You are all invited to bring your family and friends along to this 'free' informative event.
Baha'i Open Day - Celebrating 100 years in New Zealand .
Members of the Christchurch Baha'i Community will guide you through the principals and history of this, the newest of the world's major religions.
The Open Day includes information on Baha'i Community life, children's classes & junior youth programmes.
Experience the visual displays, books, music and refreshments.
BAHA’I CENTENARY CELEBRATIONS
ReplyDeleteThe Christchurch Baha’i community is celebrating the centenary of their Faith in New Zealand this year, and will hold an open day at their Centre this month. Holy Days throughout the year will be larger events than usual, a symposium for women is planned, and a book on the history of the Christchurch Baha’i community is due to be published soon.
The Bahá’i Faith, an independent world religion, was founded by Baha’u’llah in Iran in 1844 and has since spread to every country in the world. His teachings reached Margaret Stevenson in Auckland and she became the first Bahá’i in New Zealand in 1913. The first Baha’i in Christchurch was Nance Irwin who after living in Sydney for 20 years, returned home in late 1950 bringing the Faith with her. For the next 20 years in Christchurch, while the Faith steadily grew throughout New Zealand, only isolated Baha’is lived here, but this changed in 1970 when numbers increased rapidly and in 1971 the first Local Spiritual Assembly was formed. Today the Christchurch community is comprised of Maori, Pacific Islanders, NZ Europeans, North Americans, Malaysians, Indian, French, Dutch, Mexican and Czech. As well, Baha’i refugees from Iran have come to Christchurch because of the relentless persecution in that country.
With no clergy and a strong belief in learning for all age groups, the Baha’i sacred writings are studied to understand how to walk the spiritual path with practical feet, and this is seen as crucial for progress and success in modern day life. The Christchurch community of approximately 200 followers hold devotional programmes, study circles, children’s classes and junior youth empowerment programmes, and many people of other faiths, or no faith, participate in these.
The main spiritual teachings are that there is only one God who is known by different names throughout the world; that God has given humanity one faith, progressively unfolded throughout history by Divine Messengers, such as Moses, Krishna, Buddha, Christ, Mohammed and Bahá'u'lláh. The pivotal teaching of the Bahá’i Faith is that people of all races are members of one family and equal in the sight of God.
Baha’i principles include a belief in an independent search for truth free from prejudices of custom and tradition; equality for men and women; compulsory education be made available to all; all prejudice – racial, religious, national, or economic – is destructive and must be overcome; religion and science are considered to be in harmony since both are aspects of the one truth; extremes of poverty and wealth must be eliminated, and that all countries should elect representatives to a world legislature with power to put down aggressors if necessary. Baha’is believe that world peace is not only possible but inevitable.
The Christchurch Baha’i Centre at 31 Domain Terrace in Spreydon will be open from 10.00 am until 4.00 pm on Sunday 24 February. All are welcome.