the project and to refine it iteratively, having a long gestation and maturation to perfect the courses, having a complementary style to the culture of Columbia, was Ruhi successful?
And by this I don’t mean did very many Baha’is in Colombia participate in Ruhi courses, but did Ruhi deliver results? In other words, did Ruhi increase the size of the Colombian Baha’i community? After all, this is why it was created.
If that is news to you, let me pause to explain. The Baha’i community had seen, randomly scattered, large scale conversions before. The challenge was that although a great multitude would enter after a successful teaching campaign, within a short period of time they would drift away or become inactive. Ruhi was created as a systematic method by which human resources could be developed to deepen these new believers and involve them in community life and then, eventually, to engage in another round of teaching campaigns. And so on and so on. This is what “exploiting the framework for action” means. This is what the now common catchphrase “intensive programmes of growth” or IPG means. After all, you can’t have IPG without the G or growth.
But even so, questioning the efficacy of Ruhi at first may seem silly. After all, we all know that Ruhi has expanded beyond Colombia and is now implemented in all Baha’i communities around the world. And yet, the question remains, petulantly tapping its feet, waiting to be answered. It reminds me of the introspection undertaken by Willow Creek Church (thanks to Steve for bringing it to our attention through BahaisOnline):
“Participation is a big deal. We believe the more people participating in these sets of activities, with higher levels of frequency, it will produce disciples of Christ.” This has been Willow’s philosophy of ministry in a nutshell. The church creates programs/activities. People participate in these activities. The outcome is spiritual maturity. In a moment of stinging honesty Hawkins says, “I know it might sound crazy but that’s how we do it in churches. We measure levels of participation.”
Having put so many of their eggs into the program-driven church basket, you can understand their shock when the research revealed that “Increasing levels of participation in these sets of activities does NOT predict whether someone’s becoming more of a disciple of Christ. It does NOT predict whether they love God more or they love people more.”
Having spent thirty years creating and promoting a multi-million dollar organization driven by programs and measuring participation, and convincing other church leaders to do the same, you can see why Hybels called this research “the wake-up call” of his adult life.
A qualitative study such as the one Willow Creek undertook is challenging because it measured factors that aren’t easily quantified. But a study of the efficacy of Ruhi in promoting numerical growth would be rather simple. For example, what if we compared the communities in Colombia that were doing Ruhi in the 1970′s and 1980′s to those in surrounding Latin American countries that hadn’t yet done Ruhi? Such a study would, more or less, isolate Ruhi as the only factor while keeping the same time, culture, economic development, etc.
If we feel extra adventurous, why not look at not just quantitative results but also qualitative ones? After all, if Ruhi can and did improve the quality of our communities, then eventually, those communities would be much more attractive to seekers and as a corollary, they would experience numerical expansion.
So where is our very own survey to find out if Ruhi was a success in Colombia?
As far as I know there hasn’t been any. Although we seem to have become enamored with statistics, keeping track of how many people are taking Ruhi 1 vs. Ruhi 2 or how many A or B or C clusters there are, etc. Similar to Willow Creek’s old approach, all the statistical activity is bent on monitoring the uptake of the Ruhi program, not about its efficacy. And that should be alarming to all Baha’is.
But the feedback is there, in the numbers, if you look carefully. After all, positive results can not hide for long.
Think about it: we’re talking about a sequence of courses, implemented with the full backing of the institutions, in the most fertile environment, for over forty years. Read that again. Ruhi is 40 years old. The exact birth date is nebulous but it is most often cited as being started in late 1960′s and early 1970′s. What that means is that teenagers that were in the first, rudimentary, Ruhi study circles organized by Arbab are now well into middle age. Forty years is two generations!
So, what has Ruhi done for the Colombian Baha’i community after more than 40 years of continuous application?
That is, I think everyone will agree, a fair question to ask. Nowhere else is Ruhi so well suited, nowhere else has Ruhi so much continuous experience, nowhere else has Ruhi undergone so much development than in Colombia.
Has Ruhi set Colombia ablaze with the fire of the Baha’i Faith?
Has Ruhi, after 40+ years, instigated and fueled “entry by troops” in Colombia?
Has Ruhi attracted new believers, swelling the rank of Baha’is in Colombia?
Has Ruhi then deepened these new believers, retaining them and propelling the Colombian Baha’i community ever forward?
Has Ruhi cut a swath through the social fabric of Colombia as easily as a Jewish mother through self-esteem?
If anyone can show that after 40+ years there is an avalanche of results that makes Ruhi irrefutably the success that it is trumped up to be to the rest of the world; then all criticism will be swept aside with one fell swoop.
This should be an incredibly easy task. And it would silence, if not all critics of the Ruhi approach, then most certainly this one. Who dare argue with results? Who dare question or criticize the method when it has brought clear success? Who dare suggest cutting down the tree that yields such goodly fruit? Not I.
Extra credits go to those that can not only provide Baha’i sourced data that shows an explosion of growth in the Baha’i community of Colombia but also confirmation through third-party sources such as government census data or university research reports, etc.
I’ve searched high and low but have not found any such data. This is why I’m putting out an All Points Bulletin (APB). This is the intertubes and they wind their way into all sorts of places. If you are reading this and know of such data or where it can be found, then please drop a comment below and enlighten us all. If any Baha’i is reading this from South America or dare I say it? Colombia… then please make gentle inquiries to your NSA or provide letters, year end reports, or whatever official documentation you can to shut up the critics of Ruhi for good.
Please note that I’m being extremely gentle in this regard because had there been such success, all Baha’is would have heard about it in great detail. And yet, I look forward to being proven wrong because then it will afford me the opportunity to learn something.
If, after 40 plus years of gestation and maturation, through continuous implementation and iterative development and perfection; with a program structure incredibly attuned to and complementary to the culture of its host environment; with the full financial, moral and administrative support of the Baha’i institutions; if with all these advantages, Ruhi can not provide significant results that prove its efficacy beyond a doubt in its native country of Colombia… then by what rationale should we expect it to suddenly start to succeed now? and especially in other, much more hostile cultures?
The next step would be clear:
Trees that yield no fruit have been and will ever be for the fire.
- Baha’u'llah (Persian Hidden Words)
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